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Help Battery Draining Quickly/Phone Getting Hot

So, why is my battery draining at such a high rate?

And, on a side note, what about this vertical banding I see with auto-brightness selected?
 
The vertical banding may be a screen defect.. I haven't actually experienced it myself so I don't know. The graininess is normal for PenTile AMOLED displays
 
My wife's phone says her screen is down by like 40%. She has the same banding, but not as dark.

It goes away when I remove auto-brightness and keep it above like 15%.
 
So far, after a full charge, it dropped to 99% just as I removed the plug, but then, it dropped to 98% after 6 minutes. How can I have used 2% of my battery in only 5 minutes (without do anything, and having nothing downloaded)?

At 100%, the Screen was running at 64% and the Android OS was running at 10%.

After 10 minutes, the battery was at: 97% (Screen: 73% | Android OS: 19% - without anything running and without doing anything.)

After 15 minutes, the battery was at: 96% (Screen: 71% | Android OS: 19% - without anything running and without doing anything

After 20 minutes, the battery was at: 96% (Screen: 71% | Android OS: 18% - without anything running and without doing anything

After 25 minutes, the battery was at: 95% (Screen: 70% | Android OS: 18% - without anything running and without doing anything

After 30 minutes, the battery was at: 94% (Screen: 70% | Android OS: 19% - without anything running and without doing anything

I haven't even downloaded or run any programs, yet. Is this normal? How can that be? Is it the battery or the phone that is doing this?

How can it be that after a full charge, with nothing downloaded, and not doing anything on the phone, the battery went from 100% to 94% in only 30 minutes?
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Then, I just tried to go into the Google Market and the Battery dropped to 91% after 35 minutes of being on (and doing nothing for the first 30 minutes).

What the hell is that? If I really start doing things, it's gonna be dead in a matter of 4 hours.
 
The first 10% drop quicker than normal. Stop looking at your phone every 5 minutes and see what your battery life is like after a few hours.
 
Well, I am running a consistent chart to see consistent stats.

It shouldn't drop 14% in 40 minutes. 86% after only 40 minutes of doing nothing?

How can that be?
 
I'm down to 80% battery life after 50 minutes of doing nothing.

How can that possibly be? If I actually use the phone, it would only last like 2 hours?!?!?!

(I have been taking some screenshots of my battery graph, but I can't get into the Google Market, so I can't even e-mail them to myself.)

And, the phone is getting warm.

Is this the battery or the phone?
 
After 40 minutes, the battery was at: 86% (Screen: 70% | Android OS: 19% - without anything running and without doing anything.)

After 45 minutes, the battery was at: 84% (Screen: 72% | Android OS: 14% - without anything running and without doing anything.)

After 50 minutes, the battery was at: 80% (Screen: 72% | Android OS: 13% - without anything running and without doing anything.)

After 55 minutes, the battery was at: 78% (Screen: 72% | Android OS: 14% - without anything running and without doing anything.)

After 60 minutes, the battery was at: 78% (Screen: 72% | Android OS: 14% - without anything running and without doing anything.)
 
Read This:
Your Smartphone’s Battery Gauge is Lying to You (and it’s not such a bad thing)

The first 10% or so goes quickly for a reason. Don't worry about it.

As for the other issues, we really can't determine your issues without the battery stats graph screenshot. Not sure why you can't email them, don't you have gmail on your phone? Or upload them to google photos or something.


As for the screen banding, its possibly a result of the screen protector, or it could be the display of your phone. My first one had really bad vertical bands that were especially visible on low brightness. I ended up exchanging that phone the same day.

This is what my screen looked like. If that's what yours looks like, take it back.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=21201392&postcount=79
 
Seems normal to me, welcome to the world of high powered phones, when the screen is on, the battery drops like a rock, 2 hours screen time is about it (unrooted, stock battery)
 
That's "normal" for a phone that has no applications in it, is running nothing, and is not being used?

I don't believe that that happens to my wife's phone.

What is the remedy?

Is there another, better battery that will fit in the phone the way it is now?

My case is so hard to remove, I can't switch batteries all day, every day.
 
The extended battery will give you maybe 2 or 3 more hours.

The reason your battery is dropping while "doing nothing" is because the screen eats up more battery than any app ever could. Since you're constantly turning the screen on and worrying about the battery graph.. well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.
 
Yeah the screen is usually the biggest power hog in any modern smartphone. That's why I asked you how much screen time you had. Your signal is also fairly weak (you can tell because your bar is yellow; good signal is green). A weak signal will eat up more battery life since the radio is trying harder to lock on basically. These are some battery stats for my GSM GN:

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You should realize though that the screen-on time is spread throughout that entire 19 hours.. If I had used my screen continuously, my phone would only last 4-5 hours. Here's a guy who did an experiment regarding this: Max Screen Brightness Battery Run Down: Test Results! - xda-developers
 
Ah, I guess you're right. I just had the screen off for an hour, and the screen percentage went to 59%.

Now, I only checked the phone every five minutes, but then, the screen went off.

This is probably a dumb question, but, what if I was using the screen constantly for that hour? Would the battery be that much lower after an hour (78%)?

It's been on for 3 hours and 40 minutes and it's now at 40% battery life. Although, I haven't really even used it at all.

Is there something I can do about that crappy signal strength? I'm at work and the service is what it is. Is there something I can do about that? (Mine seems to have the green line throughout.)
 
Dankees said:
Ah, I guess you're right. I just had the screen off for an hour, and the screen percentage went to 59%.

Now, I only checked the phone every five minutes, but then, the screen went off.

This is probably a dumb question, but, what if I was using the screen constantly for that hour? Would the battery be that much lower after an hour (78%)?

It's been on for 3 hours and 40 minutes and it's now at 40% battery life. Although, I haven't really even used it at all.

Is there something I can do about that crappy signal strength? I'm at work and the service is what it is. Is there something I can do about that? (Mine seems to have the green line throughout.)
Click to expand...

Well if you're not using the screen, then yes, something is wrong.. one of the screenshots I wanted you to post is the one that shows us how much screen on time you had (in hours) just like my 3rd screenshot.

It could be just the new battery, but it doesn't seem like it to me. In regards to the signal strength, green line is good, but in the screenshots you posted it was yellow. As you can see, mine is mostly yellow too.. that's because I am in my basement. I heard that the leaked 4.0.4 update had improvements to the radio, so you could give that a try.

But seriously, if you're using your screen for ~10 minutes and your battery goes down to 78%, then something is wrong. You should be able to have your screen on for an hour for the battery to drop from 100% to around 75%
 
Well, it went down to 78% after an hour of no use (no real use). Is that bad? I figure that if the screen were on, how much would it have dropped in that hour?

Is there anything I can do about the signal strength? Is there a setting I should change? I turned off the LTE.

How did you get 19+ hours on the battery?
 
Should I run Advanced Task Killer Pro? Should I also get a battery saver application?

What's the best? You guys are very wise.
 
That's the thing.. the phone is basically amazing at keeping battery life with no use.. I could lay it down for three days, not use it, come back and there would still be battery left. It's the screen that causes the most battery drain.. which is why it's usually irrelevant how many hours someone got on the battery and more relevant to ask how many hours of screen time they got.

If your screen was off for that hour and the phone went down to 78%, there is likely a problem and you should get it replaced. But, if your screen was on for most of that time (no matter what you did with it.. even if you didn't do anything) then it's normal.

Nothing you can do about signal strength apart from maybe getting 4.0.4.
 
Yeah, I just checked it every 5 minutes (basically) and it went down that far. So, is it the phone or the battery that may be bad?
 
Dankees said:
Well, it went down to 78% after an hour of no use (no real use). Is that bad? I figure that if the screen were on, how much would it have dropped in that hour?

Is there anything I can do about the signal strength? Is there a setting I should change? I turned off the LTE.

How did you get 19+ hours on the battery?
Click to expand...

You can get over 20 hours by doing this.

1. Set your screen brightness to about 25% and set timeout to 30 seconds.

2. Do not use live wallpaper. Use static one with dark color tone.

3. Then turn on WiFi. Set up connections for your WiFi access points at home and work.

4. Like you said, switch to CDMA only mode in mobile network setting.

5. Keep GPS, bluetooth off if you are not using it.

Unless your phone is defective and you have ton of apps syncing, running in background, it should go well over 20 hours in stand by. I'm actually seeing 2.5% drain per hour which translates to 40 hours if doing nothing.
 
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