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Help Horrendous battery drain shows screen using all the power, yet screen not on

M

mtsarpilot

Newbie
My Galaxy S3 is killing the battery in about 6 hours even when the device is not in use, just sitting on the desk waiting for a call. The device is pretty warm on the back, so it is definitely burning batter power (not just an old weak battery)

Settings -> Battery shows the largest battery consumer is the Screen, yet the screen has not been on. Tapping on the battery graph to bring up the chart of when the device has been awake and screen on shows the screen has been off and just the occasional wakelock bringing the device to the wake state.

I've tried everything I can think of and am out of ideas. How can Android be measuring the screen as the largest consumer (something is consuming power at an insane rate) when it has not even been on?

Any suggestions are appreciated.
 
Thread moved to its support forum for assistance. :)

I would recommend a clean sweep. Do a factory "reset" on the device, and be careful of what application(s) you install. I am betting this problem is caused by an installed app.

Best luck.
 
No, nothing showing when the phone is asleep. The display is truly black. The battery monitor shows the phone is Not awake nearly all the time with just the occasional blip of awake time.
 
Install GSAM battery monitor from the Play store and turn it on for a battery cycle. It will tell you a lot more info than the stock battery monitor, and help pinpoint what is actually causing the issue.
 
I installed GSAM a few days ago. Some good insights. Battery temp goes up when the phone goes into power sucking mode. No surprise. Other than that, no correlation to any parameters I can see.

I did a good bit of testing today. Put the phone in airplane mode for an hour and the problem went away, or at least battery drain stopped. Turned the radios back on and just left it on my counter. It went for a number of hours with normal battery drain, then for whatever reason went back into battery sucking drain mode and the battery temp jumped. Nothing changed in phone configuration.

I tried experiments like turning off mobile data - no change. Turning Wifi on and off (in my house, strong wifi) - no change. So its not data draw from a rogue app that I can tell.

GSAM shows the largest consumer is the Kernel followed by Android OS. Android battery monitor shows the same. So today it was not showing the Screen as the big consumer. Just the OS sucking down power at an insane rate.

Best I can guess at this point is either something has gone bad in the electronics that throws the phone radio into a bad state, or there is something really screwed up in the OS that goes off into left field. (BTW - power cycling the phone has no affect).
 
use task killers, take out the battery see if its getting fat? turn down all the settings to low? is your gps, bluetooth, and wifi always on?
 
Try a few hours discharge in "safe mode" (which disables every app you installed" to see if its the same. If you see a HUGE improvement and cant narrow down the app then just do a factory reset and add apps slowly :thumbup:
 
I would advise staying away from task killers, and installing Better Battery Stats and having a look at the 'Partial Wakelock' and 'Kernel Wakelock' options in there and seeing what is using the battery up. The screen may not be using the most battery, but that is what the settings menu is showing you, rather than the other processes that are actually keeping the phone awake and using the battery up
 
smootshot24 said:
use task killers,
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I don't recommend this at all.

take out the battery see if its getting fat?
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This is good to see if there is a problem with your battery.

I recommend you just turn off your phone. When it is off, take the battery out and wait about 20 seconds. Then put the battery back in and start up your phone again. See if you are still having battery issues after doing this.
 
After lots of diagnosing using Better Battery Stats, GSAM and more, I've come to the conclusion that there is something wrong in the phone. When signal quality gets down to 3 bars or below, the radio starts sucking power and the battery gets quite warm as a result. GSAM has some great graphs. Can see battery temp or signal quality each graphed against battery status. They all correlate to the result I noted above.

Something funky in the phone in that sometimes it attributes the battery drain use to the screen, sometimes to the kernel. Either way, it is sucking the battery dry in 5 to 6 hours.

I give up. Replaced the phone with a Galaxy S4. Got it last night and in the midst of setting it up.

Thanks for all the suggestions from folks. Much appreciated.
 
mtsarpilot said:
After lots of diagnosing using Better Battery Stats, GSAM and more, I've come to the conclusion that there is something wrong in the phone. When signal quality gets down to 3 bars or below, the radio starts sucking power and the battery gets quite warm as a result. GSAM has some great graphs. Can see battery temp or signal quality each graphed against battery status. They all correlate to the result I noted above.

Something funky in the phone in that sometimes it attributes the battery drain use to the screen, sometimes to the kernel. Either way, it is sucking the battery dry in 5 to 6 hours.

I give up. Replaced the phone with a Galaxy S4. Got it last night and in the midst of setting it up.

Thanks for all the suggestions from folks. Much appreciated.
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I know what you post you are seeing,but are you really unable to use the phone? No matter what you are finding is the phone still working? I would not be so quick to think it's a phone problem.:rolleyes:
 
mtsarpilot said:
The phone is working, just sucking power at an incredible rate when at 3 bars or below.
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I am not so sure them little bars really mean a lot, I also don't trust a lot of how AT&T runs their service. Myself until the phone quit working, meaning you can't call or receive calls I would quit driving myself nuts trying to solve a problem that may not exist.;)
 
I hear you there. No doubt a problem exists. Where my battery lasted all day just a few weeks ago, it now lasts about 5 hours and the phone is quite warm in the process. The phone does not come close to making it through the day. No doubt the problem is there
 
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