Something very wrong with my battery/Phone

[steve500]

My eris has always has pretty alright battery life, what I would expect out of a smartphone, if unplugged at 9AM it usually was running on its last leg around midnight. I've had it for over 5 months now, I've always had it activated on alltel, I installed the 2.1v3 leak before the official OTA was out and just lately it seems like there something very wrong with my battery life...

If I unplug my phone at 9AM within the past week and occasionaly check and respond to a text message, my battery had been down to almost 30% by NOON... what?..

I have noticed that if I disable Mobile Network (3g/1x data), the thing lasts all day and some... If I turn mobile network ON, I can't see that I have any network traffic or any apps running in the background that are syncing data at all... I've had google account sync mess up on me before and have to reset my google account because it gets stuck in a syncing loop, but its not doing that, already checked. Very weird.

Anyone thing it could be something wrong in my ##PROGRAM#/##778# provisioning menu, maybe something got changed?.. Maybe it could be do to Alltel's AT&T merger that's happening right now, maybe some 3G tower's radios are turned off or something... hmm..

I'm baffled.

Any help is appreciated.

-steve

 

[Frisco]

We've seen a few sudden loss of battery life problems reported in the forums from time to time.

Errant apps running in the background, poor signal, wifi left on and forgotten about, roaming/tower issues, etc.

My first thought when mine is drained more than I'm used to has to do with background services and apps. I'll go into Settings > Applications > Manage Applications and then hit menu again and click "sort by size."

Cache emptying of various apps then follows.

There is also a "Running Services" menu in the Applications area along with Manage Applications. I go in there and stop any that I dont' need, such as Obex.

This is a very good thread about battery life in general:

http://androidforums.com/htc-droid-...battery-life-read.html?highlight=battery+tips

 

[steve500]

Thanks for the tips, I'll look deep into what may be draining the heck out of the battery..

My just stopped at my mothers and toyed with her HTC Hero she just picked up from alltel a few days ago. Her uptime is almost 22 hours and 60%+ battery remaining... I traded batteries and turned them both on... Hers stayed at 47% (what my battery was at before I swapped) for EVER at idle with all the same stuff turned on... my Eris was running her battery dead just fast, within 10 minutes it already dropped 2 to 3% at idle doing nothing. Something's up. I'll keep looking into it.

 

[BlazeD OnE]

Thanks for the tips, I'll look deep into what may be draining the heck out of the battery..

My just stopped at my mothers and toyed with her HTC Hero she just picked up from alltel a few days ago. Her uptime is almost 22 hours and 60%+ battery remaining... I traded batteries and turned them both on... Hers stayed at 47% (what my battery was at before I swapped) for EVER at idle with all the same stuff turned on... my Eris was running her battery dead just fast, within 10 minutes it already dropped 2 to 3% at idle doing nothing. Something's up. I'll keep looking into it.

it sucks to say but your best bet may to be a factory reset..

 

[fussgeist]

Frisco and battery should help improve some if you haven't already taken such measures.

As for a little more context, I'll refer you to my thread:
http://androidforums.com/htc-droid-eris/87077-3g-issue.html
Only conclusions so far is that there is a network-wide issue with the 3G signal causing massive battery drain (radio constantly running to send the same amount of data but at a slower rate). No fix has been found.

I'll probably try flashing the 2.1v3 ROM tomorrow night if no improvement, no chance of me going in to a Verizon store till Wednesday due to work.

 

[erikcave]

I too suddenly have very poor battery performance for the past few days. My battery is dead with very minimal use by 4pm. Up till now it has been great since I put the v.3 leak on. Now, I don't know what is going on.

 

[mburdick]

This just started happening to me too! Granted it appears I have 3G almost all the time but my battery has been draining insanely fast today. I unplugged it around 4Pm with 85 percent and 7 hours later it was down to 20% with MINIMAL usage, this is with the 1750 Seido battery. I have not done any factory resets, and the only new app I downloaded in awhile was Shapewriter late last night, so I just uninstalled that hoping to cure whatever is destroying my battery. Oh yeah, I'm also on v3 in Seattle

 

[BeachBumDeac]

This sounds kind of like what has been happening to me, except I get a battery drain in Airplane Mode as well. I put it on Airplane Mode while I was on the river over Fourth of July and when I got back to the car 5 hours later the battery had drained about 20-30%. It drains more if I put it on Airplane Mode overnight while I'm sleeping. is this normal?

 

[Frisco]

This sounds kind of like what has been happening to me, except I get a battery drain in Airplane Mode as well. I put it on Airplane Mode while I was on the river over Fourth of July and when I got back to the car 5 hours later the battery had drained about 20-30%. It drains more if I put it on Airplane Mode overnight while I'm sleeping. is this normal?

No, fast battery drain could only be considered "normal" with heavy usage and user input such as browsing the internet and viewing and listening to multimedia, making voice calls, etc.

An idle device should extend battery life a bit, not shorten it.

When outside your normal location, it is possible the device was constantly polling for a tower signal, which can be a burden on the battery.

But, if that were occurring to my Eris in a location where it has good tower signal, I would start by checking the apps running in the background, then I'd go down the list of battery saving measures outlined here:

http://androidforums.com/htc-droid-eris/19176-optimize-your-droid-eris-battery-life-read.html

 

[Podivin]

Airplane mode is not 'off', things are still working. I agree that battery drain should slow, but it's still going to drain. I suspect there is a program running even when in airplane mode. A game maybe, mp3 player (were there kids on the boat with you?). Maybe some widget that doesn't 'respect' airplane mode and still tries to do it updates. Personally I never use airplane mode (short of actually being in an airplane) in which case I'm using it as a ebook reader. If I don't want it to ring I silence it, if I don't want it to do anything I turn it off - but that's just me.