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Help Sudden & Rapid Battery Drainage

M

MisterGrumbles

Newbie
I've had my Galaxy S3 for just under a month now. I love it. Easily the best phone I've ever had, hands down. Just as of today, however, the battery just started to drop and drop and drop. I unplugged my phone before leaving for work and after my 10 minute commute to work, I got into my office and battery was at 97%. Didn't even touch my phone before home and work. Hmm. First strange sign. Now, that was at 8.30 am. Now it's 12.30 pm and it's at 50%. What is going on here?
 
I've had the Galaxy S3 for a few months and noticed that every once in a while (maybe three or four times since I've owned it) the battery drains like crazy.

Usually I unplug my phone in the morning around 7:30 AM and by 11:00 PM it's down to about 75%. One day a couple of weeks ago, it had 93% left around mid-morning and it was almost dead by early evening with almost no usage.

I haven't found a pattern and statistics (stock) show nothing out of the ordinary.

Ken
 
Hi. Did you happen to update your S3 to JB? If so, then that is probably to root of the issue.
If not then try limiting things on it like syncing, email, WIFI, Data, etc. Also if you're on it a lot than this can be another factor in the battery life.
 
Thanks for the replies. I use mostly WiFi, not so much data, but it's fairly often. Same with emails and the like. The thing that was so frustrating is that I wasn't even using my device when the battery was being drained. Another thing it could have been, which I didn't think of til now, is that the other night I crashed at a friends and didn't plug my phone in overnight and it got to as low as three percent the next morning. I plugged it in various times throughout the day (at his place, in my car, etc) until that night when I charged it over night. Maybe there was just too much going for the phone and the next day just decided to crash and burn all day. Anyway, I'm already running Jelly Bean 4.1.1, as that is what came on the phone when I got it.
 
I'm working the later shift today, so I haven't really left my house yet. Once I do and get to work, I'll check it out and keep an eye on it throughout the day and see what happens.
 
Something must be running in the background to lose power that fast. Ironically, I've found bluetooth occasionally on when I rarely use it. BT drains battery pretty quickly, especially if the phone doesn't actually pair and stays searching for devices.
 
Rigmaster said:
Something must be running in the background to lose power that fast. Ironically, I've found bluetooth occasionally on when I rarely use it. BT drains battery pretty quickly, especially if the phone doesn't actually pair and stays searching for devices.
Click to expand...

I have noticed that with some of my previous phones, but I can't say that I've actually ever used Bluetooth on my phone yet.
 
That is wierd about Bluetooth as I leave mine on 24/7 and have no issues with battery drain. Every device is different and wierd that BT can have such a different effect on different phones :rolleyes:
 
You could try turning off sync. That can use juice and turning that off can help. :)
You can also hold down the home button and see what's in the background.
 
Update: 2 1/2 hours after unplugging it and we're already down to 80%... this doesn't seem to be as bad as yesterday, but still worse than usual. :/
 
On GSam Battery Monitor, it says that App Usage is 65.% (Android System 15.4 and Kernel 15.2) and Screen is at 24%. In the screen menu, discharge while on is 4% and off is 17%.. what does that mean?
 
That shows the amount of juice that has been used by Apps, Screen, Data, etc. Like if it says the screen is 70% than the screen has sued 70% juice and what ever else is using the rest of the 30%
 
Metroid Prime said:
Hi. Did you happen to update your S3 to JB? If so, then that is probably to root of the issue.
If not then try limiting things on it like syncing, email, WIFI, Data, etc. Also if you're on it a lot than this can be another factor in the battery life.
Click to expand...

I don't think the JB question was for me, but if it was: no, I have not updated yet. So far I have been very satisfied with the OS and not wanted to risk an upgrade that ends up making things worse. Probably just paranoid.

-Ken
 
As it stands, I'm still a little choked about the battery drainage. I will, however, give it another day to maybe improve or something. I have those pictures, just too exhausted to deal with it. Early morning start tomorrow. I will see how the battery does by midday tomorrow and report back. Thanks again very much for all the info and help.
 
is there a MEDIA SERVER background app that is running?

recently my hyperion 4100 mah batt was running at less than a day. first couple days i didnt "see" but sure enough, i checked and MEDIA SERVER was running 12-14 hours a day!!!!

since i couldnt figure out which multimedia file this guy was going nuts over, i decided to factory reset.

that cleared the issue. lost a bookmarks file for a browser. no biggie. i did find a windows 8 launcher. nice... :)


but yeah, check if MEDIA SERVER is running all the time.
 
ldivinag said:
is there a MEDIA SERVER background app that is running?

recently my hyperion 4100 mah batt was running at less than a day. first couple days i didnt "see" but sure enough, i checked and MEDIA SERVER was running 12-14 hours a day!!!!

since i couldnt figure out which multimedia file this guy was going nuts over, i decided to factory reset.

that cleared the issue. lost a bookmarks file for a browser. no biggie. i did find a windows 8 launcher. nice... :)


but yeah, check if MEDIA SERVER is running all the time.
Click to expand...

I checked out what Media Server does and it's for music playback. I don't use my phone for music. As for finding it on the GSam app, it didn't even show up. So I don't think that's the issue. It's hard to tell what's going on..

As for it being a bad battery, could it just starting randomly after no previous experience of a bad battery?
 
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