1 hour use, 2.5 hours standby, 19% Battery Remaining

[nbs2]

As the title indicates, I seem to be suffering from a battery drain on my 3GS not unlike this poster. There are a few things may be different (they may not be, I didn't see them come up), or at the very least are likely relevant:

• My phone did not feel warm when it was draining
• I rebooted my phone, and that did nothing to stem the tide
• No new apps have been added for about a week
• This suddenly started today, everything was normal yesterday
• I seem to have the worst drain I've ever seen posted on MR (that hour was checking email, looking at three text heavy websites, rebooting the phone, setting call forwarding, and watching battery remaining percentage drop like a penny off of the Empire State Building) - heck, 50% of that drain happened while the no-GPS-no-WiFi-Edge-only phone was on standby for 90 minutes

I have an appointment with the Genius Bar on Friday, so I have tonight and tomorrow night to tinker a little bit, but it is irritating to see my phone die before 9 am. For now, they want me to try restoring the phone to new before I come in. I have seen different suggestions, all of which seem to revolve around restoring the iPhone. I'm not sure how the batter drain is a software issue, but, that's no big deal. My bigger concern is, and this is only because I haven't had to do this before - is there any benefit to restoring as new versus restoring to a backup? I mean, I understand that if I had made a change to an app or something, that there might have been some correlation, but I can't figure out what could have happened during the charge process that would affect something in the software.

I suppose it will just mean an hour or so of updating all my settings if I go back to new, rather than the backup, so it really isn't that big a deal. But, still.

 

[-aggie-]

Well, first your issue may not be your battery at all, but the meter. So, you could try calibrating it (let die and then charge to full).

Restoring as new is what supposedly fixes any battery issues, if you have any. One member has proposed that you can get the same effect as restoring as a new phone by just resetting all settings. You could try that and not have the headache of losing your app settings with a new phone restore. Here's the link to his thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/761046/

Edit: Please let us know if you see this method fixing your battery life, if calibration doesn't help.

Edit2: Oh, and one thing that can really make the battery go down is if you have a poor signal. If your iphone is constantly having to search for reception and bouncing from 3G to EDGE to GPRS that can seriously degrade the battery life. So, check that.

 

[nbs2]

Edit: Please let us know if you see this method fixing your battery life, if calibration doesn't help.

I sort of did that last night - yesterday was a long day and I ended up with a fully drained battery and let it charge overnight.

Edit2: Oh, and one thing that can really make the battery go down is if you have a poor signal. If your iphone is constantly having to search for reception and bouncing from 3G to EDGE to GPRS that can seriously degrade the battery life. So, check that.

That couldn't have been the issue. From 100 down to 75%, I was standing at a bus stop waiting for the shuttle to my train station and I get full bars on 3G in my neighborhood.

As soon as my coworker gets back from lunch I'll see if I can borrow his charger and try resetting my settings. If I'm going to restore to new tonight, there's nothing to lose...

 

[-aggie-]

I sort of did that last night - yesterday was a long day and I ended up with a fully drained battery and let it charge overnight.

That couldn't have been the issue. From 100 down to 75%, I was standing at a bus stop waiting for the shuttle to my train station and I get full bars on 3G in my neighborhood.

As soon as my coworker gets back from lunch I'll see if I can borrow his charger and try resetting my settings. If I'm going to restore to new tonight, there's nothing to lose...

The method I was referring to was the resetting the settings (not the calibration). I only suggested the calibration, because you said the battery wasn't hot and sometimes the meter is not reading the battery correctly. So, unless your phone is dead right now, you can do the reset all settings. Please make sure you DO NOT do the erase all content and settings (I know you know this, but you wouldn't like the result if you didn't know and accidentally did that!). I hope this helps you. If not, then do a DFU restore when you're at home and restore as new (with all the headaches that entails).

 

[TheSpaz]

Also, charging from the wall is better than charging from the computer. My battery always lasts longer from the wall, but the computer seems to never charge the iPhone FULLY... even though it SHOWS 100%, it's not really 100%.... it's hard to explain. Try draining it and charging it for 4+ hours from the wall.

 

[daihard]

Also, charging from the wall is better than charging from the computer. My battery always lasts longer from the wall, but the computer seems to never charge the iPhone FULLY... even though it SHOWS 100%, it's not really 100%.... it's hard to explain. Try draining it and charging it for 4+ hours from the wall.

Are you talking about the trickle charge? I remember reading on the Apple support page that you get the "full" indicator when the battery is in fact 80% full, which means you will need to charge it a couple more hours in order to get the "real full" battery.

BTW I had my 3GS battery drain a bit faster than that of my old 3G. I tried your suggestion (i.e. "restore from the backup and then reset all settings"). That seems to have improved the battery life.

 

[-aggie-]

Are you talking about the trickle charge? I remember reading on the Apple support page that you get the "full" indicator when the battery is in fact 80% full, which means you will need to charge it a couple more hours in order to get the "real full" battery.

BTW I had my 3GS battery drain a bit faster than that of my old 3G. I tried your suggestion (i.e. "restore from the backup and then reset all settings"). That seems to have improved the battery life.

Thanks for getting this post back on track. I'm almost thinking thespaz doesn't want anyone to use his method, since he keeps bringing up new stuff (2.2.1, charging, IDK what's next). It'll be nice if it works for the OP, since that will just about nail it that this is better than doing a restore as new phone.

 

[TheSpaz]

Thanks for getting this post back on track. I'm almost thinking thespaz doesn't want anyone to use his method, since he keeps bringing up new stuff (2.2.1, charging, IDK what's next). It'll be nice if it works for the OP, since that will just about nail it that this is better than doing a restore as new phone.

Why would I post instructions on how to do something if I didn't want anyone to do it? Of course I want people to do it! 3.0 is horribly slow after restoring to a 2.2.1 backup file and I didn't even modify my 2.2.1 install. I just used it un-jailbroken and mostly stock (except for a few apps).

3.0 has trouble with 2.2.1 backups for some reason and resetting all seems to clear it up.

 

[cenetti]

That sounds like my 1 yr old 3g....
I get about 2-3 hour use and then hit 20% mark....

It used to be 5-6 hour use... good old days...

 

[-aggie-]

Why would I post instructions on how to do something if I didn't want anyone to do it? Of course I want people to do it! 3.0 is horribly slow after restoring to a 2.2.1 backup file and I didn't even modify my 2.2.1 install. I just used it un-jailbroken and mostly stock (except for a few apps).

3.0 has trouble with 2.2.1 backups for some reason and resetting all seems to clear it up.

I was joking with you!

 

[nbs2]

It'll be nice if it works for the OP, since that will just about nail it that this is better than doing a restore as new phone.

I had intended to try it out here at work, and got the cable from my coworker at about 3pm. It's now 4, and the phone hasn't even charged enough to let me turn it on. It just stares at me with the charge indicator and big empty battery that has dregs of red at the bottom....

 

[daihard]

I had intended to try it out here at work, and got the cable from my coworker at about 3pm. It's now 4, and the phone hasn't even charged enough to let me turn it on. It just stares at me with the charge indicator and big empty battery that has dregs of red at the bottom....

Not all the computers / OSes charge your iPhone even if they have USB ports. You might want to try charging it at home again to make sure different environments aren't a factor.

If you get the same symptom at home, I'd say you've got a hardware issue.

 

[-aggie-]

I had intended to try it out here at work, and got the cable from my coworker at about 3pm. It's now 4, and the phone hasn't even charged enough to let me turn it on. It just stares at me with the charge indicator and big empty battery that has dregs of red at the bottom....

Not all the computers / OSes charge your iPhone even if they have USB ports. You might want to try charging it at home again to make sure different environments aren't a factor.

If you get the same symptom at home, I'd say you've got a hardware issue.

An hour and not past red does not sound good. I'd say 15-30 minutes it should've been in the green (I never pay attention, but it doesn't seem like it takes too long, even on USB). Charge it at home off the wall outlet and if you're not charging better than you may have a problem. I'd still do the reset all settings though.

 

[nbs2]

An hour and not past red does not sound good. I'd say 15-30 minutes it should've been in the green (I never pay attention, but it doesn't seem like it takes too long, even on USB). Charge it at home off the wall outlet and if you're not charging better than you may have a problem. I'd still do the reset all settings though.

I think the battery may have bled to death this morning. I got home about 45 half an hour ago, and plugged in the phone to my wall charger. Still the dregs, it never turned on. I tried plugging it into my computer to see if iTunes would recognize it and would let me try a restore or something. Even a backup would have been nice. I don't think I have added anything other than apps since the last backup, but I'm not sure. Nothing.

I'll leave the phone plugged in tonight, but I'm not holding my breath. Maybe a trip to the Apple Store first thing when they open tomorrow morning.