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iPod touch Battery draining badly overnight on TWO 4th Gens

Diversion

Diversion

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 5, 2007
773
142
Jacksonville, Florida
My girlfriend and I have fully drained and charged up our 4th gens and pulled them off the charger right before going to bed last night.. We woke up with both about only 30% or so left of battery life!

Whats going on here? Seems like OS 4.1 might have an issue with runaway processes while the device is sleeping or something.

Anybody else noticing extremely fast battery drain?

-Div
 
yes, something is not right. it is my only complaint with the thing, unfortunatly that is a big one, if there is no battery life it makes the ipod worthless. what i noticed with mine is that it is only taking less than 2 hours to get fully charged and the battery drains fast
 
Try turning on Airplane mode before you go to bed. That turns off the Wi-Fi and all, and should help. Also, clearing out applications on the multitasking plane that you don't need there any more at night should help too.
 
JoeShades said:
yes, something is not right. it is my only complaint with the thing, unfortunatly that is a big one, if there is no battery life it makes the ipod worthless. what i noticed with mine is that it is only taking less than 2 hours to get fully charged and the battery drains fast
Click to expand...

I've noticed that too, it's recharging from completely flat to 100% (plug icon) very quickly.. I wonder if the battery-monitoring hardware is acting up on us then. I was beginning to think I got a lemon battery but it's looking more like an issue with the OS or something.

I even did a DFU mode restore and the draining happens on a completely untouched OS (no apps installed and nothing configured).

I'm shocked this forum isn't blowing up with the same issues. Unless me and my gf's iPods came from a bad batch of iPods..
 
Diversion said:
My girlfriend and I have fully drained and charged up our 4th gens and pulled them off the charger right before going to bed last night.. We woke up with both about only 30% or so left of battery life!

Whats going on here? Seems like OS 4.1 might have an issue with runaway processes while the device is sleeping or something.

Anybody else noticing extremely fast battery drain?

-Div
Click to expand...

What apps do you have installed? Some are known battery eaters (e.g., Skype.)

I lose perhaps 5-10% overnight, so what you are experiencing is not normal.
 
sportsfrk214 said:
Try turning on Airplane mode before you go to bed. That turns off the Wi-Fi and all, and should help. Also, clearing out applications on the multitasking plane that you don't need there any more at night should help too.
Click to expand...

That would be a horrible design on Apple's part if you had to turn on Airplane mode to save juice... I've owned all 4 iPhones models and none of them drained over night except for maybe a few percent! Touch models should exceed iPhone battery life by design.. so this is obviously a problem and not working as intended.
 
Diversion said:
Happens without any 3rd party apps installed too! But two Touches doing the exact same thing? Both lemons perhaps?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'd take them in to get them looked at. For comparison's sake, I unplugged mine from the charger about 25 hours ago and have used it in that time for a fair amount of browsing and some gaming too and I'm still at 70%.
 
I woke up this morning and my battery was dead. It was about 60% charged before I went to bed last night. It basically lost 10% per hour. :confused:
 
yes because on 4.1 you have the ability to maintain a wifi connection all the time even when the ipod touch is sleeping http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/software-update/ (under wifi sub section).

this is very useful for VOIP apps, IM apps, and also for recieving facetime calls, you can turn it off by turning on airplane mode like is said.

also the reason the iphone doesn't have this problem is because when the phone is in sleep mode the bootrom is still connected to the mobile network so all notifications can be sent to the phone over that and not wifi.

IMO this is a more usefeul feature to have than not have it and you can always put it in airplane mode ovenight.
 
Can anyone else confirm this weird behaviour? This can't be right... My 3G (2G / 8GB) iPod Touch's battery would last for weeks without the need for a recharge and I sure as hell won't connect it to a powered USB port every night.

androiphone said:
yes because on 4.1 you have the ability to maintain a wifi connection all the time even when the ipod touch is sleeping http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/software-update/ (under wifi sub section).

this is very useful for VOIP apps, IM apps, and also for recieving facetime calls, you can turn it off by turning on airplane mode like is said.

also the reason the iphone doesn't have this problem is because when the phone is in sleep mode the bootrom is still connected to the mobile network so all notifications can be sent to the phone over that and not wifi.

IMO this is a more usefeul feature to have than not have it and you can always put it in airplane mode ovenight.
Click to expand...

Oh, that actually sounds reasonable. So can people actually call me on Skype when the iPod Touch is in Sleep Mode?
 
ultio said:
Can anyone else confirm this weird behaviour? This can't be right... My 3G (2G / 8GB) iPod Touch's battery would last for weeks without the need for a recharge and I sure as hell won't connect it to a powered USB port every night.



Oh, that actually sounds reasonable. So can people actually call me on Skype when the iPod Touch is in Sleep Mode?
Click to expand...

Yep.
 
ultio said:
Can anyone else confirm this weird behaviour? This can't be right... My 3G (2G / 8GB) iPod Touch's battery would last for weeks without the need for a recharge and I sure as hell won't connect it to a powered USB port every night.



Oh, that actually sounds reasonable. So can people actually call me on Skype when the iPod Touch is in Sleep Mode?
Click to expand...

When I bought mine it had version 3.0.1 I believe and it was fine. I did updates to 3.0.2 and 3.1.0 and whatever and it was fine.
The batt problem appears in 4.0.0, 4.0.1 and 4.0.2. I don't know about the latest one (4.1.0).

I can't say that I am happy about it and I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE.
The iphone OS is the lemon. Not the hardware.

//EDIT : ok, the OP says that he has 4.1.0 and has the issue. I guess I won't be updating.
 
Diversion said:
My girlfriend and I have fully drained and charged up our 4th gens and pulled them off the charger right before going to bed last night.. We woke up with both about only 30% or so left of battery life!

Whats going on here? Seems like OS 4.1 might have an issue with runaway processes while the device is sleeping or something.

Anybody else noticing extremely fast battery drain?

-Div
Click to expand...

I thought about this some more - could it be a Push issue? I turned off push because personal gmail isn't compatible with it anyway, and I forced Skype to quit around the same time, so maybe Push is somehow the issue? Just trying to think of issues that might be present on a default, stock install.
 
Turning off airplane mode at night and then turning on airplane mode in the morning, day after day, is not such a great solution.
Might as well leave it plugged in all night.
 
whats the difference between turning airplane mode on or just turning wifi off every night, and in reality it is necessary to turn wifi on and off everytime you just put it in sleep mode because if not it will drain the battery, well that is just a pain. in theory it is great to stay connected to wifi when in sleep mode, in reality it is horrible
 
I don't have that problem

I un plugged when it was full charged, and I woke up and it was about 10~20% drained

before I go to sleep i was using facetime for about 30 min and

wifi on, skype, facebook, twitter was running back ground too..
 
I can't see Wifi alone (even if running fulltime in the background) killing the phone in 8 hours.. Screen off + Wifi running should last a lot longer, don't you think?
 
I had my wifi turned off, so I don't think it was purely a wifi issue.
 
So, what now? Can anyone definitely say that he doesn't lose more than 5% per night, just like the 2G? And has anyone figured out how to reproduce this behaviour?
 
OP, I hate that for you. :mad:

Best of Luck!!!

Please post updates.

Damn the iPT4 has had a rough ride in it's opening 10 days. Light leaks, battery draining, clicking sound on videos, and overheating. This is not counting the fun threads about the parts in the new iPod :) .

Mine is on it's way. I get more nervous every time I read a one of these problem threads.
 
can someone explain airplane mode, i am a bit confused. if i enable wifi and airplane mode ,when i put the ipod in sleep mode will it disconnect the wifi? because right now the wifi stays on even when in sleep mode apparently and that drains the battery, turning wifi on and off every time i want to put it in sleep mode is not a good solution
 
I hope my iPT4 doesn't exhibit any of these problems. I already have a bit of a yellow tint on my iMac that I'm living with since it is a juggernaut to carry around and I have a feeling I'll probably run into a future problem with it anyways over the course of 3 years.

In any case, this might sound weird but I got my iPT4 yesterday around noon, haven't opened it yet. Probably won't get to open it for another 6 hours or so. I'll update with my findings then!
 
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