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Here is how I fixed my battery

S

sgrrsh26

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 19, 2009
269
0
When I first bought my 4s I was losing 2% overnight on standby.((At normal factory settings with cloud enabled!). There was a little bug causing my phone to miscalculate at 1% resulting in prolonged usage. The third day I had my phone I decided to drop some settings to prolong usage and things went downhill from there.

My phone started draining 30% overnight in standby and about 1% per minute during light use.

after dropping ALL settings- (location services, cloud, wifi, itunes ping, push notifications, etc.etc.etc) things have not gotten any better. I dont care what idea you can come up with- (Wifi search,diagnoistics, compass calibration, auto time set, stock ticker,iAds ) NOTHING made it normal again.

The phone would get warm during standby as if something was running while the phone was off.

What I beleive happens is something is getting stuck in a repeating error cycle causing the phone to drain the battery. Im 100% sure it is a software issue (I'm sure there ARE bad batteries out there too but for the most part you can probably fix your phone for the time being yourself.)

Test it yourself
Download a fresh install of IOS5 off of itunes. Then do a full restore ie factory reset of your phone. Set the phone up as new and do not allow apple diagnostics, skip cloud setup, allow siri, and allow location services. Do not change any other settings except battery %.

Do not download any apps. Do not set up any email. Do not add contacts.

With my phone in this state I have fixed the draining. As of right now Im at 21.5 hours standby 1 hour usage with 68% battery left. Prior to this fix I was getting 6 hours standby 1 hour usage for a full drain.

Test it out for a day and see the difference. Then slowly start adding features until you notice the drain again. As for me im going to leave my phone as is to save my phone from excessive charge cycles until a fix is out.

TL;DR
Do a full restore from a fresh install of ios5 on itunes. Skip setting up cloud and dont mess with any settings. Test the phone out for a day without setting up email or downloading apps. Just test the standby and you'll notice its fine.
 
I didn't have to do any of that. I just let the battery drain down to 1% before charging (one time) and now the phone can go for 3 days on one charge.
 
autigerMark said:
I didn't have to do any of that. I just let the battery drain down to 1% before charging (one time) and now the phone can go for 3 days on one charge.
Click to expand...

Thats awesome Im glad your phone is working properly,
unfortunately for me, I did that 3 times and it didnt help.

Either way I'm positive this is an issue with software. Whether its the apps not communicating properly or settings getting stuck in cycles I'm sure we will see a fix.
 
This is, by far, the dumbest thread I have come across. So, the only way to get decent bettery life is to basically try to replicate iOS 1? You might as well go back to a flip phone. I heard the Moto Razr is pretty cool.
 
kas23 said:
This is, by far, the dumbest thread I have come across. So, the only way to get decent bettery life is to basically try to replicate iOS 1? You might as well go back to a flip phone. I heard the Moto Razr is pretty cool.
Click to expand...

The point is that its a software problem and there will be a fix for it. If you dont want to waste charge cycles on 5 hours of standby then you can restore like I said and use the phone minimally until a software fix.

But I guess that was too difficult for you to get without me having to type it out for you.. right?

:eek:

Ah and I'll go ahead and mention; since your silly little rant post in the Batterygate thread I've seen 2 other people confirm this works.
 
How ironic

It wasn't that long ago that Android was taking a royal thrashing here over battery life

Very interesting
 
I think the OP has a point. Not that I am going to be extreme and worry about charge cycles. But it is pretty annoying having to stay tethered and plugged in pretty much until I go mobile. On mobile days, it is plug it in as soon as I get in the car, etc.

I bought a dozen plus of $0.99 charger cords on ebay and have them every where, that helps.

Like many of you, I am having the same 1% per 5-10 minutes of use drop. But it does vary. Something is hitting it, and it is not consistent. I have used the phone, noticed minimal drop, then noticed it all of sudden starting to drop. The OP described a very plausible scenario of something getting stuck and not letting it properly sleep in the background. Because I have noticed when it is dropping, even when in standby, it is hot.

Another interesting thing I have noticed is that with the charger plugged in, like when I have plugged it in overnight, it will hit max charge, change the battery symbol over, then stop the trickle charge and actually watch the % drop and not kick back in. This has been observed on several chargers, work and at home. I observed it hit 100% today, then fall down to 93% before I unplugged it and plugged it back in to get it to resume back to charging.

This has to be indicative of something going on.

I just hope it is something they can fix with a patch. And I hope the JB team is waiting to release a JB until Apple fixes the battery issue, and that Apple isn't waiting until the JB team exposes their bag of tricks for OS5.
 
Seems pretty pointless to have all of the phones features off. I can understand a few to save battery, some location services, notifications, etc. But not even installing apps? If battery life is going to affect you to the point where you need to get rid of everything on your phone, then you realize you just have one expensive battery in your pocket, shaped like a phone.

While my battery life isn't great, I'll turn off a few features, and play the waiting game to see if Apple releases an update that addresses these issues.
 
sgrrsh26 said:
What I beleive happens is something is getting stuck in a repeating error cycle causing the phone to drain the battery. Im 100% sure it is a software issue (I'm sure there ARE bad batteries out there too but for the most part you can probably fix your phone for the time being yourself.
Click to expand...

After having my 4s for 3 days I went into an Apple store thinking I had a defective battery. After running a diagnostic test, I found out that OS was constantly crashing and restarting, without me noticing, which caused the battery loss. This would cause several programs to also crash. A full erase and restore of the software fixed the problem.
 
I'm at almost three hours of usage and fourteen hours forty two minutes standby at 50%. Would that be considered good for an iPhone?

I ask because this is my first iPhone.
 

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I have noticed that battery drains out fast initially. But, it lasts a lot longer if you try to drain it completely. I was trying to drain my battery to complete a Charge cycle. It lasted me half an hour of playing music videos on VEVO on wi-fi from 8% to 1%. Go figure.
 
bpeeps said:
Seems pretty pointless to have all of the phones features off. I can understand a few to save battery, some location services, notifications, etc. But not even installing apps? If battery life is going to affect you to the point where you need to get rid of everything on your phone, then you realize you just have one expensive battery in your pocket, shaped like a phone.

While my battery life isn't great, I'll turn off a few features, and play the waiting game to see if Apple releases an update that addresses these issues.
Click to expand...

Location services are on. And im =slowly adding apps.
Why is it that people comment without reading
:confused:

My battery is at 100% overnight
:cool:
 
autigerMark said:
I didn't have to do any of that. I just let the battery drain down to 1% before charging (one time) and now the phone can go for 3 days on one charge.
Click to expand...

If you phone is going for 3 days without charging, you are not using it!:p

----------
kas23 said:
This is, by far, the dumbest thread I have come across. So, the only way to get decent bettery life is to basically try to replicate iOS 1? You might as well go back to a flip phone. I heard the Moto Razr is pretty cool.
Click to expand...

It can't be the dumbest as the iPhone 4 threads were just like these. It will all calm down after a while.
 
rocknblogger said:
I'm at almost three hours of usage and fourteen hours forty two minutes standby at 50%. Would that be considered good for an iPhone?

I ask because this is my first iPhone.
Click to expand...

that isnt too bad. you are getting more drain because of standby time.

im assuming part of that was overnight standby while you were sleeping. see how the battery fares during the day after more usage.

i typically get over 8 hours usage and around 22-25 hours of standby. good luck
 
Thanks OP! The restore via iTunes worked a charm. I did this last night and now I'm at 6 hours standby and still at 100%, how it should be!
 
sgrrsh26 said:
Location services are on. And im =slowly adding apps.
Why is it that people comment without reading
:confused:

My battery is at 100% overnight
:cool:
Click to expand...

No, I read that. It doesn't change my statement, however. There is a point where you have to figure out how useful you want your phone to be versus conserving battery power. It seems like you took the most extreme route.
 
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