Battery Drain from Background Program!?!? (Pics & Proof)

[toss002]

I know this has been brought up before. But please look...

(Before bed time.)

The actual draining had already started before bed time.

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(Woke up just couple of hours later to check.)

***At this moment, I immediately select the "Air Plane" mode to see if it would still be draining.

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(So you can see, NO voice NOR data access, but still draining.)

My conclusion is that there must be something running in the background.

 

[mcdj]

My conclusion is that there must be something running in the background.

Why couldn't it just be the OS overhead? If you leave the phone on, it needs power, period.

 

[toss002]

Why couldn't it just be the OS overhead? If you leave the phone on, it needs power, period.

Now, this happened on occasion. When it doesn't happen, overnight, my phone doesn't drain (the USAGE time) over SEVERAL hours like that. (Look at how many hours it drained.)

 

[pintnight]

My conclusion is that there must be something running in the background.

Yep, there is a program running in the backgroud, it's called the iPhone operating system.

 

[pintnight]

Now, this happened on occasion. When it doesn't happen, overnight, my phone doesn't drain (the USAGE time) over SEVERAL hours like that. (Look at how many hours it drained.)

When you put the iPhone on airplane mode, you just told the iPhone to stop monitoring 3G/Edge/WiFi and so that will turn off some background running processes.

 

[Vegeta-san]

Why couldn't it just be the OS overhead? If you leave the phone on, it needs power, period.

Wrong. OS overhead does not contribute to the "Usage" time being used up. Only when the phone is active, either thru the user using it, or thru an app checking somthing (like Mail.app) is "Usage" allowed to increment up. On a daily basis, I go to sleep with my phone charged completely at 100% (I have the after effect of a jailbreak app I used to have that showed me percentage...Even though I am not jailbroken right now) and wake up with it at 100%, so, I assure you, OS overhead on this phone on it standby mode is very very low....

But once or twice, like the OP, I have woken up to find my phone severely depleted with very high usage numbers....I only wish I could find out what the hell is going on.

 

[bluenoise]

Wrong. OS overhead does not contribute to the "Usage" time being used up. Only when the phone is active, either thru the user using it, or thru an app checking somthing (like Mail.app) is "Usage" allowed to increment up. On a daily basis, I go to sleep with my phone charged completely at 100% (I have the after effect of a jailbreak app I used to have that showed me percentage...Even though I am not jailbroken right now) and wake up with it at 100%, so, I assure you, OS overhead on this phone on it standby mode is very very low....

But once or twice, like the OP, I have woken up to find my phone severely depleted with very high usage numbers....I only wish I could find out what the hell is going on.

Are you saying your phone uses absolutely no power during the night? Either it's off or your measurements are incorrect.

 

[toss002]

Wrong. OS overhead does not contribute to the "Usage" time being used up. Only when the phone is active, either thru the user using it, or thru an app checking somthing (like Mail.app) is "Usage" allowed to increment up. On a daily basis, I go to sleep with my phone charged completely at 100% (I have the after effect of a jailbreak app I used to have that showed me percentage...Even though I am not jailbroken right now) and wake up with it at 100%, so, I assure you, OS overhead on this phone on it standby mode is very very low....

But once or twice, like the OP, I have woken up to find my phone severely depleted with very high usage numbers....I only wish I could find out what the hell is going on.

Thank you for the comment. I had experience using first gen iPhone since iDay, and I never had this issue. AND I am familiar or have had experience with over sleep mode and battery monitoring, but NOT like this.

 

[toss002]

Are you saying your phone uses absolutely no power during the night? Either it's off or your measurements are incorrect.

I have to say NOT like this. You can prove this by first turning off and on your phone before bed, and monitor your USAGE time. Your usage time WILL NOT match mine.

 

[bluenoise]

I have to say NOT like this. You can prove this by first turning off and on your phone before bed, and monitor your USAGE time. Your usage time WILL NOT match mine.

I don't doubt you. I've had my phone exhibit varying battery stats like yours. I was just wondering how a phone that's on can use zero battery overnight as quoted by my previos post.

 

[mrtune]

I've had this happen to me before, but not all the time. Normally you should not see very much if any usage added while the phone is just sitting there.

The only background apps that should affect usage while the phone is sitting there is the mail app and the ipod app. The mail app should only affect your usage times a little. Maybe a few minutes overnight. But that's about it.

In ariplane mode, you should never see usage times rise while the phone is asleep.

I turned my original iphone into a ipod touch after I bought my iphone 3G. I simply left it in airplane mode since the sim card was no longer in use. I left it powered up for a week on my desk, never using it. It was still full after a week! It had a stock 2.0 firmware install with nothing else added.

The problem he is having is a bug, plain and simple. This never happened while I had the first gen phone.

I found that turning off/on the iphone daily helps with a lot of the problems. There must be some kind of memory leak bug or apps not quiting properly bug or something along those lines. Cycling the power usually does the trick.

 

[snverhallen]

Off-topic: How do you get that much usage anyway?

snverhalle

 

[ttech10]

I don't know what it was but the other night I had basically just charged my phone (it had about 80% battery life) and I had it laying on my bed while I watched TV and messed with my laptop. Well about 30 mins later I try to turn it on and it won't. I plug it in and there's like 10% battery life and it had to do the mandatory charge up to the certain point before I could actually use it.

I haven't had it happen again but I wish I knew what had happened.

 

[toss002]

Off-topic: How do you get that much usage anyway?

snverhalle

Honestly, I DON'T KNOW. This is the first time I got pass 5 or 6 hours with phone usage (this is usually when it dies). ***Where as before (a month ago or without 2.0.2), I was only averaging about 2 hours.

Note: I barely use the phone this day, that maybe how.

 

[mrtune]

Off-topic: How do you get that much usage anyway?

snverhalle

According to Apple, the phone should have over 20 hours music play back capability. This is the only way I have seen my phone go over 4-5 hours usage. Let it play music, screen off and don't use it for anything else. I'll go all day no problems.

 

[Santa Rosa]

Has it ever been jailbroken?

 

[toss002]

Has it ever been jailbroken?

No, never.

 

[Sayer]

I found my battery drained quickly with iPhone OS 2.0. When I put 2.0.1 on it (and turned the iPhone completely off and on again) the battery drain went away, but charges still didn't last that long IMHO.

Now with 2.0.2 my iPhone has not been recharged in like 3 days, I have MS Exchange activesync going for my work email and calendars 24/7, WIFi and EDGE data, and its still got a healthy charge.

My suggestion for quick battery drains: Upgrade to 2.0.2, turn the phone completely OFF (hold down the HOLD button till the power off slider comes up). Turn it back on.

Fully charge, that is let it go 100% charge in a wall outlet or in a USB port on a Mac.

See if it still drains (most likely it won't).

 

[gldelx]

I don't doubt you. I've had my phone exhibit varying battery stats like yours. I was just wondering how a phone that's on can use zero battery overnight as quoted by my previos post.

I think the issue is more of what is running when nothing should be, than the actual batt drain. of course there should be a slight batt drain overnight when it is sitting not being used, but the 'usage' clock should not keep rolling.

 

[slate1]

There is a fairly well documented "bug" where standy time gets counted as usage time. Search around and you'll find it. I've had it happen to me a few times but can't say as to what triggers it. It's also probably what's allowing people to post some of the outrageous "usage" times as well.

 

[snverhallen]

Honestly, I DON'T KNOW. This is the first time I got pass 5 or 6 hours with phone usage (this is usually when it dies). ***Where as before (a month ago or without 2.0.2), I was only averaging about 2 hours.

Note: I barely use the phone this day, that maybe how.

And when you get this usage, what have you done and what services do you have on the iPhone?

I found my battery drained quickly with iPhone OS 2.0. When I put 2.0.1 on it (and turned the iPhone completely off and on again) the battery drain went away, but charges still didn't last that long IMHO.

Now with 2.0.2 my iPhone has not been recharged in like 3 days, I have MS Exchange activesync going for my work email and calendars 24/7, WIFi and EDGE data, and its still got a healthy charge.

My suggestion for quick battery drains: Upgrade to 2.0.2, turn the phone completely OFF (hold down the HOLD button till the power off slider comes up). Turn it back on.

Fully charge, that is let it go 100% charge in a wall outlet or in a USB port on a Mac.

See if it still drains (most likely it won't).

I'm going to give this a try, thanks for the tip!

snverhallen

 

[toss002]

And when you get this usage, what have you done and what services do you have on the iPhone?

All these before bed time:

- Location Services: OFF (Haven't use GPS this day)
- Two yahoo mail: PUSH (both)
- Google Calendar sync via "Nuevasync" in Microsoft Exchange: MANUALLY
- Synced calendar once (over the air)
- Played Billy Frontier for several minutes
- Checked internet speed via iNetwork on several occasions
- Made, I think, 2 calls: 10 mins (1st call) & 20 mins (2nd call)
- Received 1 text message
- Sent 1 text message
- Checked e-mail once
- Listened to two voicemail messages

I couldn't think of anything else. But some time in between and the rest of the time it was on idle.

 

[senorFunkyPants]

Only recently my V1 iphone's (2.0.2) battery life has decreased significantly and I'm wondering if one of of the apps I have might be responsible?
If thats possible I'm betting on Simplify Media.

 

[komiothebeat]

well since this phone in question by the OP isn't jailbroken, i was going to say, see if you had SSH turned on under boss prefs (only applies to jailbroken iphones)

i noticed yesterday my battery had drained hella fast... so.... i wa slooking around on my settings. for some reason SSH was turned on under boss prefs... after i turned that off the battery remained the same alot longer than before

 

[Excellerator]

I thought I would add to this. I have noticed that since the other day when I was hit the famous no third party apps running problem, which I haven't had time to restore yet, the battery life has been 10x better. So I am sure its something running in the background that shouldn't be. It could be just not messing with the apps itself that is saving battery life, but even while browsing with Safari, checking email, phone conversations, etc, it is lasting longer.