Battery...

[Schokoriegel]

Hi,

My iPhone 4S battery all of a sudden started to drain quickly, so I checked usage times and standby, which are almost the same. Over night, that results in 25-30% drain.

What I have tried so far:

- Flight mode
- Turn off notifications
- Turn off location services
- Turn off Bluetooth + Wifi
- Quit all apps (+ open and quit all apps once more)
- Restart/Hard Reset
- Exchange SIM card
- Calibrate battery by letting it turn off itself
- Reset all settings (+ erase all data)
- Restore from Backup
- Restore from DFU mode
- Restore and set up as new phone (+ no service/function activated during initial setup + no additional apps installed + not synced)
- Redownload firmware to make sure it is not corrupted (both in iTunes and from direct links)

No matter what I did, the usage time is still about equal to standby, and the phone is dead after about 16 hours.

I don't know what kind of process is running in the background, but it is strange enough that it will show more than 15 hours of usage by the time the battery is down to 1%.

Any other advice what to do?

Thanks.

 

[macingman]

Hi,

My iPhone 4S battery all of a sudden started to drain quickly, so I checked usage times and standby, which are almost the same. Over night, that results in 25-30% drain.

What I have tried so far:

- Flight mode
- Turn off notifications
- Turn off location services
- Turn off Bluetooth + Wifi
- Quit all apps (+ open and quit all apps once more)
- Restart/Hard Reset
- Exchange SIM card
- Calibrate battery by letting it turn off itself
- Reset all settings (+ erase all data)
- Restore from Backup
- Restore from DFU mode
- Restore and set up as new phone (+ no service/function activated during initial setup + no additional apps installed + not synced)
- Redownload firmware to make sure it is not corrupted (both in iTunes and from direct links)

No matter what I did, the usage time is still about equal to standby, and the phone is dead after about 16 hours.

I don't know what kind of process is running in the background, but it is strange enough that it will show more than 15 hours of usage by the time the battery is down to 1%.

Any other advice what to do?

Thanks.

16 hours is pretty good.

 

[Jason black]

Hmmm l can get a full day off mine with 4 - 6 hours usage. Depends on what you do on it. Video capture, gps, voice call etc does a number on my battery.

 

[Schokoriegel]

I didn't use it during those 16 hours at all, not a single call/text message/email etc.
Part of it was even in flight mode.

 

[macingman]

I didn't use it during those 16 hours at all, not a single call/text message/email etc.
Part of it was even in flight mode.

Even though your not using it during those 16 hours you can still have emails/push notifications coming through however 16 hours of standby is quite bad. I would try a full charge where you leave the phone in the charger for a couple of hours after the device reaches 100% charge. Also turn of the System Services in the Location Services settings. Turning of System Services helped my battery life a lot and there is difference in functionality of the phone with them turned of.

 

[Schokoriegel]

Even though your not using it during those 16 hours you can still have emails/push notifications coming through however 16 hours of standby is quite bad. I would try a full charge where you leave the phone in the charger for a couple of hours after the device reaches 100% charge. Also turn of the System Services in the Location Services settings. Turning of System Services helped my battery life a lot and there is difference in functionality of the phone with them turned of.

16 hours is what I get no matter whether a SIM card card is inserted or not. Calendar was empty, Wifi was disabled anyways, location and notification services were also disabled entirely. Thus, reception doesn't make a difference. There must be some process running in the background, but I can't figure out what it is or how to disable it.
Since even restoring my 4S from backups of two family members whose iPhone 4S work perfectly fine hasn't helped, I am going to contact Apple tomorrow and ask for an exchange (if nobody here has another idea what to do).

 

[Damme]

Happened to me once, where usage and standby time was almost the same, even though I didn't use it that much.

A wipe and restore in iTunes made it work normally again

 

[Leonard1818]

Try a hard reset (hold top button and push home button). If there's a process running/looping in the background, this may help to "kill" it.

otherwise, I'd remove ALL email accounts from the phone to see if, as stated above, perhaps a push or other kind of notification is causing the problem.

 

[agentphish]

Restore and then restore from iCloud Backup, or restore and setup as new.

 

[macingman]

16 hours is what I get no matter whether a SIM card card is inserted or not. Calendar was empty, Wifi was disabled anyways, location and notification services were also disabled entirely. Thus, reception doesn't make a difference. There must be some process running in the background, but I can't figure out what it is or how to disable it.
Since even restoring my 4S from backups of two family members whose iPhone 4S work perfectly fine hasn't helped, I am going to contact Apple tomorrow and ask for an exchange (if nobody here has another idea what to do).

As I said turn of system services that should help.

 

[nefa]

I had the same problem and nothing seemed to work.

Eventually I fixed it by resetting it (Erase All Content and Settings) and NOT restoring a backup. I have contacts in the cloud, so it's not a big problem for me to have a clean start...

 

[Schokoriegel]

Quick follow-up: I found out that I couldn't turn off the phone anymore, as it would instantly restart (because of some running process?). Apple didn't hesitate to agree on an exchange.

 

[Total Respray]

Strange - I am now having an identical problem to OP.

Battery was absolutely fine until yesterday. I was getting 2-3 days with normal usage. Then, I charged it overnight, and it is losing 1% every 10 minutes on STANDBY. Just like the OP, it says usage times are almost the same as standby, which hints at something running in the background.

Tried various options suggested by others - nothing working yet. If no solution, will head back to Apple shop to try for an exchange.

 

[thatoneguy82]

Strange - I am now having an identical problem to OP.

Battery was absolutely fine until yesterday. I was getting 2-3 days with normal usage. Then, I charged it overnight, and it is losing 1% every 10 minutes on STANDBY. Just like the OP, it says usage times are almost the same as standby, which hints at something running in the background.

Tried various options suggested by others - nothing working yet. If no solution, will head back to Apple shop to try for an exchange.

Try deleting your "task bar" open apps in the background use battery.

 

[Total Respray]

Try deleting your "task bar" open apps in the background use battery.

Thanks. I've heard conflicting opinions on whether apps in the taskbar are actually 'open' or not. In any event, I took your advice and closed the three apps I used for the first time in the last couple of days (British Airways, Skydrive and Photosynth) and turned off photosynth location services. Its now been 30 minutes of pure standby time and without further accelerated battery drain.

Will be interesting to experiment further and see which of those 3 apps was to blame.

Either way, problem (hopefully) solved! Thanks for the input.

 

[thatoneguy82]

Thanks. I've heard conflicting opinions on whether apps in the taskbar are actually 'open' or not. In any event, I took your advice and closed the three apps I used for the first time in the last couple of days (British Airways, Skydrive and Photosynth) and turned off photosynth location services. Its now been 30 minutes of pure standby time and without further accelerated battery drain.

Will be interesting to experiment further and see which of those 3 apps was to blame.

Either way, problem (hopefully) solved! Thanks for the input.

Good to know. I routinely go in there to close apps. I believe they remain open or at the very least, "standby" but they are still using battery. I had InfinityBlade in there and battery was draining until it was closed.

 

[Total Respray]

Alas, after an hour of stabilisation, the battery has started to drain rapidly again - approx 1% every 15 minutes on standby with all apps closed. So, not as bad as yesterday, but nowhere near as good as I was getting upto then (1% every hour on average in standby). All apps duly closed but not making a difference. I will drain battery tonight to see if its a calibration problem.

 

[Schokoriegel]

Got my replacement 4S via express mail yesterday. Battery was great, no comparison to my first 4S. However, the home button was loose. Apple agreed to send another one via express mail. Didn't have to pay for express service in neither case, despite not having AppleCare. Second replacement 4S arrived today. Everything great now, should get about two days of battery life with my usage pattern. I am happy.