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Horrendous 3gs battery life

E

enigmaverse

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 9, 2004
51
0
Myrtle Beach, SC
Got my new phone on Monday.... forgot to charge it the first night, but when I went to sleep, it had near full strength, woke up in the morning, it was dead.

Charged it for 2 hours Tuesday morning, an hour and a half later (without use) it was dead. Kept it on a charger intermittently for most of the day and charged it all night on Tuesday (at least 10 hours) pulled it off the charger at 10 am Weds.

Made 1 10 min call and one 45 minute call and it was less than 10%. Charged it for an hour, left for the airport, charged it off the computer at the airport, had it off on the airplane, and by the time it got off the plane I had less than 10% battery.

Charged it all last night, and kept it on the charger for most of the day (between car and computer chargers). Left it on the table for an hour and its almost dead.

Been on the charger for 10 minutes now and will remain all night. anybody else seeing such poor battery life?

I noticed the back was very warm today, but I live in South Carolina, and drive a jeep (no top / no doors today) so I attributed it to use and being in 100* weather.


Right now I'd say my battery lasts maybe two hours between charges... and charging while using seems to negate the charge. Anybody else seeing this? Going to call Apple tomorrow.
 
What Apps have you got installed? There seem to be a few problematic ones floating around that don't shutdown properly and continue to burn through processor cycles even in standby and this will result in rapid battery depletion. Also is this your first iPhone or did you use a backup of a previous iPhone? It might be worth performing a fresh restore in iTunes and setting it up as a new phone and then resyncing things afterwards - I originally had problems with my 3GS when I used my 3G backup as a starting point, a restore and setup as a new phone appeared to drastically improve things.
 
iSimon said:
What Apps have you got installed? There seem to be a few problematic ones floating around that don't shutdown properly and continue to burn through processor cycles even in standby and this will result in rapid battery depletion. Also is this your first iPhone or did you use a backup of a previous iPhone? It might be worth performing a fresh restore in iTunes and setting it up as a new phone and then resyncing things afterwards - I originally had problems with my 3GS when I used my 3G backup as a starting point, a restore and setup as a new phone appeared to drastically improve things.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip... just finished reconfiguring everything, we'll see how it goes.
 
nope... 4 hours after an over night charge and the battery is almost dead with no use (aside from the restore). I flipped it open just now and got the 20% message.
 
enigmaverse said:
nope... 4 hours after an over night charge and the battery is almost dead with no use (aside from the restore). I flipped it open just now and got the 20% message.
Click to expand...

Genius bar for sure. Defective. In any case turn off all notifications.
 
not there.

iphone 3gs 32

software ver: 3.0 (7A341)

Under Settings I have:
Airplane Mode, Wi-Fi, Sounds, Brightness, Wallpaper, General, Mail Contact and Calendar, Phone, Safari, Messages, iPod, Photos, Store, then it goes into individual Apps.

Yes, I have done a restore, No I didnt use a backup from my old iPhone
 
Have you tried charging via USB and via the wall charger? If only one, try the other, just in case.

FWIW I always fully charge a new phone before using it for the first time, then run it down flat as the first cycle. Not saying your start caused your problems, but, well, yeah.
 
miniConvert said:
Have you tried charging via USB and via the wall charger? If only one, try the other, just in case.

FWIW I always fully charge a new phone before using it for the first time, then run it down flat as the first cycle. Not saying your start caused your problems, but, well, yeah.
Click to expand...

I'm happy you fully charged yours the second it was put into your hands... but I HIGHLY doubt that has caused the related issue.

But if your implying that failure to charge the phone the night I got it caused all the related battery issues. That would mean that any iphone in inventory since Monday would be experiencing the same problem, and that anyone who EVER drained their battery would be experiencing the same problem. sounds pretty dumb, and if that is the case, I would assume there would be a big giant sticker on the phone that says, failure to charge immediately will cause permanent, irreversible damage to your phone.

The phone has been plugged into multiple chargers (Computer, Wall, and Auto) for about 60 hours of the 96 hours that I've owned it and I have seen less than 10% battery 8 times already.
 
do you experience poor network coverage where you live/work? It might be constantly looking for a signal or service...

Also, check and see if WiFi has been turned on. Turning it off may help battery life a bit (probably not to the extent you're experiencing, but for the time being it'll make usage a little more reasonable)
 
Wifi is on and used.. but only in the last day, and network coverage is spotty with this new phone. My 3G got better coverage in my house than the 3GS. Sitting at my computer will regularly return "No Service" on the new one, where I used to have 2 bars.

I have tried multiple configurations and even turning the phone completely off drains the battery. I can have a 3/4 charge, turn the off (slide the red button) and turn it back on 4 hours later and be dead.. happened on my flight home on Wednesday.

Called apple, their closed today for the holiday, filled out the form at apple.com and they are supposed to call tomorrow.
 
I think post #2 was as accurate as anything. Rapid discharge the way you describe "just ain't right." Nothing in your initial setup or use could have reasonably created a failure such as this, so the premise that you didn't condition properly, while not bad advice, doesn't really apply here.

I just hope you didn't pick out a name for the phone yet, it's going back to the orphanage, I'm afraid. ;) Get it back to the Apple Store as soon as is convenient and experience unboxing joy a second time. Make sure you have the times and charges in a list as you posted them here.
 
Yeah, I agree, somethings not right with this one, I have named it though: Pia.

here's the crappy part... the store I purchased in is 705 miles away, and there are no plans to go back anytime soon. The nearest "genius" is 2 hours away.

Hopefully, customer support will be as good to me as they were last time... Long story short: The nearest "certified" Apple reseller wanted to keep my business computer for 4- 6 days while they ordered parts to fix a bad fan under warranty. Apple stepped in and sent a tech to my house (home business) to fix the fan... all covered by warranty. cant beat that.
 
Mine has improved about 20% or so after two weeks of use. charge it full every night and use it durring the day. I've only completely discharged it once. it's at about 65% when I get home at 6pm and I unplug it at 6am I also have everything turned on except wifi
 
Recently my 3GS battery life has been all over the place dropping from 100 to 90 then going back up and just generally being terrible. I took it in the the apple store today and they told me sometimes if you set up a 3gs from a back up of a Gen 1 iPhone it will mess with the battery configuration. I was told to restore it to factory settings and set it up as a new phone. I did this today and all seems to be working so far.
 
yeah, I tried that already.

Came off a 12+ hour charge last night, unplugged it at 10:15am, made one 45 minute call, checked Facebook at 12:30pm and got the "less than 10% remaining"
 
Got my new phone, charged it. Had 5 hrs 22 min worth of call time yesterday, and for a good portion of that, I was unplugged. This morning, 54% battery still remains.

It made it through my day w/o issue, which is something the last one could not do... much happier with this one.
 
I thought I was the only person that had this issue.

I left my iPhone 3Gs on during the night and I have just about everything off. I woke up this morning with 70% battery life. I checked Usage and found 16 minutes usage and 6 hours standby. I find this unacceptable.

On top of this, my phone shuts off constantly at like 50-60%. Then, when I try to charge using my computer, it doesnt let me. It says that I am using an unsupported accessory. The only way it charges is through the wall adapter. Restore has done nothing.
 
noodle654 said:
I thought I was the only person that had this issue.

I left my iPhone 3Gs on during the night and I have just about everything off. I woke up this morning with 70% battery life. I checked Usage and found 16 minutes usage and 6 hours standby. I find this unacceptable.

On top of this, my phone shuts off constantly at like 50-60%. Then, when I try to charge using my computer, it doesnt let me. It says that I am using an unsupported accessory. The only way it charges is through the wall adapter. Restore has done nothing.
Click to expand...

call Apple... or go to a genius bar. I've always found Apple easier to deal with then the "genius's". They took down my notes and waved the shipping since I dont have an Apple store nearby.
 
Getting Paranoid

All this talk about bad battery life is getting me wondering. Since this thread already exists, I thought I'd post this photo and see what you good readers think of this battery life. It's a 3GS, with everything turned on except Bluetooth. Only Google contact and calendar sync is on push; everything else is manual fetch. Screen brightness set to one-third, auto brightness on.
 

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my gf's phone is doing the same thing. Charge over night, its dead by noon. That's with only one 45 minute call in the morning. Guess we'll be making the trip to Apple one of these days.

Thanks OP for confirming our suspicions!
 
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