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MS Exchange killing battery?

E

enigmaverse

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 9, 2004
51
0
Myrtle Beach, SC
After getting my phone and having battery issues I decided to start trouble shooting. I have all my services turned on (3g, bt, wi-fi, push) the only thing I dont have is an application that uses notifications. I tried disabling services and still my battery was going. I decided to do a clean install and slowly add services back in. I didnt run into any issues until I turned on exchange.

Anybody else running exchange and experiencing terrible battery life?

Heres my usage without exchange:
Note: I accidentally plugged it back in for about 5-7 secs. during the day (force of habit)
IMG_0052.PNG

Here's my usage when exchange is turned on (Mail only)
IMG_0053.PNG

Both of these tests were done after a minimum of 8 hours on the charger
 
Um the first one you plugged it into a charger after it was fully charges, and the second you did not.
 
I signed up for a Mail2Web account for push email on my iPhone. Ever since using my exchange account from them, my battery life has increased significantly. I guess it saves a lot of power using push instead of checking email for 5 email accounts every 15 minutes.....;)
 
i have around 12 hours standby and 3-4 hours usage today but i tend to do a lot of browsing/games. Running is exchange, push services, wifi and location (although don't think location makes much difference)

good enough for me most of the time. :)
 
zoeconner said:
Can someone help with exchange? I put in the server but still wont connect.
Click to expand...

Ok here is an easy guide, make sure first you have exchange installed, open the ports on the router, search for exchange OWA ports etc

Make sure the user in question has permission to use remote mail

Settings for phone as follows

Email - <just put your name here>

Server <Ip address of server> do not use http:// or anything, just put the fixed external ip of your exchange server, the same ip you use with your domain company for you MX record.

Domain <leave as "optional">

Username <this is your normal logon username> the same one you use for outlook web access.

Password <as above>

Description <just use your name again>

Use SSL <On>

Thats it, pretty simple really :)
 
I could, but I shouldnt have to.

Honestly, I'm more interested in ppl that have a similar problem to see if its a pattern than changing settings to accommodate. My 3G with ALL the same settings has easily triple the battery life...

I could at least make it through most of my day without having to charge the phone. The point of having "push" is to get your emails when they're sent, I shouldnt have to change the configuration just because I upgraded to the "better" model.

I cant believe I'm the only one seeing piss poor battery life because of exchange.

Another interesting thing I've noticed is when I have Exchange enabled, my phone take about double the time to charge and noticeably heats up. With Exchanged disable, the phone stays cool when charging.
 
enigmaverse said:
So nobody else is having issue with exchange draining their battery in 5 hours or less?
Click to expand...

Have you calibrated the battery? How many bars do you typically have? I turned push off long ago for my work Exchange account because at work I get very poor signal which causes the radio in my iPhone to use extra juice to try and maintain a connection. Couple that with trying to maintain a push connection with the Exchange server and you've got yourself a big battery drainer.

I do notice decreased battery life on my 3GS when compared to my old 3G if I'm in a bad coverage area. Hopefully 3.1 will bring some improvements to that.
 
enigmaverse said:
So nobody else is having issue with exchange draining their battery in 5 hours or less?

hmmm...
Click to expand...

I notice a significant drop when receiving a lot of email on my Exchange server. I had some systems monitoring software firing off a lot of email notifications today and saw the battery drop quickly. Only option there would be to turn off push.
 
There is one way enabling exhange push can drain battery. It is neither the iPhone or Exhanges fault. The problem arises in the way push work. When you turn it omln your phone sends a heartbeat to the exchange server's IIS site. Basically this heartbet tells exhange to monitor your mailbox for changes. When there is it sends a ping to your phone. Between this time there can be no traffic for up to half an hour or maybe longer.

The problem arises in two spots. Exchange runs over the http protocol for the exchange activesync. If your IIS server doesn't allow for keep alive or kills them then the ideal time of half an hour you can see battery drain. While the heartbeat is small and little battery drain a heartbeat every 5 Mins or sooner will kill it too.

The other common place the session for the heartbeat is killed is your firewall or nat. The consumer routers will not normally let a port stay open for half an hour and their nat tables are typicaly small. So if it's firewall didn't block the connection it will just forget you.

You can't just he heartbeat. It is automatic by figuring out your max connection open limit. Nor would you want to mess with it.


PoitNarf said:
Have you calibrated the battery? How many bars do you typically have? I turned push off long ago for my work Exchange account because at work I get very poor signal which causes the radio in my iPhone to use extra juice to try and maintain a connection. Couple that with trying to maintain a push connection with the Exchange server and you've got yourself a big battery drainer.

I do notice decreased battery life on my 3GS when compared to my old 3G if I'm in a bad coverage area. Hopefully 3.1 will bring some improvements to that.
Click to expand...

You don't calibrate batterys anymore that are like the ones in the iPhone. They are none memory. Draing them just makes them wear out faster.

As for your poor connection draing battery this I'd true. The heartbeat can't be maintained and poor coverage isn't going to be fixed with 3.1. One of those micro cells would help if it's poor coverage in the home.
 
I'm at 3 hours, 18 minutes of usage; 12 hours, 46 minutes of standby, with 26% battery remaining right now.
I have Exchange and MobileMe both pushing to the phone.
My numbers are fine to me.
 
enigmaverse said:
I could, but I shouldnt have to.

Honestly, I'm more interested in ppl that have a similar problem to see if its a pattern than changing settings to accommodate. My 3G with ALL the same settings has easily triple the battery life...

I could at least make it through most of my day without having to charge the phone. The point of having "push" is to get your emails when they're sent, I shouldnt have to change the configuration just because I upgraded to the "better" model.

I cant believe I'm the only one seeing piss poor battery life because of exchange.

Another interesting thing I've noticed is when I have Exchange enabled, my phone take about double the time to charge and noticeably heats up. With Exchanged disable, the phone stays cool when charging.
Click to expand...

Exchange has always eaten battery life. The 3GS just seems to eat more battery for radio usage than the 3G did, but the fact is that even on the 3G enabling Exchange support significantly reduced my battery performance.

I imagine the impact varies by certain factors such as how fast your exchange server is, how much data is being compared, etc. but it stands to reason that it will consume more power when doing more things...
 
All battery calibration does is retune the sensor for measuring battery capacity.
It's not a battery memory issue, infact it's bad for the battery to calibrate it too often. Once a month is fine.
 
As mentioned before, configure Exchange to use fetch not push. Upon inspection of the Exchange logs, you'll see many iPhone errors, and the CPU is always in use, thus battery problems.

As far as I am aware, this may be fixed in 3.1, however, due to that fact that I don't have an Exchange server readily available, I cannot confirm this, although I do know about the logs and CPU use from experience. I will late today setup an Exchange 2007 server for testing, and will report back.
 
I'm not on exchange but I use mobileme instead.

With push on I get 5.5hrs usage & 1 Day 7hrs Standby

But that was on beta 1

I'm a dev and my 3GS has beta 2 on it now.

It is killing battery life worse than 3.0 or 3.1 b1 did.

I get 4+hrs usage & less than 1 day standby now.

My girlfriends 3G 3.0 certainly lasts longer than my 3GS.
 
ct2k7 said:
As mentioned before, configure Exchange to use fetch not push. Upon inspection of the Exchange logs, you'll see many iPhone errors, and the CPU is always in use, thus battery problems.

As far as I am aware, this may be fixed in 3.1, however, due to that fact that I don't have an Exchange server readily available, I cannot confirm this, although I do know about the logs and CPU use from experience. I will late today setup an Exchange 2007 server for testing, and will report back.
Click to expand...

I have my doubts. Unless exchange 2007 issue only. We have a 2003 and these errors are not recorded and I get decent battery life.

3735102000_e30dd31b91_o.jpg
*

3735103484_5fca1c68eb_o.jpg


Other battery drains:
Using unlimted sync on large folders. Not as much as an issue as it use to be when exchange push came out. Unless apple didn't do it correctly.

Another would be constant new mails. Otherwise if you don't get much a heartbeat uses less power then a fetch (it's a sync actually). You'd only want to drop to fetch if you get tons of new emails.

Always hit the home button when you are done. Some apps left open will drain the battery.
 
intrepid00 said:
I have my doubts. Unless exchange 2007 issue only. We have a 2003 and these errors are not recorded and I get decent battery life.

3735102000_e30dd31b91_o.jpg
*

3735103484_5fca1c68eb_o.jpg


Other battery drains:
Using unlimted sync on large folders. Not as much as an issue as it use to be when exchange push came out. Unless apple didn't do it correctly.

Another would be constant new mails. Otherwise if you don't get much a heartbeat uses less power then a fetch (it's a sync actually). You'd only want to drop to fetch if you get tons of new emails.

Always hit the home button when you are done. Some apps left open will drain the battery.
Click to expand...

It must be 2007 only then :/
 
Cant be just 2007...

my 3g ran fine using the same server... I no longer have it to provide screens, but the phone could last through the night on standby without needing a charge. The 3gs gets about 6 - 7 hours on standby when exchange is enabled.
 
enigmaverse said:
Cant be just 2007...

my 3g ran fine using the same server... I no longer have it to provide screens, but the phone could last through the night on standby without needing a charge. The 3gs gets about 6 - 7 hours on standby when exchange is enabled.
Click to expand...

It's more likely that something else is causing the drain on the battery. We are talking software and we are running same. Another program could be hanging or maybe leaving something running. Like location services.
 
I dont have extreme Exchange use.. maybe 20 -30 emails per day over Exchange. While I realize that I wont have the same usage as if I had exchange disabled, I should still be able to be on standby for more than 6 hours.

My 3G, sitting in standby, would last all day and then some. The point to having email on our phones is to stay connected, for me its to stay just as connected as when I'm in the office. I have 4 email accounts on 4 different services runnning: MobileMe, Exchange, a POP, and an IMAP account.

So far two ppl have posted times, as of right now, I am only running the Apps that come on a standard iPhone, I have disabled everything else. I will give it a full charge tonight and test again tomorrow. I would expect based on reports from the two others that I should expect at least 12 hours of standby.
 
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