Suddenly the battery is draining at a rapid rate, any ideas?

nictry · 28-04-2009, 8:53 AM

As of last night something has happened to my Iphone 3G (unlocked/jailbroken) it has been totally fine on battery use for the last few months and yet this morning it was dead (last night had 86% battery) and I usually charge every 2-3 days)

Thought this was odd so charged to 36% before leaving for work and within 15 mins it was down to 25%, I took a call for 3 mins and it is down to 12%

Normal usage of phone, nothing tweaked or touched and suddenly the battery seems to be on meltdown, anyone have any ideas (I did a soft reset this morning in case something was stuck on but doesn't seem to have fixed it)

On a secondary note, if this does need to be returned to CPW (within warranty approx 8 months old) can anyone confirm how to do a full reset back to factory settings as I am guessing they won't be too impressed with it on Vodafone and some non-apple store apps on it!!!)

Thanks in advance

pdiddy · 28-04-2009, 9:15 AM

Have you got PDA net?

If your taking it back, take to an apple store. Better service than CPW. to restore load itunes, connect phone, browse to phone and restore.

Try restoring before you take it back. Make sure you sync and backup first as this will restore all the "normal" bits that should be on there and get rid of the jailbreak.

roaster · 28-04-2009, 9:34 AM

First, try a complete reboot by pressing and holding both home and power buttons until it shuts down, then power on again. It's possible it's a software issue that will be cleared by this.

jerryq7777 · 28-04-2009, 9:41 AM

That sounds like something is running in the background or the battery is kaput.Do you leave wifi,3g switched on ? I can charge mine to 100% the night before and next morning it will still be on 100%.Mine is about 8 months old too.

nictry · 28-04-2009, 9:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roaster

First, try a complete reboot by pressing and holding both home and power buttons until it shuts down, then power on again. It's possible it's a software issue that will be cleared by this.

I had already done this and doesn't seem to have changed anything?

nictry · 28-04-2009, 9:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jerryq7777

That sounds like something is running in the background or the battery is kaput.Do you leave wifi,3g switched on ? I can charge mine to 100% the night before and next morning it will still be on 100%.Mine is about 8 months old too.

I agree, have done a bit of searching and seems like quite a few people have this 'sudden' drop in battery life and in most cases it appears that it is the 'Push' mail, calendar,contacts settings that are the problem (endless loop as somone described it) which causes the battery to drain out very quickly (within a couple of hours)

I have got WiFi on and locations svcs, I don't have 3g on but only becuase of a bug in that that causes my phone to go into airplane mode randomly (again another unlock issue by all accounts!!!) I don't know why it has suddenly changed but deleting the mail accounts and then resetting them seems to be the option to try which in all cases that someone has posted aboout the problem seems to have fixed it so I might give this a go?

nictry · 28-04-2009, 9:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pdiddy

Have you got PDA net?

If your taking it back, take to an apple store. Better service than CPW. to restore load itunes, connect phone, browse to phone and restore.

Try restoring before you take it back. Make sure you sync and backup first as this will restore all the "normal" bits that should be on there and get rid of the jailbreak.

No, don't know what that is? Thanks for the info on the restore, I am going to try the possible solutions I have just posted but if that doesn't work the Apple store will be getting a visit from me

xmb · 29-04-2009, 4:39 PM

I had this happen twice on my 2G iPhone and in both cases simply charging fully and ensuring the unit was turned off (hold the wake button until slide to power off appears) then back on cured it.

Suspect a glitch occurred after removing it from the dock after sync. causing a process to drain the battery.

Try the above first before returning it.

nictry · 29-04-2009, 9:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xmb

I had this happen twice on my 2G iPhone and in both cases simply charging fully and ensuring the unit was turned off (hold the wake button until slide to power off appears) then back on cured it.

Suspect a glitch occurred after removing it from the dock after sync. causing a process to drain the battery.

Try the above first before returning it.

Funny enough mine has gone back to normal after another reset and recharge?

Who knows what caused the problem (although I still suspect the push email could have been 'stuck') but the good thing is I have a normal battery use again

triggauk · 01-05-2009, 11:26 AM

While this topic is still alive can i just ask what is the average battery lasting time on the iphone 3G?

I have recently recieved mine so im obviously hammering it at the moment but it seems to be getting down to the 20% warning within about 6 hours but this is with alot of call time and apps searching etc!! Is this ok?

derek1971 · 01-05-2009, 2:19 PM

That sounds about the same as me - the first couple of days i had it it needed charged before the day was out but that was with pretty much constant use for several hours at a time. Since then i have been using it more like i would normally use my phone although with a fair bit of internet use/app store browsing and i normally need to charge it every second day.

Nik73 · 13-05-2009, 2:58 PM

Strangely, my 3G has just started doing this last week. Before then it had an excellent life, especially compared to some people I've seen on here.
Now though I can just about get 24hrs on standby without using it at all!

Nothing is untoward (don't use 3G, push, etc) and I've tried all the above suggestions, with the exception of a full reset and restore (which I'm trying now). Thing is, I don't think my battery will last the 2 hrs to reset the phone. It's very annoying to say the least!

derek1971 · 13-05-2009, 3:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nik73

Strangely, my 3G has just started doing this last week. Before then it had an excellent life, especially compared to some people I've seen on here.
Now though I can just about get 24hrs on standby without using it at all!

Nothing is untoward (don't use 3G, push, etc) and I've tried all the above suggestions, with the exception of a full reset and restore (which I'm trying now). Thing is, I don't think my battery will last the 2 hrs to reset the phone. It's very annoying to say the least!

Do you have wifi on but no wifi available - i have noticed that the battery in mine drains very quickly if it is constantly looking for a wifi connection and can't get one.

Have had the phone for a couple of weeks now and i find that if i use it "normally" ie make calls/texts (30mins calls/10-20 texts) and a bit of surfing (maybe about 1 hour per day) i can get away with charging every 3 days.

If i use the ipod and online stuff more every 2 days but when i was round at my mates (where i couldn't get wifi and 3g was very hit and miss) the battery dropped about 50% in the course of about 6 hours

jerryq7777 · 13-05-2009, 5:26 PM

The other night my phone was charged to 100% i then used the wunderadio app to listen to the Newcastle game and 2 hrs later the battery was flat

Nik73 · 14-05-2009, 4:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by derek1971

Do you have wifi on but no wifi available

Nope, but something seems to have been stuck as the reset and restore seems to have finally cured it.

Have to say that is was stupidly quick and easy to do, as with everything and this phone. I'm a real gadget freak but this thing is by far the best I've ever owned. Amazing piece of kit.

Jerry, I can normally listen to a baseball game (3hrs), do some browsing while listening, etc all on wifi and the battery only goes down to about half. I think my battery is unusually good though. It seems to be the achilles heel of Apple products. My first ipod's was shocking and never got even half of what it should, despite following all the tips, but my newer one goes on for ever. Obviously this is not a direct comparison as the newer ipods obviously have much better battery life, just in relation to the claimed life.
Similarly, my unibody MBP gets easily the advertised 5hrs battery life just browsing and emails at about 80% brightness. Others seem to only get 3hrs max!

jerryq7777 · 14-05-2009, 6:00 PM

Weird listened to the Man U game last night and the battery only went down to 86%

berkeley384 · 28-05-2009, 1:49 AM

Quote:

As of last night something has happened to my Iphone 3G (unlocked/jailbroken) it has been totally fine on battery use for the last few months and yet this morning it was dead (last night had 86% battery) and I usually charge every 2-3 days)

Thought this was odd so charged to 36% before leaving for work and within 15 mins it was down to 25%, I took a call for 3 mins and it is down to 12%

How do you find out how much battery is left ?

neily1970 · 28-05-2009, 6:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by berkeley384

How do you find out how much battery is left ?

You can install Boss Prefs from cydia (allows you to toggle settings) There is an option to enable a Numerical battery so that if you tap on the little battery icon on screen, it will display whats in the battery as a count. Tap again to go back to icon

If your J/B that is.