Sudden battery depletion on samsung

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ysu
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Sudden battery depletion on samsung

Post by ysu »

We've 3 samsung devices in the family, 2xS2 and one S5.
My wife's S2 used to do this fairly regularly, but now my S5 has done it, too.

Basically, you've a decent amount of charge (~60%), and in an hour when you look at the phone it's dead. Battery is completely depleted.
It baffles me, and it's really worrisome. The phone is not 2 yrs old, but I don't want to give it back to the provider and wait weeks w/o a phone. We did that with wife's phone, and nothing came out of it, except the aggravation and lost time.

Do you guys know anything about this?

I'm pretty sure this was the last samsung phone I've bought, but wondering if there's any saving grace - or if this happens to other devices, too, and what maybe behind it?
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Re: Sudden battery depletion on samsung

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Engineered Obsolescence.
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Re: Sudden battery depletion on samsung

Post by plastik8 »

Are you 100% sure it is not a rogue app or process running in the background?

I don't have Android, but I think there is a way of looking at battery history and what app is responsible for battery drain? There is also plenty of 3rd party apps can do it too (That's one good thing about Android over iOS!)
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Re: Sudden battery depletion on samsung

Post by w00dsy »

Go to settings, then battery, and it'll show you what apps are using the most power. There's a really good chance it'll be an app that has a memory leak, possibly a recently updated app where the developer accidentally made it worse.
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Re: Sudden battery depletion on samsung

Post by ysu »

Hm...can't find battery under settings. However, while the usage feels higher than normal, currently it isn't getting depleted at the rate it must have been yesternight.
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Re: Sudden battery depletion on samsung

Post by w00dsy »

it'll look something like this

Image




then this

Image
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Re: Sudden battery depletion on samsung

Post by ysu »

Thanks, but that does not exist on my phone it seems. Or it's well hidden :)
I have categories under settings, and I went through all categories - twice now, - and no "battery" anywhere. Only "power saving" resembles a battery icon, but under that the only things I can do is switch on the power saving, or the "ultra power saving" modes.

I've even leafed through the 'developer' options or somesuch, but nothing in there either.
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Re: Sudden battery depletion on samsung

Post by ysu »

plastik8 wrote:Are you 100% sure it is not a rogue app or process running in the background?

I don't have Android, but I think there is a way of looking at battery history and what app is responsible for battery drain? There is also plenty of 3rd party apps can do it too (That's one good thing about Android over iOS!)
Of course I can't be 100%, but to drain a day's worth of charge in about an hour...that's something. I'd have thought the phone should get pretty warm with that sort of usage. (last time I've run some game that took a lot out of the phone, it got pretty damn hot in a few minutes) :kickcan:

p.s. I have not installed anything recently, so it can only be something already there.
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Re: Sudden battery depletion on samsung

Post by Cursed »

Settings - use the search function - "battery". Choose "Battery", then the "Battery Usage" button. You should get a similar graph as listed above with the list of apps underneath.

I had google maps eating battery on my xperia a few days ago. The battery lasted 4 or 5 hours tops and that was with no data turned on.
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Re: Sudden battery depletion on samsung

Post by ysu »

aaah ffs...I've disabled it somehow a month or so back with the package disabler. Duh.
Thanks, this might help from here on. Currently it only shows items since the last full charge - which I've done overnight, so no idea what was the culprit earlier. Today, the google play store have used 35% (!) plus 8% from google play services.

But I still have a phone at 30%. While it's crap (this S5 goes for 2 days on one charge, normally) it's nothing like the yesternight thing.

Thanks, I'll keep an eye on it.
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Re: Sudden battery depletion on samsung

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Disabling things you really shouldn't might be part of the issue.
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Re: Sudden battery depletion on samsung

Post by ysu »

r8response wrote:Disabling things you really shouldn't might be part of the issue.
Quite true :)
And the funny things is; I wanted to save memory (and maybe battery) by disabling stuff. It was also too far back to ring a bell.

Nonetheless, I went back to the default state to see what happens from here.
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Re: Sudden battery depletion on samsung

Post by ysu »

Google-fu told me the problem can be either with syncing or with some app, most likely. To test it one has to restart the phone in "safe mode", apparently. Then if the usage is normal; it's an app. It was sitting on 92% for hours.
So yeah, some app is doing something. Great, I'm so much more informed now :) Still this info may help someone in the future.

I've uninstalled a few I'm not really using, but it's a stab in the dark, really.
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Re: Sudden battery depletion on samsung

Post by ysu »

Thanks for all the help, guys. It seems the problem is gone with the handful of extra apps I got rid of.
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