AT&T Lumia 920 Battery Drain on Idle Cause - Prevention - Network Signal

dkp23

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So I am currently on my 3rd Lumia 920 which I received last Thursday and the week I've used, the phone has been constantly draining. I got three apps running, two push emails and one 30 minute update. BT, NFC off and sensitvity on. Skype, whatsapp on my phone.

Basic usage
5-10 minutes of phone calls/day average
50-100 texts per day average
1-2 hours surfing internet (surf one hour straight during lunch in my car). This includes IE10, wpcentral, weave, people hub.
Weather updating every hour, locksider updating every hour, and battery status app running in background.

Off the charger at 745am and usually would be down to 10-20% by 2 or 3 pm, charge and then back down to the same by bed time at around 11-12 pm. The phone would drain 10% or more every hour on idle, so if i use, it drains even faster.

I was basically sick of this and am in the process of getting another exchange.

Now to the cause and the prevention part of the post.

Ok so, while I am using the phone, i noticed some funny things regarding the phone which included constant rebooting throughout the day, probably 2-5 per day. The 1st day, it would reboot almost every few minutes for awhile, very annoying. Anyway, the thing I noticed was when I put my phone to sleep after using it, when i turned it on to use it or to check something, i would see my reception bar at 0 bars or even have the no signal sign. I tried this throughout the week and most of the time, when i turn on the phone, it shows no signal sign again and after about 15-20 seconds, it will go to 4g (hspa) or LTE . I wondered if there was an issue with my phone trying to get signal while asleep, it seems the reception is very low while the phone is asleep which was causing my alarm clock to get feedback as the phone I think was struggling to maintain reception on LTE. My two previous phones, i didn't get feedback, but this one, would constantly cause feedback on my alarm clock to the point my GF was screaming at me at night. I also checked my email accounts setting right after i turn on the phone, some or all my accounts would have the red error "not up to date" sign on it, after a few minutes, it will sync and update. I've never seen this on my other phones. I live in a strong LTE area and my previous phones had no issue with LTE reception once provisoined, this phone, it would fluctuate back and forth on LTE and 4g all day. So I believe the battery drain is probably the phone trying to get signal while asleep and also trying to update your email accounts or facebook.twitter while asleep with the weak reception.

So i figured i just turn off 4g completely and do without LTE until i receive my new replacement and see how it works. So using the ##3282 code on my phone, i just set my phone to 3g constantly with no automatic network switch. Right now, off the charger at 7:45am, my phone is at 20% at 10pm here so my phone's battery performance has increased 7 hours by setting the network to 3g(hspa) only. So the issue for my phone and could be for others with idle battery drain is the phone switching struggling to maintain reception while asleep.

It is common knowledge LTE uses more battery, I understand that, but I have experienced a 920 phone with constant LTE and last me the whole day and even two days, but i had to give that phone away.

The point is, the idle drain issue could be the phone struggling to keep reception and when it does, it struggles to sync your accounts causing constant syncing efforts. This is not a permanent solution, there is no way I am keeping this phone, but for those waiting for a replacement, I would suggest changing the network settings to 3g only to extend your battery until your exchange comes in .

Also, since I've gotten this phone, there have been multple reboots every single day I've had it, since going straight 3g last night, I have had 0 random reboots.

This is just my experience so take it for what it is worth, felt this could be helpful for some.
 

Huime

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with that usage, I don't think any phone can survive a day without charging. 100 text for example if you do 1 min per text thats solid 100min usage time. Plus 8am-3pm, thats 7 hours, consider thats your prime time, about 10% per hour is not exceptional but not bad either. 3-12pm, thats another 9, say you did 20% of the call and text, thats still not that bad consider thats like 9% per hour.
 

dkp23

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with that usage, I don't think any phone can survive a day without charging. 100 text for example if you do 1 min per text thats solid 100min usage time. Plus 8am-3pm, thats 7 hours, consider thats your prime time, about 10% per hour is not exceptional but not bad either. 3-12pm, thats another 9, say you did 20% of the call and text, thats still not that bad consider thats like 9% per hour.

Not only can a phone last a whole day without charging with wwhat listed as my usage, ive done it with a 920 and easily get it to midnight with 20% left for a whole month.
My 2nd 920 did this and by mid month I was already over 1k texting. So avg a little less than 100 per day and only one day did I not make it through 11 pm without charging. That day I took 10 min of video and 200 pics.

There is no reason for my phone to drain 10% per hour idle. The 2nd phone i had drained 17% one day with very minimal use in 24 hours. I could put the phone down for 6 hours and the battery level would be same or down a couple percent. I can't with this phone.

If ur phone cant Last past 3 with what I listed and is seeing 10% battery drain on idle per hour, exchange it.
 

Huime

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Not only can a phone last a whole day without charging with wwhat listed as my usage, ive done it with a 920 and easily get it to midnight with 20% left for a whole month.
My 2nd 920 did this and by mid month I was already over 1k texting. So avg a little less than 100 per day and only one day did I not make it through 11 pm without charging. That day I took 10 min of video and 200 pics.

There is no reason for my phone to drain 10% per hour idle. The 2nd phone i had drained 17% one day with very minimal use in 24 hours. I could put the phone down for 6 hours and the battery level would be same or down a couple percent. I can't with this phone.

If ur phone cant Last past 3 with what I listed and is seeing 10% battery drain on idle per hour, exchange it.

You said you are actively using it, how can it be idle?
 

dkp23

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You said you are actively using it, how can it be idle?
you are assuming it takes me a min to type one text. When I text its back and forth so whoever I text runs of 3-5 incoming text and outgoing in a min or more.

And then you are assuming 100 everytime, so yes, the phone is on idle also which the battery drains as well.
Combine battery drain while use and also the battery drain on idle which is the major problem, battery doesn't last long.
 

Huime

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you are assuming it takes me a min to type one text. When I text its back and forth so whoever I text runs of 3-5 incoming text and outgoing in a min or more.

And then you are assuming 100 everytime, so yes, the phone is on idle also which the battery drains as well.

Combine battery drain while use and also the battery drain on idle which is the major problem, battery doesn't last long.
regardless whether you used a min or less, you are just confusing me or maybe yourselves too.
First you list a pretty heavy usage, then you said LTE is the one to blame, on other hand you had to send back the miracle 2 days lasting 920.
Is that 920 even working as it should? The battery is not draining the amount it should is probably just a by product as it is just partially working.
 

dkp23

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regardless whether you used a min or less, you are just confusing me or maybe yourselves too.
First you list a pretty heavy usage, then you said LTE is the one to blame, on other hand you had to send back the miracle 2 days lasting 920.
Is that 920 even working as it should? The battery is not draining the amount it should is probably just a by product as it is just partially working.

The 2nd phone was a loaner that was given to me by Nokia, it eventually went to my niece because her phone died and arranged this with nokia to do so. That is why i gave up the 2nd phone when i received my replacement.

Ill try to use your example so lets say 1 text = 1 minute that is 100 minutes or one hour and 40 minutes. Lets say i do two hours of various surfing on the phone.

So that is 3 hours and 40 minutes. now 8-3pm is 7 hours, i've used my phone for a total of 3 hours and 40 minutes. Lets say the 100 texting kills 20% (which it doesnt, it kills about less than 10%)

lets say the 2 hour surfing kills 30% which is what i usually see in the drain when i use, so half of my 7 hours is gone with about 3.5 left for idle time, so my battery would drain 30-50% in the remaining time left to 3pm while the phone is left untouched while im working? I dont know what to say if you think that much drain is good when the phone is not in use.

I stated the battery would drain 10% on idle and there is no reason for that on any phone.

The point is not an "LTE uses your battery so use 4g". The phone itself is having trouble sustaining LTE reception while asleep even in a good LTE area, I am in a good LTE area and I've had 3 seeprate LTE phones and no issues, but this phone struggles and this could be reason for battery drain.
 

GomzyRockz

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Right now, off the charger at 7:45am, my phone is at 20% at 10pm .

You just had 14 hours of battery life, and your phone is at 20%, so you still have a few hours left. Even if you enable LTE, I am sure you would have got 14 hours, which is pretty average.
 

dkp23

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You just had 14 hours of battery life, and your phone is at 20%, so you still have a few hours left. Even if you enable LTE, I am sure you would have got 14 hours, which is pretty average.

Not with this phone, if i kept my settings at automatic where it would go to LTE when in LTE zone and switch to 4g in non LTE, my battery will not last past 3pm. It has been this way since i got the phone last thursday until I changed the setting on Wednesday. The phone also had rebooting issues and causing speaker feedback like the olden flip phones. After changing, no feedback and not one reboot.
 

Squatting Hen

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I actually think this could be and possibly is the cause of my less than stellar battery. Compared to my usage, the information in the fist post would be considered heavy. I received a replacement from Nokia yesterday (different issue), and I still have my original phone. The one from Nokia, from everything I can tell is brand new, and it does have the latest OS update on it. I restored it from my current profile and setup everything the exact same way.

I brought both phones with me to work, as I wanted to test the new one and make sure there are no other issues. The new phone has the sim card in it, and the original one does not. Neither are connected to WIFI and both were charged overnight to 100% and have been off the charger for just under three hours.

Original phone battery status
Remaining Battery Life = 100%
Estimated Time Remaining = 13 Hours

Replacement (New) phone battery status
Remaining Battery Life = 82%
Estimated Time Remaining = 1 day 8 hours

Usage this morning on original phone =
Looked at the battery status a few times. No sim card installed. No games, no apps used.

Usage this morning on replacement phone =
Looked at the battery status a few times. No apps opened, no games, no music, no texts, etc. Used internet for about 3 minutes. Received 4 emails.

I have basically not used either phone. The only difference is that the new one has the sim card which is using data and allowing background tasks to operate with data.
 

bit2in

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I only do like 3 calls under a minute, 4 to 5 text a day & Facebook 5 times a day under a minute due to battery issue and I have to charge this phone 3 times a day. Horrific. This is my 2nd Lumia 920. Almost all of the APPS are off or BLOCKED. No APPS on the background running. Upgraded the software, sent it to Nokia with no fault found according to them but still have the same issue. Nokia must solve this problem real fast or they might not make it considering they made money this quarter. It will be short lived. I will buy me a new phone on my own pocket & pay full price for it if this continues. Nokia will be history for me.
 

Anonymous234213

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I've not only written to them with regards to the battery drain issue I experienced on both the Lumia 920s I owned but I also posted a detailed review on every smartphone site I follow as well as on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. I recommend you do the same. That being said though, it sounds like all WP8 models are experiencing this issue so I'm inclined to believe it's an OS issue.
 

Michael Gooding

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Having the same issues as well. I'm not sure what to attribute this to. My phone off the charger and idle last night from approx midnight until I picked it up around 6:30 am lost 20% battery life. Aside from taking classroom attendance, I've done essentially nothing on my phone over the past 3 hours and lost another 30%. I disabled most of my background apps yesterday to see if it helped, and it hasn't.

Other notes:
  • My reception at home is awful, so I use an M-Cell
  • I have 4 bars on LTE at work (cell site is in our parking lot), so searching for signal shouldn't be an issue
 

n7slc

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Wow...all this back and forth.

I was having horrible battery issues at work. I have a solid 3 bars of faux-G and 1 bar of LTE. The phone constantly wants to lock onto the LTE signal causing major battery drain. So I disabled the LTE in the ##3282 settings and battery issues are now a non-issue. For me, 3G (HSPA+) is plenty fast for me. IF I need LTE, I enable it only when I need it.
 

astraith

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Are people reading what he says? Anyway, thanks for the tips. When i get my Lumia this Friday I'll keep an eye out for this.
 

c8m6p

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I'm a heavy user of this phone and I just keep the battery saver option "on at all times" even while charging. Without battery saver on, and my phone plugged in while using it, the damn thing would still discharge. At least with battery saver on, when charging it and using it, the battery goes up or at least stays the same.

I basically take a charger every where I go with me. Of course it depends on what apps I'm using. Certain tasks like wordament while playing music or what not will drain the crap out of my battery. Other things like texting are not so bad.
 

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