Battery from 91% to 72% in 2 hours, no use...

[sting7k]

Yesterday I did a full power cycle to rezero the internal battery meter. Last night I unplugged and went to bed to see how much it drained. It drained only 9% which is much impoved; although I did turn wifi off.

This morning when I went to work it said I was at 91% battery in the settings. I really only checked twitter right when I got to work and haven't really used the phone. I just checked and I am now down to 72% battery.

I know the signal in my building is pretty weak. The Lumia does lose the signal more often than my iPhone used too. Is this drain coming from it losing signal and then searching for signal? Unfortunately EDGE signal is even worse in this area so it doesn't fall back it just goes no signal. Also no LTE yet; just HSPA and HSPA+.

 

[red grenadine]

Check your background tasks

 

[sting7k]

Background tasks; USA Today, BillMinder, GoVoice, News 360, WeatherBug.

But are those going to drain the battery that much? I mean; I had dozens of iOS apps setup for push notifications and such and the battery was never an issue.

I left my iPhone at work last night and when I looked at it this morning I had two dozen push notifications and the battery only drained 5% over a 15 hour period...

 

[LordGreylock]

The other day my phone battery was going down fast, I took it off the charger at 7AM and by 11AM it was around 50% with little use, this was very abnormal.

I noticed it was draining at 2x to 3x faster than normal, I checked with the diagnostic utility and I have very few background tasks running also. I rebooted the phone and it went back to normal battery drain that I am used to seeing and all has been well since then. I am thinking some process (app) may have gotten stuck and was eating a lot of battery.

 

[sting7k]

The other day my phone battery was going down fast, I took it off the charger at 7AM and by 11AM it was around 50% with little use, this was very abnormal.

I noticed it was draining at 2x to 3x faster than normal, I checked with the diagnostic utility and I have very few background tasks running also. I rebooted the phone and it went back to normal battery drain that I am used to seeing and all has been well since then. I am thinking some process (app) may have gotten stuck and was eating a lot of battery.

Ok I will try that and see what happens. Just going to keep going today and see what happens. I will reboot tonight and repeat tomorrow.

Although the phone did reboot when it shut itself off last night when the battery died.

Trying to gauge the battery here. I may just need to keep it plugged in any time I'm around power. My micro-USB cables should be here today from monoprice so I will have cables all over the place.

 

[sting7k]

Seeing the same thing again today. This morning I left with it at 100%. I've barely used it and now I'm sitting here at 70% battery remaining. I even kept it on the shelf and not in my pocket so it would not lose cell signal. Also turned off more background tasks.

Will AT&T swap it out you think? This seems pretty excessive.

 

[red grenadine]

My Lumia is at 74%. Last charge 6 hours ago. I've used it fairly heavily today and have 3 background tasks going (MyStocks Portfolio+, TVShow, Weather).

I don't know what to tell you

 

[Sasquatch76]

I know with any phone I've had, having it constantly searching for a steady signal has resulted in lots of battery loss. When I had an Android or an iPhone I'd turn off the 3g when I was in the house.

 

[sdreamer]

Do you notice any warmth from the device? This happened to me twice when I was using a combination of Wifi (low signal) + Low cell signal + Board Express. I generally see more heat when I use Board Express. Since uninstalling that, I haven't noticed it over the last couple of days. I did have to soft reset during those times to fix the heat, and noticed the drain at this time was less.

Another thing to check is the diagnostics app. Go to Phone -> Keypad -> ##634#. Open up the Diagnostics app and run the Battery test. See what the drain is. From what I've seen, if nothing funny is going on it should be going between 90-110 mA. If it's higher, then check your apps. I just checked right now, an I had myAT&T running, and I was going 240 mA, but after closing it its down to 89-100 mA.

You can also force Battery Saver to be on all the time. That sometimes help.

 

[socialcarpet]

I started using the battery saver "all the time" feature about 50-60% of the time and my battery life is incredible now.

I realized I don't really need my phone to check my email and update tiles every 30 seconds. If I want email or tile info or whatever, it's no effort to just turn the phone on and tap the tile to update it.

With the battery saver on all the time, I leave the house with a full charge and I'm easily at 70% by the end of the day and that's not with light use, I'm texting, surfing, sending/checking email on and off all day.

Without battery saver on all day, with the same usage pattern I would be at about 35-40% by the end of the day, so it definitely WORKS.

 

[sting7k]

The discharge is fluxuating wildly. As low as 265mA and as high as 750mA. It's just sitting on the table here.

Right as I got done typing that it dropped to 100mA and is holding for now.

Today I kept it on the shelf where I know it won't lose signal. It has 1 bar but it is still connected. No the Lumia is not warm at all.

I'm not turning battery save on all the time. I didn't get a sweet phone to not use any of it's features.

How exactly do background tasks work? Do the apps actually pull down information and are connecting to some server? I also see there is an advanced list and it has even more apps listed but it doesn't say what they do or let me turn them off. What are these tasks doing?

Watching the battery diagnostic while I typed it is hovering between 90-150mA now.

 

[Seketh]

There have been reports that some apps drain battery just by being installed. Try to uninstall some apps, maybe one of them is causing the issue.

 

[camaroguy]

Also, one bar of signal is still going to have the phone hunting for a better signal AFAIK. Could be part of the problem.

 

[pderosa]

I noticed that my battery was draining more quickly today and confirmed that there was a draw of over 200 mA when I checked. I looked at background apps in setting and noticed that Top Apps was set to on. This app just updated in the Marketplace. I turned it off and checked again and it was now drawing 88 - 100 mA.

I think that it turned on automatically when I installed the update. May be something for everyone to look out for to keep the battery life solid. Despite the extra draw and some moderate use today the battery is still at 60% after being off the charger for 8 hours. It's nice to make it through a day without having to worry about recharging.

 

[sting7k]

Having 1 bar of signal doesn't make my iPhone battery drain any faster.

While back in my lab just now I did some periodic checks on the diagnostic of the battery. One time I checked and it was using 100mA and two times I checked it was around 300mA. The phone is doing something. I just don't know what. Right now it is at 300mA again and I've dropped another 18% in almost 2 hours.

I still don't get these background tasks. I'm thinking these apps are essentially waking up and trying to pull down their information instead of having it pushed to them periodically.

Do Gmail and Hotmail on WP7 actually use Exchange to email to the phone as it hits the server. I'm kind of iffy about the setting "download as they arrive". Which seems like it would be constantly checking to download new emails instead of waiting for push.

What's Top Apps? I don't see that in my list. There are a lot of apps in the advanced list that I have no idea what they are doing in the background. AP Mobile for example.

I guess I will factory reset tonight and see what happens then.

 

[NicholasCL]

I started using the battery saver "all the time" feature about 50-60% of the time and my battery life is incredible now.

I realized I don't really need my phone to check my email and update tiles every 30 seconds. If I want email or tile info or whatever, it's no effort to just turn the phone on and tap the tile to update it.

With the battery saver on all the time, I leave the house with a full charge and I'm easily at 70% by the end of the day and that's not with light use, I'm texting, surfing, sending/checking email on and off all day.

Without battery saver on all day, with the same usage pattern I would be at about 35-40% by the end of the day, so it definitely WORKS.

Battery saver mode really annoys me because of that GIANT freaking heart it puts over the battery meter...that needs to go, either put the heart beside the meter or make it an outline of a heart. Right now it totally blocks it.

 

[kltye]

Background tasks: Every 30 minutes or so, the OS executes third party app code specifically marked as a background task. I believe it can run for only 20 seconds max, after which the OS kills the thread. Yes, they wake up and do their thing; push notifications is an entirely different thing.

Gmail and Hotmail both use Activesync-based protocols to push emails (actually, I think it IS Activesync), so no polling going on there.

Having 1 bar of signal doesn't make my iPhone battery drain any faster.

While back in my lab just now I did some periodic checks on the diagnostic of the battery. One time I checked and it was using 100mA and two times I checked it was around 300mA. The phone is doing something. I just don't know what. Right now it is at 300mA again and I've dropped another 18% in almost 2 hours.

I still don't get these background tasks. I'm thinking these apps are essentially waking up and trying to pull down their information instead of having it pushed to them periodically.

Do Gmail and Hotmail on WP7 actually use Exchange to email to the phone as it hits the server. I'm kind of iffy about the setting "download as they arrive". Which seems like it would be constantly checking to download new emails instead of waiting for push.

What's Top Apps? I don't see that in my list. There are a lot of apps in the advanced list that I have no idea what they are doing in the background. AP Mobile for example.

I guess I will factory reset tonight and see what happens then.

 

[sting7k]

Background tasks: Every 30 minutes or so, the OS executes third party app code specifically marked as a background task. I believe it can run for only 20 seconds max, after which the OS kills the thread. Yes, they wake up and do their thing; push notifications is an entirely different thing.

Gmail and Hotmail both use Activesync-based protocols to push emails (actually, I think it IS Activesync), so no polling going on there.

Yea Exchange ActiveSync is the protocol name I believe. Fine there.

So background tasks could be anything really? I guess I'm just not used to these background tasks since iOS really doesn't have any I've used except for background audio streaming which obviously will dent the battery. But I don't see any apps that should be doing any heavy lifting. If they are only give 20-30 seconds of CPU time that shouldn't be a big hit just to maybe grab an image for a live tile?

For apps that I can't disable background but are listed in the advanced section is there any way to find out what it's doing? Such as in the case of AP Mobile? I am guessing it is just updating it's live tile but I'd like to know.

How is everyone else' battery life/drain?

 

[kltye]

Yea Exchange ActiveSync is the protocol name I believe. Fine there.

So background tasks could be anything really? I guess I'm just not used to these background tasks since iOS really doesn't have any I've used except for background audio streaming which obviously will dent the battery. But I don't see any apps that should be doing any heavy lifting. If they are only give 20-30 seconds of CPU time that shouldn't be a big hit just to maybe grab an image for a live tile?

For apps that I can't disable background but are listed in the advanced section is there any way to find out what it's doing? Such as in the case of AP Mobile? I am guessing it is just updating it's live tile but I'd like to know.

How is everyone else' battery life/drain?

Yeah, background tasks are usually used to update live tiles.

The other apps listed are apps that use a background task API: Alarms, background audio, and background download. These APIs are used in the app itself, and are separate from the periodic background agents that run every ~30 minutes. In other words, I wouldn't worry about those draining the battery.

I have a feeling there's an issue with the Nokia firmware/drivers that's causing this issue. I've had 3 Windows Phones prior to this, and none of them exhibit crazy random battery drain like this. I'm guessing there's a misbehaving driver somewhere that's sucking down CPU time, causing power consumption + temperatures to go up.

 

[MrTimSmith]

Nokia support seems to think 10-12 hours on one charge with moderate use is normal. Unless I am reading it wrong or I asked the question wrong:

https://twitter.com/#!/NokiaHelps/status/193076166440140801

Edit so does Windows Phone support:

https://twitter.com/#!/WinPhoneSupport/status/193077995156668416

Guess I'll just throw it on the charger throughout the day as much as I can.