Battery draining rapidly after 8.1 dev preview install

[thekonger]

Here's something I found, I apologize if it's a repost:

When you go into Battery Saver the default view is the usage. I went through all of the displayed apps disabled background on all of the ones I saw. A day later and my battery was still draining way too fast. Well, I went back into Battery Saver and at the bottom of the list I noticed the 'show all apps' link. I clicked that and voila, I had a dozen apps with background activity still enabled, a few that I knew were power guzzlers. I turned them all off about 15 minutes ago and my phone doesn't feel like a mini-space heater any more. I have it plugged in so Battery Sense hasn't updated to show what my per-hour drain is yet, but I will post an update soon.

 

[Dadstar0410]

Here's something I found, I apologize if it's a repost:

When you go into Battery Saver the default view is the usage. I went through all of the displayed apps disabled background on all of the ones I saw. A day later and my battery was still draining way too fast. Well, I went back into Battery Saver and at the bottom of the list I noticed the 'show all apps' link. I clicked that and voila, I had a dozen apps with background activity still enabled, a few that I knew were power guzzlers. I turned them all off about 15 minutes ago and my phone doesn't feel like a mini-space heater any more. I have it plugged in so Battery Sense hasn't updated to show what my per-hour drain is yet, but I will post an update soon.

Where's the per-hour drain found?

 

[thekonger]

I just checked and it's 4.8%, which is higher than normal but way less than the 15%+ I have running at a lot since I installed the developer preview. I can actually charge my phone via USB now. A few times it seemed like it was draining as fast as I could charge it. I'll post back in a few hours after I get a better range of data, but the fact that there were a dozen apps I wasn't even being shown at first with background usage turned on seemed to be the problem.

 

[harsh jain8123]

My Lumia 820's battery is draining very fast after updating to windows 8.1... Or gets discharged within 5-6 hours, after a normal use

 

[gonzagio]

Hello to all, first sorry for my english. I have the same problems in my 620. I turned off all background apps except messenger and whatsapp, even the battery saver app. Nothing works, the battery goes from almost 90% to 10% in 8 hours whitout use over the night. So checking some configurations I noticed that the facebook app have an option to sync whit the phone that works even when is disabled from the battery saver app because it sync whit the whole phone, not just whit the notification center. To check it truthfully i unistalled the facebook app and put the phone to charge, when i have result after testing i will post it here

 

[zany1]

high battery drain after updating to WP 8.1 is not an isolated problem its all over the fourums

im pretty sure this is the problem with geofencing.

geofencing is a new feature in windows phone 8.1 the phone keeps on checking your location continuously even though the app doesn't require it example IE , whats app etc pretty much any app. this is just like using nokia drive for 4 hours and your battery dies. constant use of gps reduces battery life and heats up the phone for no reason.

when ever this feature is accessed the phone does this in the background( the location icon on the top bar is not displayed how i know this is because it says so in settings-location )

How do i know its the problem with geofencing

heres a little experiment you guys can try out ( please don't mock this post if you haven't tried this out)

turn off location and use your phone normally for a day and you'll notice the battery performance is like pre update. and phone doesnt heat too.

 

[Mitolo]

yes more than a couple of times I look my phone had full charge and like 30 mins later dead I was like WTF .....

 

[Cutting Edge]

Email accounts syncing is the culprit. I had the massive battery drain you guys are talking about but after reading on the forum about changing the syncing from based on my usage (as items arrive) to every 15 min, the battery drain is now gone. The phone was fully charged and I left it overnight and only 2% drained which is the same as before WP8.1 and it's great. Also, I disabled syncing of theme in sync my settings.

 

[bromoid]

Option to automatically turn off WiFi when your screen turns off, which was major battery saving feature in WP8, is now GONE in WP8.1. WiFi is now by default always turned ON and that's the biggest battery drain believe it or not. You can't always remember to manually turn off WiFi when you don't use your phone. So much for WiFi Sense. No sense at all.

 

[gonzagio]

Ok already try unistalling facebook app and the difference in battery life is noticeable but not significant

 

[07outback]

I have looked at the subject long and hard. In order to improve battery life what you need to do is delete all email accounts. Once they are deleted them re-add them.

When the developer preview installs something happens to the email accounts that are already setup on the phone which causes the battery to drain. By doing this you will notice a tremendous battery improvement and no more battery overheating.

In 7.5 hours from a full charge, my 928 has 52% battery life left with moderate usage since doing this. Probably spent an hour and a half to nearly 2 hrs on the web, 4 10 min phone calls, and recvd 35 emails during this time. So I would so that this has worked for me. I hope it helps you.

 

[yaron zeevik]

hey i have the L520 and when i installed the wp8.1 last monday it's drained my battery like hell(i'm talking about 3-4 hours of meduim activity until battery goes flat) but as my system "digested" the new os things got better each and every day.
now after almost a week i'm having 10-20 hours of battery with meduim use(GPS on,data on/wifi on/wifi sense and hour or 2 of music)
i think the system actually learnning to control the battery usage day by day and if it does happening it's an awesome feature by microsoft!

 

[Reebs Reebs]

Top tip - check your email account settings! I had several email accounts, all set to check for email only every 30 minutes - but after I updated to 8.1, it default to a new 'based on my usage' option. That -in turn- defaults to 'as items arrive' - basically push email. Push email is more battery intensive, and when I set my email back to check every 30 minutes my battery life improved dramatically!

Bot sure that stopping push notification is an acceptable solution to stop battery drainage.

 

[Dadstar0410]

Yesterday I noticed that, with no background tasks at all, Messaging drained my battery from ~80% to ~30% in 6.5 hours. What's the reason for this? I don't have any of the messaging settings enabled except for group text (VZW).

 

[Helder Costa1]

after installing dev preview i start having worse battery life. but after 4 days i saw much better battery life and didn't make any hard reset... the only thing diferent i made was charging the phone all night putting it off. and i am ok now, having facebbok, amazing weather, insider, simple calendar, awesome locker, my app free,running in the background... i unplluged the phone before yesterday at 10,30 am and put it charging again today at 1,00 am having 7% left. i think its ok. and doing a medium usage of applications and net and some calls...

 

[stiflingcobra]

Did the email trick of changing sync settings to every hour instead of based on my usage and my battery is now significantly better...

Now its back to lasting most of the day instead of the 5 hrs I was getting before I made the change...

 

[mfrljak]

Option to automatically turn off WiFi when your screen turns off, which was major battery saving feature in WP8, is now GONE in WP8.1. WiFi is now by default always turned ON and that's the biggest battery drain believe it or not. You can't always remember to manually turn off WiFi when you don't use your phone. So much for WiFi Sense. No sense at all.

That is not true WiFi automaticly shuts down when you turn off the screen.. but in the settings there is an option for changing that. Just like in WP8.

For me the biggest drainer was microsoft account, now changed sync settings from 'when message arrive' to every 30 mins and battery is nearly back to normal..

 

[Stuart Gray]

I used a trial an error approach and the ONLY thing that resolved the high battery drain was switching my Gmail account to manual sync (30 min or 2hr intervals didn't help). I barely use my phone, luck if it's a phone call a day but it was draining at ~20% per hour with nothing but Glance running.I tried Cortana, IE Sync setting, Battery Saver...nothing made a difference. Finally switched my Gmail account to Manual sync and it's back to normal again 5 to 6% per hour drain and I don't have to charge my phone twice per day.
Definitely something wrong in the Gmail sync with my phone (Lumia 928), disabling all the little extras like scan for Flights didn't make a difference either. On another note, Gmail performance has always been awful on my WP. I open a message and it takes forever to download 68kb on a super fast WiFi connection, Hotmail is lightning quick. Is this Google and/or Microsoft tinkering to slow it down?

 

[herbertsnow]

Is anyone also experiencing a serious battery drain on their device after the install? I have my L1020 and my battery is not lasting at all, I had almost full battery once I stepped into my office and then by like 3:30PM EST my battery was dead, I optimized the battery to the way I had it prior to installing the dev preview, any thoughts?

This is why it's a Preview. Nokia hasn't even released the new firmware yet. Flash it back to 8.0 and get on with your life.

 

[mary beth hale]

Very happy to say that battery life has improved dramatically in the 4 days following initial poor performance immediately after update. I really can't point to one thing as a fix since I have messed with a bunch of settings and did a hard reset. Possibly, as others have reported, it just took some time to "normalize". Regardless of the reason, I am thrilled it's back to
normal and am absolutely enjoying 8.1!