Battery draining rapidly after 8.1 dev preview install

[Muhammad Fayed]

I have Lumia 1520 and the battery is draining very fast in few hours (3-6)
Is there a way to switch back to WM 8 for now until they can fix this major problem
Or should I use my old phone and forget about it.

 

[tdb1]

I have a 920 and this morning a couple hours after unplugging my phone it said I had just 11% battery left and was running battery saver. I shut the phone off and restarted about an hour later and had 95% battery life. Clearly the earlier reading was off. Then this afternoon I used the phone with screen on for a good 30 minutes and it shows a 100% full battery, which can't be true. This suggests to me that 8.1 or battery sense are somehow having difficulty reading battery charge levels. Is this maybe something that others are experiencing, i.e., false readings rather than rapid battery drains?

 

[drbanks]

On my 1520/RM-938, I initially had "so hot I could barely touch it" drain. So, I disabled all but the bare minimum background tasks and rebooted. Since then, it's been running fine; maybe a little higher battery drain than before, but nothing to write home about.

On my 1520/RM-940, I just let the stupid thing cook itself on the charger overnight. It ran all day yesterday and so far today cool to the touch with about the same discharge rate as the RM-938.

I was thinking that maybe it's just Cortana growing pains or something.

I did notice in GDR2, on my Lumia 925, that often, Visual Voice Mail would drain the battery in about an hour (with expected overheating behavior), so I've been in the habit of leaving VVM turned off ever since. I don't know if it's still an issue, but frankly, I don't want to find out. No one ever calls me anyway, so I have little use for voice mail.

 

[Reebs Reebs]

Mine is draining faster indeed, but that's because I'm glued to my phone all day and using it much more after the update.

 

[mmcpher]

Battery life has been a little erratic since GDR 8.1. Right now its showing up as 7.7% per hour drain under Battery Sense. I will try a hard reset to see if it helps. Now if I can figure out how to do the hard reset on a 1520.

I had been having a battery issue prior to the GDR 8.1 update and it persists. After I disconnect the 1520 from the charger, it still shows as charging and it seems thereafter to begin discharging ​more rapidly.

 

[captainnalgas]

I too can confirm that turning off battery saver indeed saves more battery.... Lol! I've been using my phone now transferring files via Bluetooth and recording 1080p videos as well as music playback for at least an hour now and currently at 100%

Sent from my RM-820_nam_att_100 using Tapatalk

 

[husam2277]

Guys the drain not happening all the time, there is something that suddenly drain the battery so fast and even if it is not used at all, it looks like a stuck process or so.. when you feel the phone is hot Just restart and everything will be Ok again. If someone knows the app that causes the drain it will be useful to uninstall it, and if it is a system app at least to avoid using it.

 

[naeem151287]

I posted this on another thread and might be useful -

OK, this is what I have done on my 1520.

When I installed 8.1 first I had sluggish performance and really poor battery life. Later that same day I did a hard reset and after setting up everything same as before, disabled unnecessary apps from background tasks. Now two days later, my battery is well settled and I am seeing the same battery life as before even with Cortana running. Last night I went to bed with 53% battery left and battery saver showed me 6 hours left. This morning I woke up with 48% battery left and now it's showing me 15 hours still left.

So, I believe people just to disable unnecessary apps from background tasks and need to be patient and allow the battery to settle down.

 

[burakuysaler]

With 8.1 when 1520 is locked it gets very hot time to time and battery drains quickly. I disabled glance and everything is fine. Probably a firmware update compatible with 8.1 update will cure all issues. Firmware with OS update is sent OTA in normal update cycle, but what we did here is to update only OS, so those issues are expected.

 

[mary beth hale]

Last night I turned off all background tasks, turned off location and turned off Cortana. 30% drain overnight! Have already done a hard reset without improvement re:battery. I am really enjoying 8.1 but this is a huge issue for me. Prior to update could go well over 24 hours without charging.

 

[CharlieBoy1894]

What happens if background task of battery saver is disabled?

 

[mary beth hale]

What happens if background task of battery saver is disabled?

At first it helped but last night battery drain was terrible again.

 

[drbanks]

I just managed to burn down half of one of my 1520's battery in about 2 hours of continuous typing use.

Can't decide if that's new higher drain, or just to be expected, since I rarely use my phone that much all at once.

 

[crav4speed]

Fast battery drain happened to me for the first time last night on my 1520. I noticed the phone getting really hot so I soft reset. Still was getting hot. It stopped getting hot after the third soft reset. It has to be a hung background process that just refused to quit. So far this morning, the phone has been off the charger for 2 hours and I'm already at 88% but it doesn't get hot. I have used the phone but only a few phone calls and some texting so I'll keep an eye out throughout the day.

 

[Nogitsune Micah]

Yeah my 1520 is still not doing good on the battery front...

 

[Rallicat]

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!

 

[ptnscr]

I created an account here only because this issue! I've been looking for a solution for this all over the net!

Thanks for the suggestions, it seems the soft reset really helps.

My Lumia 820 started draining the battery up to 7%/hour after the WP8.1 update. Yes, the phone was overheating in the camera area, and still draining the battery even 2 days after the update (with location and Cortana turned off).

I turned off background tasks (via Battery saver) > didn't help
I turned off Battery saver > didn't help

But it seems that the soft reset did the trick. Thank you!

 

[EwingMCSE]

My Nokia Lumia Icon was suffering catastrophic battery drain and I've tried the following things:
1- Turned off battery saver. Seems to help a fair bit. Battery Saver lists itself as the largest power consumer.
2- Turned off location service
3- Turned off Wifi
4- Turned off NFC
5- Turned off Synchronization settings
6- Set email to refresh every 30 minutes and only pull email for the last 7 days (as opposed to all of it)
7- Turned off Cortana

Right now the phone is holding steady, but last night with normal settings on (wifi, location service, Bluetooth) I trained from 50% to dead phone before I could finish dinner and a movie with my wife.

 

[CollinFX45]

Just an FYI for you guys:

They definitely re-worked something in Internet Explorer. It was the top battery-draining app for me and I figured out why: I had 31 tabs open. On WP8, I think when I clicked a link from the search, it opened in whatever tab was already open. In the new version, it opens another tab. Can't believe I had that many open!

​-Collin-

 

[drufranco]

My Nokia Lumia Icon was suffering catastrophic battery drain and I've tried the following things:
1- Turned off battery saver. Seems to help a fair bit. Battery Saver lists itself as the largest power consumer.
2- Turned off location service
3- Turned off Wifi
4- Turned off NFC
5- Turned off Synchronization settings
6- Set email to refresh every 30 minutes and only pull email for the last 7 days (as opposed to all of it)
7- Turned off Cortana

Right now the phone is holding steady, but last night with normal settings on (wifi, location service, Bluetooth) I trained from 50% to dead phone before I could finish dinner and a movie with my wife.

I did all of those as well (also turned off battery saver in the background apps) along with a soft reset and mine is back to normal. Maybe it just takes a few days for the phone to settle but anyways I am back to the same battery life as before and the phone no longer gets hot for no apparent reason.