I don't know about you, but locking the phone down to 3G has solved my battery drain problems.

[klargh]

For the last month of locking the phone on 3G only, I haven't experienced what seems like random battery drain (of about 17% per hour) on my Lumia 920 while idling in a decent coverage (3 bars and up) area. Previous to locking down the phone to 3G only, I would have the random battery drain almost every day or every other day consistently since owning this phone from last year till a month ago.

I have tried many different remedies mentioned in this forum ranging from turning off all background tasks (even to the point of uninstalling every app so I have no background tasks at all except for Extras + info), turning off NFC, turning off Location, turning off auto brightness, stopping music, closing off every IE tab when not using IE, vibrate off, and others. None of them seem to prevent the random battery drain besides restarting the phone (which I would rather not have to do all the time).

I started noticing that I can almost consistently trigger the battery drain if I travel from one city to another or by entering and leaving a building that cuts off my cellular connection. I don't mean that I suffer the battery drain only in those circumstances (cause it's understandable that the phone's battery takes a hit when disconnecting and reconnecting between cellular towers or when it's trying to connect to a cellular tower when it can't) but more so that I suffered the battery drain when I'm idling at a 3 or 4 bar cellular connection area (at my house for example) after driving around or going to classes (which are in buildings that cut off my cellular reception). One of these times I noticed that my phone when attempting to reconnect was cycling between LTE and 4G (hspa+) in an area that I knew from past experience has a consistent 3+ bar of LTE... So out of whim I went into field test and locked my phone to 3G Only (ENS Off) just for giggles.

So, for three weeks since locking to 3G, I haven't experienced the random battery drain. Then I decided to try to see if it was just a fluke and set my phone to automatic for cellular. Within a day I had the random battery drain again. I set it back to 3G only after that and I haven't experienced the random battery drain for a week now.

I have been operating during the last month with location on, NFC on, 7 different background tasks on (one of them being bing weather that is mentioned as battery draining around in the forums), and auto brightness on. I have disabled xbox music and xbox live services since the first day of owning this phone a year ago mainly cause I don't use those services (this hasn't prevented battery drain though during the 11 months of battery draining). Sometimes I leave music paused instead of stopped, and sometimes I leave IE tabs opened in the background. I do have a habit though of closing IE tabs often and stopping websites that cause the progress bar to hang so that practice might be preventing IE from causing the battery drain... I'm pretty much doing almost everything 'wrong' in regards to dealing with battery drain for the past month, lol

I think I'm 2/2 so far with negating the random battery drain on my aunt's and my own Lumia 920. Maybe my aunt and I live in a vacuum and this isn't going to work for everyone, but amongst all the suggestions floating around in the forums, I just wanted to add this into the pile, lol.

Kinda feeling silly that I have an LTE phone that I purposefully turn off the LTE of in order to keep my sanity over battery drainage...

 

[sejgiul]

Have you tried resetting your phone and installing apps one at a time?

Even if apps don't run in the background, when pinned to the start screen, their live tile can still add to the battery drain. I personally noticed this with the WPcentral live tile.

Also check in-app settings. For example Facebook Beta was a huge battery hog for me until I turned the in-app settings such as notifications off.

I don't think this would be related to LTE. I have a 625 and am in a patchy LTE area all day with 3% battery drain/hour

 

[WanderingTraveler]

Glad you fixed your battery drain.

We really should wait until LTE coverage is more widespread and reliable, yes?

Locking my 620 to EDGE has also solved my problem (largely because my network is crap.)

 

[WanderingTraveler]

Have you tried resetting your phone and installing apps one at a time?

Even if apps don't run in the background, when pinned to the start screen, their live tile can still add to the battery drain. I personally noticed this with the WPcentral live tile.

Also check in-app settings. For example Facebook Beta was a huge battery hog for me until I turned the in-app settings such as notifications off.

I don't think this would be related to LTE. I have a 625 and am in a patchy LTE area all day with 3% battery drain/hour

Well, your phone does not have to connect and reconnect to the cell tower constantly. Plus, the 625 consumes less energy than the 920. And, if that's on standby, good luck with that.

 

[sejgiul]

The 3% battery drain is including messaging mainly. For instance, I am now on 91% after 4/5 hours. That includes messaging over messenger, twitter and 2 phone calls.

 

[klargh]

Have you tried resetting your phone and installing apps one at a time?

Even if apps don't run in the background, when pinned to the start screen, their live tile can still add to the battery drain. I personally noticed this with the WPcentral live tile.

Also check in-app settings. For example Facebook Beta was a huge battery hog for me until I turned the in-app settings such as notifications off.

I don't think this would be related to LTE. I have a 625 and am in a patchy LTE area all day with 3% battery drain/hour

Yeah, I have resetted my phone multiple times during the year and also even unpinned all apps so that all I had was the master list of apps lol. I did these before this month's 3G only attempt and those two didn't prevent the battery drain. I also had the battery drain occur after I uninstalled all apps that I can uninstall back in my paranoia days of trying to figure out what was causing the large battery drain lol. Thanks for reminding me, I forgot to mention those in the thread starter.

I haven't changed the in-app settings prior and post 3G only setting, so I'm not sure if that could be causing it, but I'll keep an eye out.

The AT&T lumia 920 seem to have different LTE compared to the 625, so it 'might' be one of the ones that the 625 doesn't have that is the offending one...

According to GSMArena:
Lumia 625 LTE bands: 800 / 1800 / 2600
Lumia 920 (AT&T) LTE bands: LTE 700 MHz Class 17 / 1700 / 2100 - RM-820 (AT&T)

 

[sejgiul]

I'm from the UK. Not sure if that'd make a difference. Have you tried a 4g sim card from another operator? Perhaps get a pay as you go one on a different network to see if its your operator?

Good luck anyway, it sucks to have terrible battery drain. Usually breaking your pattern solves the issues, like what you have done switching to 3G. But that's only a temporary solution really. I'd really test a different operator, and if the same problem doesn't occur with that operator, you can complain with AT&T and get out of your contract and switch to a different operator. And get them to refund your pay as you go sim card lol.

 

[klargh]

I'm from the UK. Not sure if that'd make a difference. Have you tried a 4g sim card from another operator? Perhaps get a pay as you go one on a different network to see if its your operator?

Good luck anyway, it sucks to have terrible battery drain. Usually breaking your pattern solves the issues, like what you have done switching to 3G. But that's only a temporary solution really. I'd really test a different operator, and if the same problem doesn't occur with that operator, you can complain with AT&T and get out of your contract and switch to a different operator. And get them to refund your pay as you go sim card lol.

Yeah, I'm probably gonna try to get the phone unlocked one of these days and then use a T-mobile sim card and set the cellular to automatic to see if the situation is different on a different carrier. If the same occurs on T-mobile, I guess I can then shift the complaint to Qualcomm, Nokia, or Microsoft lol (if it is indeed a problem with LTE as I suspect from my tiny pool of evidence lol).