Battery Frustrations

[nextbgates95]

First: I'm not sure if this is inappropriate to put in a new topic or not, but it's unlike anything else I've read.

I'm on my 2nd Lumia 920, after my first one was bricked from a hard reset. I've had my current one for more than 2 weeks. The battery life on the first one seemed pretty solid, after a few days of charging. Now on this 2nd Lumia, the battery is having issues.

I unplug my phone at 7 AM. By the time I am home at 3 PM, my battery life has ticked down to 90%. Doesn't seem like stellar idle life to me, but I am in a building with spotty coverage.
Then, when I use the phone at home, sparingly from 3 - 5 PM, the battery life tanks. It will go from around 90% to 50% by 4 PM, with light usage (sending a few texts, checking Facebook). Idle life is absolutely awful at this time too. I'll set the phone down for some dinner, battery around 40%, and it will be down to 30% 30 minutes later, with no usage at all. Also, when I pick up the phone during this time, it is fairly warm on the upper back (where the processor is).

There's just the weather channel app running in the background for the live tile. 1 push Gmail account, and 1 Gmail account that checks hourly. Nokia Drive has never touched this phone. In fact, I just restored the firmware last night after it bricked again during a hard reset. I always exit my apps with the back button to completely close everything. I also let it drain completely and recharged it, and that didn't help either.

My big concerns are:

1. Why does this seem to happen at a specific time frame?
2. What is the phone doing at idle that causes its processor to warm?
3. What can I do to fix it? I'm past the 14 day return at AT&T, if it's a hardware problem.

I really love this phone, and I was really looking forward to it for its battery life. I'm hoping this is a software issue, but there has been little said about battery issues from Nokia or Microsoft.

--
Jay

 

[fwaits]

I suspect it is a software issue with apps and/or location leaving processes running that we can't see and causing the CPU to spin up and burn battery, but that's just a theory. The only thing I can tell to do right now is reboot the phone if it is warming up excessively when not doing much/anything and it tends to fix itself for some time. Hopefully the patches they are talking bout for December include some fixes for battery drain as well. This happened on the 900 with many too if I recall and they patched it up fairly quickly and battery life dramatically improved.

 

[Lenas]

If your phone is getting hot while idle, then it's not actually idle. Chances are you've got something running in the background that shouldn't be.

Ironically enough, the only time this happened to me was when I had Battery Level running in the background. Disabling it and restarting fixed my charging problems at the time.

 

[irvin792]

I will be on my 5th Lumia next week, Nokia is sending me a new one.

1st phone wouldn't last more than 5 hours with light use and got HOT (not warm)

2nd phone bricked on reset

3rd phone had great battery life and rarely got warm, had a ton of dust in the ff camera and some under the glass on the screen.

4th phone again dust in the ff camera and gets warm doing minimally taxing things, last about 6-7 hours with moderate use.

All the phones were set up the exact same way and I've followed every tip on the forums. Its odd there is definitely something up with the heating up though.

All phones are of the white variety.

 

[ChadWilliams23]

That's frustrating. Hope the next one works out better.

 

[harrytheweb]

I had some battery issues and read that uninstall and reinstall Facebook and Skype would fix the issues. I am now back to great battery life so very happy.

Hope this helps someone.

 

[nextbgates95]

Well, I've just let it die completely again. Recharging it now.

I know that if the processor is warm, it's technically not at idle. I just meant that it's idle for me because I'm not doing anything with it. I disabled everything in the background, except for my push email.

irvin792, have all of your phones had yellowish-tinted buttons? I've had two and both had yellow tint buttons and bricked on the reset. Also, how did you go about having Nokia send you a new one? I'm not really sure if I should try swapping this one out or not.

 

[nextbgates95]

I had some battery issues and read that uninstall and reinstall Facebook and Skype would fix the issues. I am now back to great battery life so very happy.

Hope this helps someone.

Never had Skype, and I've reinstalled Facebook. It's just strange, because something is clearly eating battery in the background.

 

[irvin792]

Well, I've just let it die completely again. Recharging it now.

I know that if the processor is warm, it's technically not at idle. I just meant that it's idle for me because I'm not doing anything with it. I disabled everything in the background, except for my push email.

irvin792, have all of your phones had yellowish-tinted buttons? I've had two and both had yellow tint buttons and bricked on the reset. Also, how did you go about having Nokia send you a new one? I'm not really sure if I should try swapping this one out or not.

the first time I emailed Mr. Elop and he forwarded my email to someone at Nokia Solutions and they called and emailed me.

The one I'm waiting for now I used twitter to ask (@nokiacareusa) about the heat up/battery drain and dust in the ff camera and they asked me to email them my imei # and send a pic of the dust. I did that and they responded with an email saying that they wanted to send me a new phone.

 

[theeboredone]

Working at Best Buy Mobile, I do have to make calls to sales support, so I spend about 30-40 minutes everyday on the phone like that. Then I do mild internet surfing, while still tinkering around with my tile screen. On top of that, I play music in my car with it while driving to and from work (20 minutes), and finally, I spend about an hour listening to music/reading through twitter/weave from the phone while working out. Did all that yesterday from 10 am and plugged it in at 2 am. Had about 20% battery left. I figure that's a good deal if you ask me.

Today, woke up at 10 am. Was off from work. Still messing around quite a bit so keeping the screen on. Did some downloads, read some news. Spend a good 15-20 minutes dressing up my Xbox Avatar. It's 7 PM right now and I got 61% battery left. All in all, looks like I'm on pace to get through another full day.

It also shows I have Nokia Drive in my background tasks. Phone doesn't get hot, but I wonder if it would give me some extra battery pump if I stopped having it work in the background.

 

[nextbgates95]

the first time I emailed Mr. Elop and he forwarded my email to someone at Nokia Solutions and they called and emailed me.

The one I'm waiting for now I used twitter to ask (@nokiacareusa) about the heat up/battery drain and dust in the ff camera and they asked me to email them my imei # and send a pic of the dust. I did that and they responded with an email saying that they wanted to send me a new phone.

I guess I'll tweet them and see if they want to do anything for me. I guess it's just disappointing having to go that route because I truly think it's a software flaw.

 

[irvin792]

I guess I'll tweet them and see if they want to do anything for me. I guess it's just disappointing having to go that route because I truly think it's a software flaw.

I know , tell me about it.......im awaiting my 5th handset and trying to use a phone that dies halfway through my day is more than frustrating. I want so desperately to love this phone but whatever the issue is, its making it very difficult. I should not have to feel like I can't use my phone unless I'm near an outlet.

 

[irvin792]

Working at Best Buy Mobile, I do have to make calls to sales support, so I spend about 30-40 minutes everyday on the phone like that. Then I do mild internet surfing, while still tinkering around with my tile screen. On top of that, I play music in my car with it while driving to and from work (20 minutes), and finally, I spend about an hour listening to music/reading through twitter/weave from the phone while working out. Did all that yesterday from 10 am and plugged it in at 2 am. Had about 20% battery left. I figure that's a good deal if you ask me.

Today, woke up at 10 am. Was off from work. Still messing around quite a bit so keeping the screen on. Did some downloads, read some news. Spend a good 15-20 minutes dressing up my Xbox Avatar. It's 7 PM right now and I got 61% battery left. All in all, looks like I'm on pace to get through another full day.

It also shows I have Nokia Drive in my background tasks. Phone doesn't get hot, but I wonder if it would give me some extra battery pump if I stopped having it work in the background.

I envy you immensely

 

[nextbgates95]

I know , tell me about it.......im awaiting my 5th handset and trying to use a phone that dies halfway through my day is more than frustrating. I want so desperately to love this phone but whatever the issue is, its making it very difficult. I should not have to feel like I can't use my phone unless I'm near an outlet.

Those are my exact feelings, I feel like I always have to have my charger to go anywhere with it.

Anyway, have all 5 of your phones had yellowed tint buttons at the bottom? My two have had yellow buttons. Someone on these forums said that there were a couple batches, and one batch had battery problems with yellow buttons, and the other batch had cool white buttons without battery problems. Of course, my AT&T store didn't have anything but the first batch, if there is such a thing as the different batches.

 

[irvin792]

Not sure about the others but this ones are a warm white. But the colors seem warm on this device over all. Sorry I meant to answer ya before lol.