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Terrible battery life, please help!

Hello I am new to this forum, I just got the Samsung galaxy s 4g this Wednesday and I was wondering if anyone else was having battery issues. Right now I have my phone set to minimum brightness, auto sync off, black bckground and juice defender on. So I don't understand why am I getting only about 3 hours of battery life when all I'm doing most of the time is surfing the web(this forum) and facebook. I even get better battery life from my dads vibrant which is completely stock, has auto sync on, no juice defender, and screen brightness set to 50%. From reading the stats of both phones, the vibrant 4g is supposed to have a slightly better battery. I also don't understand why if the screen is at the minimum it still takes up 94% of the battery whereas on my dads vibrant 50% screen brightness takes up 30%. Is there anything I can do? Will wiping the battery stats help? If so how do I do that from a stock unrooted vibrant?
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App

Check your notifications settings. I know that Samsung's contacts integration with social networks takes a big toll on the battery, hence why I've disabled it. Also, disable T-Mobile's Contact Backup Sync, just use Google's contacts integration.

Thanks for helping, but yeah I have those disabled already.
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icy56 said:
Thanks for helping, but yeah I have those disabled already.
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No, I charged mine this morning at 630AM, and I have been playing with it all day. It is currently 610PM, and I am at 60% still. Seems pretty good to me.

troby1986 said:
No, I charged mine this morning at 630AM, and I have been playing with it all day. It is currently 610PM, and I am at 60% still. Seems pretty good to me.
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Wow thats much better than what I have been getting, have you changed any settings that might have increased the battery life for your phone?
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App

Does the trick to fully discharge and recharge 3 times work with these batteries? According the the Li-on technology this is not supposed to be necessary but I've heard stories in the forums of folks getting great battery life on other phones after doing this. Many people also say their batteries work a lot better after a week of use (supposedly after "training" them as well.)
I believe the G2 is clocked down for this reason. You could try CPU-set app, clocking down to 500-800mhz when not gaming.
Anyone tried these tricks?

gggirlgeek said:
Does the trick to fully discharge and recharge 3 times work with these batteries? According the the Li-on technology this is not supposed to be necessary but I've heard stories in the forums of folks getting great battery life on other phones after doing this. Many people also say their batteries work a lot better after a week of use (supposedly after "training" them as well.)
I believe the G2 is clocked down for this reason. You could try CPU-set app, clocking down to 500-800mhz when not gaming.
Anyone tried these tricks?
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Will ill try to cycle charge the vibrant and use it for a week, and ill try out cpu set. if this doesn't improve I'm definitely returning this phone. I had soo much expectation for this because I have seen people getting up to 24 hours. I can't even get halfway through the day barely using the phone.
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Thats weird... I unplugged at 9:30 used it moderately untill 12:30 at which time i turned brightness to max and watched the intire incpetion movie and watched an episode of kitchen nightmares and ended up at 56%.
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mavictb said:
Thats weird... I unplugged at 9:30 used it moderately untill 12:30 at which time i turned brightness to max and watched the intire incpetion movie and watched an episode of kitchen nightmares and ended up at 56%.
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Yeah there's gotta be something wrong with my phone, after watching halfway through inception from a full charge and at 0% brightness I had 30% battery left.
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I'm also struggling to make it through the day. I check Facebook / xda on occasion and text moderately, Gps off, notifications and auto sync off, display set to 0% with an all black background, even 3g off in areas where its spotty... I don't remember the vibrant being this bad...
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did you guys do a full battery break in? I charged my phone to 100% drained it till it died charged it to 100% again with the power off then drained till it died again... I have great battery life.

What is your usage like? Im breaking in my battery again today.
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rando191 said:
What is your usage like? Im breaking in my battery again today.
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Auto brightness on GPS on sync on 20 texts 30 min playing games 20 min on Facebook now on xda app for 15 min. And standby for 3 hours... currently at 80%. Also have hepatic feedback on the Mtm gingergread keyboard. If that matters.
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I got my replacement 4g today. Hopefully ill have better results. I have a question for those of you that are getting really good battery life, are you running juice defender or something similar in the background? Maybe that's a factor in why I've been getting terrible battery.
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Im having the same issue with battery life.. for me its a deal breaker.. I use my phone pretty heavily for keeping up with email and a little web browsing as well as talking quite a bit.. My iPhone 3Gs lasted me all day of heavy use and with the SGS4G I have to charge the damn thing at least once a day with light usage and if I have to be on the phone a lot then its twice a day.. Not acceptable at all...
Thats with wifi and gps disabled..
On the 3Gs I had wifi, bluetooth and the gps running all the damn time...

Took my phone off charge at 6:30 this morning haven't put it on charge yet at 88% never had this much juice with the nexus one.
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I'm not having any issues with battery life or heating. I use wifi teather most of the day and I'm getting to use it all day without issue. I did cycle my battery 4 times already just in case it matters. FYI

The batteries that our phone uses DOES NOT require u to cycle the battery. In fact, doing so will harm your battery. To avoid damage to your battery always charge ur phone when u r at <15% battery level. Trust me I thought the same until I did the research. I will post more info when I get on my PC later.
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**EDIT**
More information:
http://www.goodandevo.net/2010/06/does-the-htc-evo-4g-battery-need-to-be-primedconditioned.html
http://batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-36.htm

I just bought a Galaxy S 4G on wednesday. First android device coming from iphone 3G. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to preserve the battery life.
I took it off the charger at 6:30am and the battery was at about 2% at 8:30pm.
I haven't rooted the phone yet to remove some of the bloatware that comes pre-installed.
I've got email accounts synching, brightness set at about 10% w/ a static wallpaper. Played about an hour of angrybirds throughout the day and didn't really do any web browsing with a few phones calls. I mean 14 hours is decent but from what I've read there are plenty of people getting a full day of use and still have 50% battery left.
I guess once the battery fully charges I'll put inception on, turn off syncing and try a few other things.
So I guess I said all that to say this, my battery life isn't great but it's not downright horrible either. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
And yes I'll continue browsing all the forums to see what else I can find.
Edit:
Played through half of Inception in airplane mode, brightness at minimum. I dropped from 93% to 80% in an hour and a half. Not too shabby.
Also created a shortcut to toggle between 4G modes and Edge. I know 4G is going to be a pretty big drain so I'll see how much that helps.
I'll keep tweaking it.

this is completely true and if you read the manual on page 13- h t t p:// downloadcenter . samsung . com/content/UM/201102/20110224044646930/T959_Galaxy_S_4G_English_User_Manual.pdf it says that
"• Do not wait until your battery is completely depleted before charging
your device. Repeating this process of a complete discharge and
recharge can over time reduce the storage capacity of any battery."
right now my phone is at 23% battery level with up time of 46:46:40 hrs/mins/secs. with skype calling (around 10 minutes), text messaging, browsing the net (for around 5 minutes about 6 times a day), and talking on the phone (around 15 minutes)
the settings i did:
1. took a picture with my finger blocking the camera to get pitch black picture and set that as my background and deleted all the shortcut icons (i short, i only have a blank screen with the only 4 icons down below)
2. changed the brightness settings to 2 clicks to the right from 0% brightness (or you can lower your brightness all the way down during the night, and 2 clicks away during the day, this will save you more)
3. disabled haptic feedbacks and audible touchtones, selections, and screen lock sounds
4. disabled animations
5. disabled background data and syncing when not in use
6. disabled packet data (3g), wifi, and gps when not in use
the last two are the biggest settings that made my battery last longer.
7. i only charge my phone when it gets to 20% and the manual recommends not to use the phone while charging
i hope this helps.
and yes it is recommended to charge your battery to 100% before you turn on your phone for the first time and this is also stated on the manual.
one more thing, don't forget to set your browser's brightness setting as well
Toshinobu said:
The batteries that our phone uses DOES NOT require u to cycle the battery. In fact, doing so will harm your battery. To avoid damage to your battery always charge ur phone when u r at <15% battery level. Trust me I thought the same until I did the research. I will post more info when I get on my PC later.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App
**EDIT**
More information:
http://www.goodandevo.net/2010/06/does-the-htc-evo-4g-battery-need-to-be-primedconditioned.html
http://batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-36.htm
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Battery life? SetCPU?

How has battery been for everyone? Mine has been atrocious! I just formatted the phone and am leaving it "naked" overnight to see how it fairs. Also, has anyone successfully used SetCPU?

hah2110 said:
How has battery been for everyone? Mine has been atrocious! I just formatted the phone and am leaving it "naked" overnight to see how it fairs. Also, has anyone successfully used SetCPU?
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Battery life has been terrible, even sitting idle with the screen off it uses 1-2% battery in just 10-15 minutes.
Turned off bluetooth, gps and all syncing and it still drains battery just as fast.
About to factory reset to see if it helps....that is if I can get that far without it freezing and restarting itself.

My battery has been great. I took off charger at 8:30am and at 8:02pm its at 61 percent. Thats with some texting, web browsing and wifi.

predator290 said:
My battery has been great. I took off charger at 8:30am and at 8:02pm its at 61 percent. Thats with some texting, web browsing and wifi.
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Did you fully charge the phone before using it?
sent from my side of the galaxy....

It will get better guys just let the battery get conditioned. In the next couple charges it will start getting better. Don't panic you just got the phone, give it a few days.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

Yup I left work at around 5pm with it charged 100% and by 9:30 I had hit yellow(20% -ish). To be fair I was using it quite a bit messing with settings and stuff, and its brand new.
My G2 battery would last forever, literally off the charger at 7:45am and by 3 or 4pm it would hit 60%. This phone is worth it though, IMO.

I also have serious battery issues. The battery usage is mostly consumed by cell standby and bluetooth. On my mytouch 4g at most these parameters were a few percent each. On the g2x they are like at 25% usage each. This does not appear to be normal. This is with minimal to no usage. I dont get it. Is it a software issue, there is no reason cell standby and bluetooth should be usaging so much juice with little to no use.

hah2110 said:
How has battery been for everyone? Mine has been atrocious! I just formatted the phone and am leaving it "naked" overnight to see how it fairs. Also, has anyone successfully used SetCPU?
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Has anyone used Set CPU? Does it help? I'm very close to going back to my HD2.

Juice defender helps tremendously. Give the app a try. Also, let the battery settles by fully charge it.
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App

Yesterday was my first full day, but it gave me plenty of use. I unplugged at 10am and it lasted until about 6pm. Keep in mind I was playing a little and screen was on most of the day cause I was setting things to my liking.
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wang1404 said:
Juice defender helps tremendously. Give the app a try. Also, let the battery settles by fully charge it.
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I agree with you, I only use Juice Defender Data Toogle though. It works great when I don't want to use my phone data.

How hot is hot for the Tbolt?

Hey just wondering what should the average temp be for my phone. I'm running bamf 4.4.2 kernel at 1.47 max and 245 min. I'm around 99.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Is that normal?

Yes high is around 130. I usually hit 115 when charging and using a lot of data.
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miketoasty said:
Yes high is around 130. I usually hit 115 when charging and using a lot of data.
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Holy crap! And I thought it was getting hot. Man you get it up there. I have nothing to gripe about. Lol. Thanks for the info.

The phone feels hot but these parts were built to work in extreme temps. All of my phones have always gotten hot. Even my Apple products way back when would heat up quickly.
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miketoasty said:
Yes high is around 130. I usually hit 115 when charging and using a lot of data.
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That may be so, but I doubt that's a good thing. After trying a bunch of different kernels, I settled on one where my battery seldom gets above 100F even under load while charging. Heat is the enemy of electronics.

m1mgd00 said:
That may be so, but I doubt that's a good thing. After trying a bunch of different kernels, I settled on one where my battery seldom gets above 100F even under load while charging. Heat is the enemy of electronics.
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My phone usually stays around 90 when charging usually data is what throws it up.
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Mine got up to 125F (and drained the battery) searching for / trying to hold onto a weak 4G signal when I was sitting in a meeting. In addition to flashing a new kernel and the new radio, I now turn off data if I'm heading into a meeting (which I suppose is better meeting etiquette, anyway).

I once hit 124F and got an overheat condition. This happened while charging the battery in the car dock on a sunny day for more than an hour. That's with the stock ROM and previous radio. Haven't tried charging the TB in the car dock on a sunny day for more than an hour yet with BAMF 1.5 NTE with the 4.4.2 kernel. On idle, I noticed that with the new ROM and radio, the battery is a mere 75F. The stock ROM and previous radio on idle went as low as 90F.

My high is 47-48c. Has been up there a few tines. If it stays there too long it locks up. I then have to perform a battery pull.

if its hot enough to make the phone act up (laggy, locking up) then its too hot.
charging while wireless tethering while having the cpu cranked up can get a phone too hot in about 10 minutes.

Battery usage.

I am on dfgas' Heinz 57 ROM which i love. However, i go to see what's using my battery since it drains pretty quickly, it says my display is using 98% anything i can do to not use so much?
Sent from my SCH-I500

Wyman881 said:
I am on dfgas' Heinz 57 ROM which i love. However, i go to see what's using my battery since it drains pretty quickly, it says my display is using 98% anything i can do to not use so much?
Sent from my SCH-I500
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Well the obvious answer would be to not turn your screen on so much. But a couple realistic options are - turn down the brightness (turn off auto-adjust). Personally I leave mine at the lowest setting and the only time I feel like I need it brighter is occasionally outdoors. Also, the app Juice Defender has been amazing for me. Basically what it does is turn off all data whenever the screen is off. You can adjust things to your liking as well. I went from having to charge my phone at some point during the day to having 20 percent or more left when I go to bed.

If you kept the OTB kernel that comes with that rom, you can also mess around with undervolting in Voltage Control. I keep the screen at the lowest brightness setting and have a decent undervolt, and I usually have 20-30% battery remaining at the end of the day if I unplug it before bed the night before.

Using Voltage Control to cap the clockspeed is also a great way to save battery. Unless I'm really doing something where I need the juice, when I'm out and about I basically always cap my CPU at 800MHz, or when my battery's starting to get low at 600MHz . You'd be surprised how well the phone will still run and how long the battery can last when capping the CPU.

Yeah my brightness is always down. And I'm normally 800. What undervolt settings are you running? I haven't really played with voltage control.
Sent from my SCH-I500

I got everything running under -50 mV you may be able to push it further I honestly don't know, I haven't played with it much either.

I had a couple of restarts today which I'm assuming is from my UV. If not, I screwed something else up and it's time to play around with a new ROM.
You can look around in the OTB Reloaded thread and see what others have been running successfully, but each phone handles UVs differently.

I'm going to try that Juice defender and capping it even lower to 800.

Is it safe to turn off our data?
Sent from my SCH-I500

Mobile data? Well...yes but you wont be able to do anything that requires data (the internet).
Are you using a task manager? I really would recommend it. Perhaps you've got a bunch of **** running that you don't realize.

Yeah I am using a task manager. And I'm using juice defender so I was just making sure it was safe for it to shut off my data when my screen is off.
Sent from my SCH-I500

Wyman881 said:
Yeah I am using a task manager. And I'm using juice defender so I was just making sure it was safe for it to shut off my data when my screen is off.
Sent from my SCH-I500
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It won't hurt anything just keep in mind you won't get Facebook updates, Twitter updates, etc except for when it cycles on. You can set how often it cycles data and checks for updates in the settings.

I've just never heard anyone having such battery issues. Have you let your phone die a bunch of times or something?

Not really.since I've had the phone its only died on me twice. Its been better with this ROM/kernel.
Sent from my SCH-I500

You can always go to us cellular and swap your battery. It may be that. It wouldn't hurt to try.
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afoley said:
You can always go to us cellular and swap your battery. It may be that. It wouldn't hurt to try.
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That's what I was thinking too. Are they gonna want to look at my phone?
Sent from my SCH-I500

Re flash baseband?

I have a g2x that has absolutely horrid battery life when using WXCDMA. When using it on the go, I sometimes loose like 1% life per minute or so, getting quite warm in the process. Also, when these monsterous drains occur, it continues killing the battery while sleep.
When on wifi, the life is great. I have already tried all of the various fixes, but I haven't run across anything that would stop the wcdma modem from sucking so much power.
I'm wondering if reflashing the baseband would work? Is that file even available? Input is greatly appreciated, cause I am envious of people that can make it a full day on a charge....
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

greengoldmello said:
I have a g2x that has absolutely horrid battery life when using WXCDMA. When using it on the go, I sometimes loose like 1% life per minute or so, getting quite warm in the process. Also, when these monsterous drains occur, it continues killing the battery while sleep.
When on wifi, the life is great. I have already tried all of the various fixes, but I haven't run across anything that would stop the wcdma modem from sucking so much power.
I'm wondering if reflashing the baseband would work? Is that file even available? Input is greatly appreciated, cause I am envious of people that can make it a full day on a charge....
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
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not possible as far as i know... just try a factory reset, that is your best bet

JHaste said:
not possible as far as i know... just try a factory reset, that is your best bet
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Been there, done that. Flashed multiple roms also. Same issue
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

have you tried getting a new sim card?

greengoldmello said:
Been there, done that. Flashed multiple roms also. Same issue
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
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"Flashed multiple roms" isn't helpful. Which roms did you flash? Have you tried CM7 or one based on CM?
Have you monitored your battery usage to figure out which apps are eating up your battery?
Do you turn GPS/bluetooth/wifi off when not in use?
Replaced battery (seems to help people who have over heating issues)?
The most common causes of the battery drain/overheating is a rouge app and/or just a bad battery. My battery never even gets warm. I've noticed that even after long periods of gaming or internet surfing that the phone is relatively cool, so it seems you definitely have a problem there. Finding that problem is key.
Before you jump the gun, my SETTINGS>ABOUT PHONE>BATTERY USE:
Cell Standby = 58%
Phone idle = 42%
Display = 2%
I don't know why that equals 102% but just roll with it. A good battery monitor app will tell you which specific application is eating battery. I don't use those as I don't have a need to since I don't have a problem, but check those out and report back.

player911 said:
"Flashed multiple roms" isn't helpful. Which roms did you flash? Have you tried CM7 or one based on CM?
Have you monitored your battery usage to figure out which apps are eating up your battery?
Do you turn GPS/bluetooth/wifi off when not in use?
Replaced battery (seems to help people who have over heating issues)?
The most common causes of the battery drain/overheating is a rouge app and/or just a bad battery. My battery never even gets warm. I've noticed that even after long periods of gaming or internet surfing that the phone is relatively cool, so it seems you definitely have a problem there. Finding that problem is key.
Before you jump the gun, my SETTINGS>ABOUT PHONE>BATTERY USE:
Cell Standby = 58%
Phone idle = 42%
Display = 2%
I don't know why that equals 102% but just roll with it. A good battery monitor app will tell you which specific application is eating battery. I don't use those as I don't have a need to since I don't have a problem, but check those out and report back.
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I have a brand new sim card.
Yes I have tried cm 7
I haven't tried a new battery simply because its not the battery that gets really hot, its the phone, specifically the area around the camera lens.
Also it doesn't do this while on wifi.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

I think the processor is around the camera lens. I tried flashing a rom that would simply not boot. It would go from the LG screen to a black screen and hang. That is the only time my phone has been warm around the camera lens.
So try to figure out what is taxing your processor and stop it. What rom are you running? You still haven't provided enough details. What about a battery monitor? What apps do you have installed?

player911 said:
I think the processor is around the camera lens. I tried flashing a rom that would simply not boot. It would go from the LG screen to a black screen and hang. That is the only time my phone has been warm around the camera lens.
So try to figure out what is taxing your processor and stop it. What rom are you running? You still haven't provided enough details. What about a battery monitor? What apps do you have installed?
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Nothing was taxing the processor. This has happened on the stock rom with no added apps. Surfing the internet is what made it warm. I used an app called watchdog to see the cpu usage and nothing even went above 40%