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[Q] Low Signal

I have a huge battery drain, and i think that is because i have low signal (look at the picture).
I tried to recalibrate battery for two times, and use it for 2-3 days, but it's alway the same.
I get maybe 7h with normal use. 50% of the time with 3G/EDGE, 50% with WIFI. screen time 1h, and turned off Auto sync.
Can someone help me? I need my phone whole day, not 7h. :S
EDIT: I'm using stock 4.0.4 with matr1x kernel

Bump?

Can't really help you as cell reception is based on the quality of the carrier. I normally experience -95 dBm and I believe it is a cause for such high drain too.
The only thing I could recommend is try flashing a different radio and see if you get a better signal?
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA

BetterBatteryStats can let you know if it's not the radio. To test if it is the radio, try switching to 2G only.

Well, it was 3G-s fault. I switched to 2G and now there is no battery drain.
BUT, i still don't know why is there no 3G network in my house.
I have SGSII on my shelf, with the same carrier and it has 3G.

There is 3G at your house. It is just weak, much like me. A few too many concrete walls where i'm at.
Cell signals are done through waves which have to penetrate through walls and other solid objects, this vastly weakens the signal. Once you hit the ~-100dB mark your phone will start throwing more power into it's antenna to compensate, much further and it ditches 3G and goes to 2G assuming it has better coverage. Around the 100dB mark it tends to stay with 3G if data is on though which can start chewing through battery. It would be able to play around with the parameters but i don't see this happening anytime soon.
Compare the dB reading on your SGS2 and Nexus S. If it's much worse on the Nexus S, try flashing a different radio.

I have the same problem, i just switch back to 2g when i get back home and at night. for some reason, 2g networks tend to always have stronger reception

Radio lockup causing rapid battery drain

Anyone else noticed this? In areas of med to low LTE signal (-109 dBm), there are times when something locks up inside the radio and Signal Strength under Status will never change again no matter where I move the phone. During this funky mode, the battery is dropping rapidly during idle... Maybe 10% per hour. Something is wrong. During this same time android battery history shows yellow medium signal and voice calls work fine. There is also no runaway process cpu ussage or awake time. The only thing wrong and drawing too much juice is radio. If I toggle airplane mode or toggle wifi off/on the problem is solved for a while. I have VRALF2 firmware.

same problems here
Scrappy1 said:
Anyone else noticed this? In areas of med to low LTE signal (-109 dBm), there are times when something locks up inside the radio and Signal Strength under Status will never change again no matter where I move the phone. During this funky mode, the battery is dropping rapidly during idle... Maybe 10% per hour. Something is wrong. During this same time android battery history shows yellow medium signal and voice calls work fine. There is also no runaway process cpu ussage or awake time. The only thing wrong and drawing too much juice is radio. If I toggle airplane mode or toggle wifi off/on the problem is solved for a while. I have VRALF2 firmware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same problem. Have went through many sim cards and factory resets. After 5 phone I finally have one that holds the signal a little better and does not go into this "funky mode". With the previous 4 (white 32gig) verizon phone I would burn through a battery in 6 hours at work. It would start with a drop in signal strengh at around -93 or so. Nothing would fix it. I finally got a blue 32gig and it seems to hold the signal to around -99. I don't know if I got a better batch of phones. But it seems to help me get through a day at work.

Scrappy1 said:
Anyone else noticed this? In areas of med to low LTE signal (-109 dBm), there are times when something locks up inside the radio and Signal Strength under Status will never change again no matter where I move the phone. During this funky mode, the battery is dropping rapidly during idle... Maybe 10% per hour. Something is wrong. During this same time android battery history shows yellow medium signal and voice calls work fine. There is also no runaway process cpu ussage or awake time. The only thing wrong and drawing too much juice is radio. If I toggle airplane mode or toggle wifi off/on the problem is solved for a while. I have VRALF2 firmware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not normal. Where I work I get 3g primarily but also 4g in the front of the building.....in the far back I get 1x. I have had my phone totally drop data for a while (like the radio sleeps or something) but never had the radio stick between 4g and 3g. I also live right on the edge of a 4g/3g line and my dbm right now is 111 on 4g LTE......If this was normal I would have had the situation your having since my signal is basically identical to yours. I would return it or at the very least contact Samsung. I'm sure Samsung will tell you to send it in for repair.

I have very weak signal at my house also. S3 switches from LTE to 3G and 1X and sometimes loosing signal completely downstairs but upstairs usually I get solid LTE with around -99dBm and ~10Mbps transfers. During this network jumping my battery drains very fast also but I never had my radio constantly locked at one frequency or signal strength. And I can directly compare signal reception to my wife's Fascinate and S3 loses this competition badly. Fascinate never completely lost signal at our house and it rarely jumps to 1X.

I did a factory reset yesterday and so far so good... I''ll update as time goes on.
As far as signal strength goes in general,my wife's Droid Charge always pulls in a few more LTE dBm's than my GS3. Based on general public feedback, GS3 is below average on signal and radio issues. It's too bad because the rest of the phone is above average.

It's been 2 days after the factory reset and no problems with battery drain or radio lock up.
The only app that I could maybe try and blame is Elixir 2's create widget feature for signal strength. This always returned bogus values and may have embedded itself at an unholy level. Simply uninstalling elixir 2 didn't fix it.

If anyone still cares... I found my radio lockup and battery drain issues returned only after I reinstalled Better Battery Stats. I again removed it and will see if I stay good.

Is there a way to conserve battery when you have weak signal?

I stay in a hotel room often without free wifi. Most of the rooms I get 1-2 bars, occasionally 3. A decent amount of the time I get no 4g and sometimes signal is so weak no internet at all. I notice this destroys my battery life. Is there someway to lower the extra strain on the battery when I know I will have a weak signal anyway without using airplane mode? I wanna lower the power being used by my phone to search for stronger signal while still being able to receive texts and calls. Would prefer to keep 3G on as well when it works.
On a related note, are there any products I can buy to boost my signal that work? And is there a rom or roms that are known to have great signal strength compared to the rest out right now? Thanks for any help.

sfetaz said:
I stay in a hotel room often without free wifi. Most of the rooms I get 1-2 bars, occasionally 3. A decent amount of the time I get no 4g and sometimes signal is so weak no internet at all. I notice this destroys my battery life. Is there someway to lower the extra strain on the battery when I know I will have a weak signal anyway without using airplane mode? I wanna lower the power being used by my phone to search for stronger signal while still being able to receive texts and calls. Would prefer to keep 3G on as well when it works.
On a related note, are there any products I can buy to boost my signal that work? And is there a rom or roms that are known to have great signal strength compared to the rest out right now? Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should be fine disabling Mobile Data... You should get texts just fine and use the WiFi for all data purposes.

Im not using the wifi ever unless really important to get it, $15 everyday is too much. So i am trying to rely on mobile data.

Go download the free app "Phone Info", it will allow you to shut off 4G, shutting off 4G stops it from searching and draining your battery.
Once installed, click "Device Information" and scroll about half way down and change the drop box from "LTE/CDMA/EvDo" to "CDMA only"
Hope this helps!

I use phone info already, 3g over 4g definitely helps, but am I wrong in assuming that the phone is still destroying battery when the signal is weak even with 4g off?

OpenSignal App

curious to see if anyone uses the OpenSignal App - seems to offer some good info (may help explain battery drain issues when having a weak signal):
http://opensignal.com/android/

Honestly...I think bad battery drain from a weak signal is a little over exaggerated.
I'm in a low signal at home all the time and still get stellar battery life. But yes...I am sure it drains a bit faster....But only a bit.
And aside from information, those signal booster apps aren't necessary. They just find the strongest signal...temporarily. so you'd have to run before any call....and don't move an inch, or it may jump right to another tower again.
The exact same can be accomplished by toggling airplane mode on and off.
But still....some have good info...I used this one before too...on my s2...which would only work if I went outside my house. Haven't had that issue on my Moto x...signal is fine inside. The radio blows away my s2.
Sent from my XT1058 using Tapatalk

I have used OpenSignal on several devices. It doesn't really help with battery drain but does help you find the good places for faster data and which carrier has better coverage in any area you look for.

Excessive battery use while traveling

I own an LTE through TMob. I don't do alot on it - I get text, email, use GPS when I run, A little bit on the phone but not alot. My battery life is erratic. Mostly its connected to trying to find a signal when I'm traveling outside coverage areas - at least I think so. When I do that my battery life drops about 10% every 15-20 mins. Anyone have any ideas on how to prevent it from constantly searching for a signal? Current I have to remember to switch it to airplane mode when I'm in the sticks then remember to turn it back on later.

Even on my phone I cut the GSM signal when I am in no coverage zone

Well I guess that's that. Thanks!