Battery draining super-fast, on an irregular basis: How to check real battery health? - General Questions and Answers

Hi everyone,
I have a Leagoo T5c with a more-or-less 3,000 mAh non-removable battery, and for the past few month, battery life has been somewhat erratic. The phone would go from, say, 50% to 10% battery in no time, and I would get the low battery warning, but at other times it could hold at around 45% for a while before really going down for good.
Last night around 8pm my time, the phone went completely dead while the battery indicator in the task bar said I still had about 65% left.
I tried what's described here and there as battery calibration: I left the phone turned off, patiently waited a couple hours (yes, yes, that long) for the battery to reach 100%, then left the phone off for another hour before turning it on.
In a matter of minutes doing nothing more than checking my Twitter TL, the battery went from 100% to around 85%, and was still there went I tucked in for the night, leaving the phone in Airplane mode as I always do at night.
This morning, I turned Airplane mode off and the battery said it still had 82%, which means minimal drain during the night, with all radio off.
Just a few minutes ago, the phone went completely dead after the low battery warning, and the battery held less than 10% charge.
WiFi is off, cellular reception is very good where I live, and anyway, I don't see how LTE could kill 70% of the battery charge in less than half an hour, even if reception was spotty, which it's not.
I plugged the phone into the charger it came with, put it in Airplane mode again, and it went from 10% to 70% just now in less than 30 minutes.
I know for a fact that fast charge isn't supported on this phone, at least not with the OEM charger, plus it has micro-USB, so I doubt the charger can feed it that much juice in so little time.
The charger itself seems to work fine: It never gets hot while charging, not the Leagoo, nor my old iPhone 6, since I use it for both devices.
So, long story short, is there a way or tool to ***really*** know what state that battery is in? I've tried both DevCheck and CPU-Z, and both say that the battery is in good health, and still retains its nominal capacity of more or less 3,000 mAh, but I have my doubts about that.
I think the battery capacity is reduced somewhat, and I need to know by how much.
Any help and input would be much appreciated!

I must add that I flashed a stock ROM on this phone (yeah, again...) a few days ago, so maybe it's the ART cache being replenished that's causing my battery issues, but still, the problem is so inconsistant that I don't know anything anymore...

I had to flash the stock ROM again after trying (again...) to root the device (successful, but doesn't bring anything of value) and finding it barely responsive.
I'm gonna leave the phone as is, ROM-wise, but my battery is still a matter of concern, because it dies on me at the 60-65% mark more often than not, though two days ago I let it drop to 30% without the phone shutting down.
Like I said, it comes and goes. I really need to know if that battery still retains its nominal capacity or not. Any help in that regard would be most welcome...

Related

Inconsistent Battery Life?

My Fuze has started to exhibit some very odd battery life behavior. Over the past 10 days or so, I've noticed a pattern of extremely poor battery life every other day. I recharge my phone everyday overnight, but some days the "low battery message" appears only after a few hours. I'll reconnect to a charger to make it through the day and then recharge overnight as is my typical routine. The next day, the battery will last me all day and not drop below 50% before I reconnect the charger before going to bed.
Today the "low battery message" came on only after 4 hours of battery use in which I did not make a single phone call, text, e-mail, etc. Yesterday I used the phone heavier than normal and the battery was going strong well into 11:00 PM.
I'm not sure if this is a battery issue or a phone issue, but I'll be darned if I can figure out what the heck is going on. Any thoughts?
I bet its most likely that the phones battery isn't properly calibrated and is why it doesn't show correct battery drainage. I would just buy a new battery if i was you.
Or load up a new rom to your device which cause the battery to need to be re-calibrated and should drain rather quickly over the first days and then go back to normal.( Note- you should allow battery to drain low normally before a full charge again)
But if your battery is just at its end this is pretty much useless, so either try it at your own risk, or just buy another battery -> Really cheap on ebay from trusted sellers!

Easy steps for battery life preservation

This is not a guarantee of battery life extension or performance. These are merely steps (in most cases) to possibly help prolong and restore battery longevity.
First lets understand something about battery charging. The most common mistake is to overcharge a battery. While one is inclined to charge when they see the low battery message, overcharging is detrimental to the battery. This is not good for the life expectancy of your cell phone battery, especially if you are expecting longer life from your battery. Over charging heats the battery, and drains its life expectancy.
Second, it would appear that after flashing (ROM’s, Kernel’s etc.) multiple times, your battery might not hold a charge all that well. Trying these steps may help improve battery life.
> Turn the phone on. Plug in the charger (not the USB to computer) and charge completely> Disconnect the charger and turn off the phone> Once completely shut down, plug the charger back into the phone. Let the phone completely charge, while phone is off. In some cases the phone may give a tone when charged. You can check its status by touching the volume up or down> Once again unplug the phone from the charger> These next steps are curcial. 1.Turn the phone on (give it time to boot completely) 2. Power it off again. 3. Connect to the charger once again. 4. Let charge to full one more time. Unplug the phone!
In most cases, this procedure need only be done once. Remember turn off bluetooth, intranet and other applications when not in use. These accessories pu a tremendous drain on a cell phones battery life. This is why they should be turned off, when not in use.
The old battery recalibration trick?
tomween1 said:
This is not a guarantee of battery life extension or performance. These are merely steps (in most cases) to possibly help prolong and restore battery longevity.
First lets understand something about battery charging. The most common mistake is to overcharge a battery. While one is inclined to charge when they see the low battery message, overcharging is detrimental to the battery. This is not good for the life expectancy of your cell phone battery, especially if you are expecting longer life from your battery. Over charging heats the battery, and drains its life expectancy.
Second, it would appear that after flashing (ROM’s, Kernel’s etc.) multiple times, your battery might not hold a charge all that well. Trying these steps may help improve battery life.
> Turn the phone on. Plug in the charger (not the USB to computer) and charge completely> Disconnect the charger and turn off the phone> Once completely shut down, plug the charger back into the phone. Let the phone completely charge, while phone is off. In some cases the phone may give a tone when charged. You can check its status by touching the volume up or down> Once again unplug the phone from the charger> These next steps are curcial. 1.Turn the phone on (give it time to boot completely) 2. Power it off again. 3. Connect to the charger once again. 4. Let charge to full one more time. Unplug the phone!
In most cases, this procedure need only be done once. Remember turn off bluetooth, intranet and other applications when not in use. These accessories pu a tremendous drain on a cell phones battery life. This is why they should be turned off, when not in use.
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Click to collapse
i feel like i do this every time i recharge my battery because every time i charge to 100% then turn it off and plug it in, it takes another 5 min to charge to 100 while its off. Literally, every time i bump charge it.
cumanzor said:
The old battery recalibration trick?
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Mhmm, an explanation of the bump charge. Been written here before, but eh. Maybe someone lost theirs. I lost my txt file with the instructions a while back lol.
The way I see it these instructions only help to provide a more accurate battery count. Whether the battery is displaying correctly or not, juice in the battery is juice in the battery. Nothing more nothing less. This whole battery issue is ridiculous.
I think it'd be a good idea to remove the battery icon from the notification bar all together.
ninjuh said:
Whether the battery is displaying correctly or not, juice in the battery is juice in the battery. Nothing more nothing less. This whole battery issue is ridiculous.
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No. Your phone has software in it to detect how much battery life is left for a variety of reasons; it turns more battery-intense functionality off at 5%, the camera for instance, and keeps enough battery power so that it can run its shutdown procedure, instead of just dying and losing whatever's in memory at the time.
You also don't want your phone thinking that 19% battery is 1% and turning off or telling you to charge it, as charging a battery that isn't fully discharged is a great way to lose long-term battery life. Additionally, how much would it suck if your phone software thought that 75% was 100% and stopped charging? You could then be leaving for the day with 3/4 of your battery, thinking it was full.
There are plenty of reasons to want this to be as accurate as possible. Unless you just don't give a crap if your phone is usable or not
delugeofspam said:
No. Your phone has software in it to detect how much battery life is left for a variety of reasons; it turns more battery-intense functionality off at 5%, the camera for instance, and keeps enough battery power so that it can run its shutdown procedure, instead of just dying and losing whatever's in memory at the time.
You also don't want your phone thinking that 19% battery is 1% and turning off or telling you to charge it, as charging a battery that isn't fully discharged is a great way to lose long-term battery life. Additionally, how much would it suck if your phone software thought that 75% was 100% and stopped charging? You could then be leaving for the day with 3/4 of your battery, thinking it was full.
There are plenty of reasons to want this to be as accurate as possible. Unless you just don't give a crap if your phone is usable or not
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Click to collapse
The "software" won't ever be off by more than 10%.
delugeofspam said:
...as charging a battery that isn't fully discharged is a great way to lose long-term battery life.
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Not true with lithium ion batteries. They don't have charge memory.
ninjuh said:
The "software" won't ever be off by more than 10%.
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Click to collapse
[citation needed]
I was having all kinds of issues with my battery draining too fast. I unplugged at 7:30AM and by 10:30AM it would be at 60%. I tried the bump charge and all that, but then I realized "It's the apps, stupid!" I started running a task killer after I unplugged it, and now I'm making it to noontime and I'm only down to 80%.
TLR: Keep your apps in check, they are what eat your battery.
ninjuh said:
The "software" won't ever be off by more than 10%.
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Click to collapse
A few days ago my phone shut off after draining the battery - before it shut off the battery was less than 1%. i let it sit for ten minutes or so then turned it on. - it showed 16%.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
i do this ALL the time!
If you are running a custom rom it is also good to delete the battery charge stats when booting back up after step 4. If you have CWM just boot into recovery, go to advanced, then clear battery stats.
There is a way to clear it if you don't have CWM, but I don't remember what it is and I think most people have CWM anyways.
I check my apps frequently. One day my weather widget was going nuts and was using GPS non stop. I pulled my phone out at lunch and the battery was in the yellow. Granted I haven't seen that happen again it has made me reconsider even using apps/ widgets with GPS
widgets kill battery. I had several pages of widgets and I had to wipe by phone, remarkable how much "better" the battery was after that. Weather widgets look great but it costs to run them.
majortool said:
widgets kill battery. I had several pages of widgets and I had to wipe by phone, remarkable how much "better" the battery was after that. Weather widgets look great but it costs to run them.
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I've a feeling it has less to do with the actual widget and more to do with their constant updating when there is a poor or nonexistant connection.
Sent from my custom ROM'd Captivate
BigJayDogg3 said:
I've a feeling it has less to do with the actual widget and more to do with their constant updating when there is a poor or nonexistant connection.
Sent from my custom ROM'd Captivate
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Click to collapse
Don't download the anaimation sub-app. update on the hour (or 2) instead of 15 -30 min.
I would love some advice as a noob here. I've only had my Cappy for a little over 2 weeks. I've done the battery calibrate trick, but still don't see very good battery life. I unplugged from the charger at 100% at 10pm last night and left the phone on all night. Wifi and GPS were turned off. Beautiful Widgets is set to update weather every hour. The phone received 7 sms messages during the night. When the alarm went off at 6:30am I was at 70%. It's 10am now, so it's been off the charger for 12 hours. Here is what I show:
Voice Calls 34%
Cell Standby 23%
Phone Idle 16%
Display 15%
Android System 4%
Beautiful Widgets 3%
Android OS 3%
Android Core Apps 2%
antivirus 2%
Battery currently shows 51% left
I'm running stock Eclair JH7, build 1101
Would anyone suggest Advanced Task Killer or Juice Defender?
There are some good tips for prolonging and caring for your Battery here: (Can't post links, google search: site:arstechnica.com battery life ask ars)
However, cell phone batteries rarely run over $30 (I have seen capivate batteries as low as $13), if you just always fully charge it you will still see a good 8-12 months out of it, and then just buy a new one. $30 a year is worth it to me to just let the thing fully charge so that I can use it for longer.
kb0npw said:
Would anyone suggest Advanced Task Killer or Juice Defender?
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Click to collapse
PLEASE DO NOT INSTALL ANY OF THESE BEFORE READING
http://www.xda-developers.com/android/the-view-on-task-managers-for-android/
If you fully charge and run the battery, done several times, the battery will eventually run better. Surprisingly, there is a "break in" period for the battery.
I appreciate the advice on the task killers and such. I don't use one, and after reading that stuff, I won't. I pulled my phone off the charger yesterday at about 1pm. By the time I played some games, did some web browsing, made some calls and did some texting, it was still at 70% when I went to bed at around 10pm. This morning at 7am, I was shocked to find that it was still at 67%! I don't have a clue what was different. It typically hogs up 25-30% overnight, but this time it only did 3%. I wish I knew what was different. This is so weird!

[Q] Draining battery on first use?

Hi guys
I should be picking up my SGS2 today and I was just wondering what exactly I should be doing with the battery? I've read in a bunch of places that draining the battery fully and then recharging it fully gives better battery life, but I've also read this:
Lithium ion batteries do not respond well to full discharge, you will see reduced capacity and early failure if it happens too often. In any case it is not possible to overcharge the battery on a BlackBerry because the battery and phone have enough intelligence to control the charge (unless the battery is already defective).
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(this is from crackberry.com but you get the idea)
What's the best thing to do?
And on Android phones, when the battery indicator shows 20% or something, is that when the phone is going to die? Or will it die at 0%? Obviously at 20% it would be to protect the battery but maybe Android has been programmed to show 0% when the battery is actually at 20%.
Thanks,
Elliott
read manuals !!!!!! You can see this
Did not receive an owners manual with my phone. Anyway...phone is charging now so too late I guess...
Starholdest said:
Did not receive an owners manual with my phone. Anyway...phone is charging now so too late I guess...
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Click to collapse
The manual is probably stored on the phone, at least my new Ascend II came with its stored on the phone, you have to goto the big menu (forgive me for not knowing the technical term for it) to find it however
i got my battery fully charged...then in the first day i discharged it till 10% at least that's what my phone was saying
i read too that the new li-ion batteryes do not need to be "formated" (fully discharged till the phone dies and then fully charged with the phone turned off) in android case i think that thing is not posible coz it needs at least 5% to pass the bootloader and then begin to charge
anyway in my manual it says that the battery will begin the normal state after 8 days of use, until then it may disschage quick
i have a motorola defy
Calibrate the battery. Charge the phone while its switched off for about 6 hours, and then use the phone untill the entire battery runs out and it switches off on its own. After this, the phone should be able to use the battery properly.
i just used my galaxy and made it empty, then charged it full.
nowadays i have runtimes from 3days (72 hours) and then its @ about 5%
there seems to be a lot of back-and-forth regarding whether or not draining a battery is healthy; i drain my iphone battery down to zero about once a month and the battery has been doing fine for two years . . . whether it would be doing just as well without the draining time is anyone's guess.
I have always been under the impression that lit-ion batteries do not need any kind of special care or break in. But since our phones estimate the charge, we should occasionally let the battery run out to reset the calibration in case it gets screwed up.
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
I don't think you need to worry about draining the battery till it's dead. My phone dies often and the battery is still kickin It's my understanding, that the purpose of draining the phone before you charge it is to calibrate what the OS says for charge remaining to the battery's actual charge.
Or something like that...
Hi all,
I have my sgs 2 since June and it's working pretty well apart from the battery drain which is very harmful in my daily life
I've recently flashed the Cognition 1.30 (last friday). Before that, my sgs was able to last the entire day before discharging with a moderate use (10-20 mn on games, few sms, 15 mn consulting mails, 1 hr on internet). Since i've flashed with the cognition Rom, the battery drain is really awesome!!!!!!
I fully charge the phone (switched off) then when i switch it on and the phone stays idle, after 1 hr or so, i've already lost almost 20%. When i'm on internet or playing games, the battery loss is approximatively of 1% per min.
I've made a full wipe and recalibrated my battery so normally it should at least last a day and thats not the case.
Could somebody help me or should i buy a new battery and test it ?
Because i relly like this rom and from others users, it has a good feedback concerning the battery use

[Q] Why do I lose 3% battery in 10 mins, then it's fine after that?

Not sure what's happening with my phone, but after removing the plug on my fully charged phone, I will let my phone sit idle for about 10 mins, when I go wake the screen, I see that I've already lost 3% of battery capacity.
The weird part is after this initial 3% is gone, my battery will drain normally. Does this mean I need to calibrate my battery? Is there anyway to do this without damaging it?
It means you need to get a new hobby... seriously, why do you care if it changes nothing what so ever. In order to fix this, you should try not checking your battery percentage every 2 minutes. On the upside, this will probably give you another half hour of battery life as well.(damn a change of attitude would fix like 90% of problems on this site)
On a more serious note, it's likely just because your phone doesn't keep charging when it hits full charge, it stops charging in order to not kill your battery, and lets it drain to like 90% at which point it will charge back up to 100%, so it may be at any point in between when you disconnect it. Even if it is truly at 100% when you disconnect the charger, the measurements may not be completely accurate when approaching 100%, so it is likely, that could make it drop faster at first. You need to do nothing in order to fix this, seriously don't mess with it.
CoronaDelux said:
Not sure what's happening with my phone, but after removing the plug on my fully charged phone, I will let my phone sit idle for about 10 mins, when I go wake the screen, I see that I've already lost 3% of battery capacity.
The weird part is after this initial 3% is gone, my battery will drain normally. Does this mean I need to calibrate my battery? Is there anyway to do this without damaging it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you running stock or custom kernel and any custom ROM? Ive noticed this sometimes too but that's because the phone, when unplugged is running services to start phone on battery power versus the cord/wall charger. Check logcats to see what happens when phone unplugged to see what may be happening when phone starts on battery.
I think you are worrying about it a little too much. It could be searching for service (which drains a lot of battery), starting services as someone previously said, heat is horrible for a battery, anything. If the drain is normal after that who knows it could be the ROM you are on, battery percentage not being reported correctly.
Not worth an RMA by any means. Reset battery stats in recovery and see how that works out for you.
Bear in mind, these batteries are cell batteries, a user who plugs their phone in every time the battery hits 50%, is going to notice over a period of time the time it takes to go from 100% to 50% is shorter and shorter, and suddenly, 49%-0 holds a better charge. If you're constantly charging your phone, you'll wear those cells of your battery down. This is where the "hoax" of always letting your battery drain to 0% when you get it to "maximize" battery potential came from.

Weird problem with battery on unrooted phone

I bought my phone new when the Galaxy S6 first came out and have not rooted it.
For while now my battery life has been bad but consistent, or I would say acceptable given what is running in the background. With normal usage, including connecting to a bluetooth watch, LTE, and location services on, my phone battery would drop from around 100% starting at 7am to around 70% by noon. On weekends when I'm just at home and have it on Wifi instead and no bluetooth, it takes until around 6pm to drain to 70%. These numbers have been consistent, give or take 5% for over a year.
The problem started recently when I received an OS update. I can't remember if I was already on Android 7.0 before this update and it was just a minor update for something else, or if this updated me to 7.0 from 6.x
The first week after the update the battery was great. With no change in the way I use my phone I was able to go the entire day without recharging. By noon I was still at 85-90% and by around 7pm it showed 60-70%. So I was able to go the entire day without recharging for almost 2 weeks after the update.
The problem started 3 days ago when suddenly the battery is draining like crazy, and it seems like there's something weird with the battery indicator and the way it's charging. Again, nothing has changed in the way I use my phone.
Now, when I use it, the battery will go down by 1% every minute. And even when I don't use it, it will be down to 70% by 8am and 20% by noon. The stranger thing is when I try to charge it.
Before, with normal use, it will take around 1 hour to charge my every night. Also, the indicator showing how much time is remaining is pretty accurate as well. Now, when I charge it, it seems to take a lot longer. The time indicator will sometimes fluctuate. It may show a realistic time like 45mins remaining, then change to 10mins, then back to 45mins. Also, the times seem to be incorrect. For example, before if I'm at 85% it might take another 15-20mins to reach 100%. Now, it will be at 85%, say it will take 40mins, but after 40mins it's still only showing 90%.
I tried restarting my phone normally, and resetting it by pressing the the vol down and power buttons. I also tried other power saving methods like forcing apps to sleep when I'm not using them. But for some reason, the battery is still draining like crazy.
At this point, given what is going on when I charge the battery, I'm wondering if the real problem is the OS update screwed up the way the phone is reading the battery's power and not that the battery is actually being drained. Maybe the battery in fact is still at 70% by noon even though it says 20%.
Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to be as detailed as possible given that this seems to be different from some of the other battery related problems I've read about on the forums.
Any help or insight will be appreciated.
replace the internal battery

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