Nexus 4 battery life is horrible now, why? Help.

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NathanP2007

[H]ard|Gawd
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Dec 17, 2007
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Okay so i have had the N4 since it came out. I know its battery life drain speeds. Lately it has been dropping like a ROCK. And i cant figure out why or if i can do anything to change it.

Yesterday i let it drain to 5% and then charged it all the way up, and started using it today at around 9am (just a little, answer a text then set it back down a few times).

Okay so from the Battery section in "Settings" here is some info:

10hr 17min on battery.

Android OS 27% (CPU total: 14m. Keep Awake:8hr45m. Data Sent/Received 161kb/380kb)
Screen 22% (Time on: 55m. Brightness: less than .5inch slid up on the slider)
Instagram 10% (CPU total: 16 min. CPU foreground 1min. Data Sent/Received 159kb/4.07kb
Chrome 9% (CPU Total: 20min. CPU foreground: 1min)
Phone Idle 8% (Time on: 9hr 23min)
Android System 7% (CPU total: 13min. CPU foreground: 27seconds)

https://db.tt/u3mGbvPT

We all know the typical battery drain of our phones when we go soft on usage or heavy on something like texting or youtube all day. Believe me when i say...i am using the phone how i always use it, and i normally end a day with 40-50% charge.
(Im on T-mobile in Seattle)
 
Interesting.

My Galaxy S has been discharging a lot faster than it always used to. I noticed it about two weeks ago or thereabouts. All of a sudden it just dropped like a rock and totally took me off-guard w/ a sudden power-down. I assume it's because my battery is dying for being so old. But I'm not losing a charge as quick as you are (about 50% in one day).

Then my dad mentioned that two weeks ago he was out of town and his Droid RAZR went from 100% to 5% in about eight hours.

Your Keep Awake time seems high for Android OS... is that normal?

Now I'm wondering if Google pushed out an update to a core service that has screwed us all over.

Anybody else having battery issues?
 
I have no clue if that is normal. What does Keep Awake mean?

Yeah i was thinking more likely is T-Mobile is doing something weird with their signal again. They have in the past had TONS of complaints back when i had a G2, that battery life was plummeting (similar to now) and they said they had messed with 3G or something and they eventually fixed it. My battery shouldnt be the cause, the N4 is less than a year old.
 
elzeus said:
Barely one bar of 3g might do it, what's your connection dbm?
Click to expand...

Oh its always all over the place...switching between 3G and HSPA+ constantly, going from 1 bar to 4 bars to HSPA+ 4 bars to no signal to 3G 2 bars.

Its dBm is changing a lot. -105 3asu , -101 6asu...
 
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Could also be due to temporary service maintenance in your area; if your normal tower(s) you connect to are down or operating in reduced capacity, your phone will crank up the transmit power proportionally. Happened to me--though I'm on Sprint--I was able to confirm that the specific area I had problems with was reported by Sprint as being serviced. When they finished the network maintenance on the towers near me, my phone battery life returned to normal since I was connecting to the best towers again.
 
teh_chem said:
Could also be due to temporary service maintenance in your area; if your normal tower(s) you connect to are down or operating in reduced capacity, your phone will crank up the transmit power proportionally. Happened to me--though I'm on Sprint--I was able to confirm that the specific area I had problems with was reported by Sprint as being serviced. When they finished the network maintenance on the towers near me, my phone battery life returned to normal since I was connecting to the best towers again.
Click to expand...

So i.... call their 411 number (or w/e) info line and ask and see if anything is going on with my cell towers?
 
NathanP2007 said:
So i.... call their 411 number (or w/e) info line and ask and see if anything is going on with my cell towers?
Click to expand...

Not sure what you do with your provider. I posted in their support forums, and then got an email exchange with a support representative that was able to let me know what was going on.

Is there another battery-monitoring program you can run to see if specific apps/services are draining your device more than normal? I've run a few before, but can't remember any of them off the top of my head Also, if your issue is related to constant switching between 3G/HSPA+ or whatever, you could see if limiting your data to 3G only improves your battery life (if this is a tower/service issue). That helped me a little when my phone was constantly trying to go to 4G when my towers were not working properly.

You could also try updating your profile/PRL to see if that helps.
 
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1179809 - BetterBatteryStats is the app most of the people at XDA use to check wakelocks. Interpreting the results will require some searching and work on your part.

I'm not sure whether that will provide any useful information, but the app is free on XDA.

I prefer to uninstall these types of apps after I'm done tweaking.

I suppose you could also toggle off your mobile connection for a few hours to see what difference that makes. If you want to turn off mobile data whenever you are connected to home wifi, there are a few apps capable of doing this. I'm not sure what the various battery-saver apps are capable of doing. I know that some people even use "greenify," which is not a typical battery-saving app - I have not tried these apps because I didn't want to encounter any issues with my setup, but if I were having problems, I'd use all available tools to troubleshoot.

What ROM / Kernel are you using? Any recent updates to ROM / Kernel, or any new apps?

I have a nexus 4 as well (recent purchase because of the price drop).

My battery life is great for now (T-mobile, SoCaL), but I don't use Instagram (or facebook) or Chrome (which I see you do).

Current setup: Purity ROM + Hells Core Kernel + aggressive undervolting (trickster mod). If I wanted the best battery life possible, I might try Trinity or a variant of Faux Kernel (my hunches).
 
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My Nexus 4 is stock. No ROM's or anything.

Ok so i turned off 3G (and HSPA+) so its been using 2G. BIG DIFFERENCE.

Heres a screen shot of a days use on 2G: https://db.tt/fsiCHQU5

So do you guys think this confirms the 3G/4G is the issue?
 
NathanP2007 said:
My Nexus 4 is stock. No ROM's or anything.

Ok so i turned off 3G (and HSPA+) so its been using 2G. BIG DIFFERENCE.

Heres a screen shot of a days use on 2G: https://db.tt/fsiCHQU5

So do you guys think this confirms the 3G/4G is the issue?
Click to expand...

Yep, that's why I asked for your dbm numbers, if its a sudden change out of the blue and you haven't changed the OS/apps then its usually the network. Call t-mobile and ask if they are working on your local towers. I think every carrier is building out right now in some capacity.
 
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