Horrible battery life out of nowhere? Bad battery?

[tu3218]

Over the past couple days my battery has recently just been terrible. I go 3.5 hours, screen on for 22min an my battery is at 60%. I use to get around 14 hours out of my battery an now its not even close. I haven't changed anything recently, still running BB.4. Could my battery just be near its end an its just starting to deteriorate now? I know batteries get worse the more they are charged an lose their life. I've had my droid since release. Is this possible?

 

[KevinJ]

Any new apps?

 

[aminaked]

These batteries are only good for something like 500-700 charge cycles, so maybe it's time for a new one. I think they're pretty cheap.

You could try another kernel/OS or at the very least reboot into safemode and see if the problem goes away.

 

[tu3218]

There has been some new games but nothing that I would think would lead to this dramatic battery decrease. Yeah it could be that time where I need a new battery, because this is horrible I barely used my phone an its this low. Battery usage doesn't show any unusual apps that aren't usually there, so I don't think its any app. How do you boot into safe mode on a droid?

 

[aminaked]

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-faq/4380-howto-droid-safe-mode.html

 

[tu3218]

okay thanks. I'm thinking I'm just going to get a new battery. I can't see what else would be the reason for this.

 

[aminaked]

I don't know, it could be an app. It could be some instability in BB.

Maybe charge it up, boot into safe mode, and let it sit off the charger over night. If it's still got most of it's charge in the morning then you know it's an app.

What do your battery statistics look like?...percentages and what's using power

 

[tu3218]

Display is at 26%
Voice call is 14%
There's no app that appears to be taking battery. I looked in running services and there seems to be things running that I don't use?

 

[aminaked]

The running services are probably OK...I think.

Your percentages look pretty reasonable, I suppose, since there's nothing that stands out.

Oh well, maybe you do need a new battery.

 

[Bxrider117]

If you are looking for a new battery, Verizon has a slim extended battery for the D2 that works perfectly with the D1. It is 1820mah. It will set you back $50 and the battery cover will be blue, but you will have extra life and a new battery.

Here is the link: Enter your location

 

[aminaked]

I just thought of something. If you dial *#*#4636#*#* to bring up the diagnostic screen and click on Battery Usage, what's your "Running" percentage? It would be good to check this after the phone has been sitting with it's screen off for at least a little while so that it isn't running. If you then check the battery usage and Running is 100% then you know you have a software problem.

 

[tu3218]

If you are looking for a new battery, Verizon has a slim extended battery for the D2 that works perfectly with the D1. It is 1820mah. It will set you back $50 and the battery cover will be blue, but you will have extra life and a new battery.

Here is the link: Enter your location

Has someone tried this out? Just curious.

I just thought of something. If you dial *#*#4636#*#* to bring up the diagnostic screen and click on Battery Usage, what's your "Running" percentage? It would be good to check this after the phone has been sitting with it's screen off for at least a little while so that it isn't running. If you then check the battery usage and Running is 100% then you know you have a software problem.

Yeah I'll give this a shot, thanks for all the help.

EDIT: My running is at 99.7%(Since last unplugged). So that means I have a software problem? How do I narrow this problem down?

 

[aminaked]

EDIT: My running is at 99.7%(Since last unplugged). So that means I have a software problem? How do I narrow this problem down?

So it was 99.7% and the phone had just been sitting there with the screen off? You have an original Droid, right? But you're running BB...

You see, on the Droid X there is a bug where the phone won't "sleep". The solution on that phone is:
-turn off GPS when not in use
-turn off WIFI when not in use
-after charging, reboot phone

Is it possible that BB has this same bug? It could be. Why don't you try those workarounds and see if your Running % goes down to a more reasonable level after the phone has been sitting for a while? Just toggle that stuff off and reboot.

You can also mess around in the diagnostics screen. Use the pull down menu to check CPU usage. Any programs unusually high? If yes, you can see your problem. If not, it seems like it might be a BB problem. If safe mode doesn't fix it, reflash to something else like Saphire or whatever.

What does your "Partial wake usage" for Android System look like?

Also, under Battery Info how is your battery health, voltage, etc?

 

[tu3218]

How long should I leave the phone sitting there with just the screen off? When I checked it, I may have done like 2 min of browsing an couple texts within a couple hours.

Yeah I could try those workarounds an see what happens. Strange thing is, I've had BB.4 for about 3 months now my battery life has been a lot better then it is now. So I feel like some program has to be eating up my battery thats running in the background or my battery has just hit its end. Only thing I have on is GPS, everything else is off. Brightness is set to auto.

Battery voltage is 3627 mV
Partial wake usage-WeatherBug is covered about 80% of the bar, then everything else is extremely small or nothing at all.

 

[aminaked]

Hm, I'm not sure about the weather bug %. You might want to try uninstalling and seeing if that helps at all.

I'm not sure how long you should leave the phone setting. I'd say at least 10 minutes. An hour would be great. If after an hour "Running" is still near 100% then you know something is up. A good test would be to plug in the phone and then unplug it so that the battery usages stats reset. Let the phone sit for some length of time and check the Running %. Once again, if Running is high with your phone not doing anything then you know it's probably not the battery's fault.