[AT&T] - Cell Standby.. killing battery. Anyone else? - Galaxy S III Q&A, (US Carriers)

Is this normal? I've had several android phones and this is the first time I'm seeing Cell Standby kill SO much battery.
I'm on stock rom with tibu frozen/removed bloated apps.

Same, it seems like cell standby time is around half of the battery usage. It's ridiculous, especially considering the screen is usually the battery drainer. I've heard that others have had this problem, and that, specifically, it was very prominent on the International Version. But I heard, however, that they supposedly fixed it for the US versions.
While I'm not sure about this, especially since many others, on other carriers, have also complained about the cell standby draining battery. If anyone has a clear answer, it'd be great.
Aside from the fact that so much battery seems to be lost due to cell standby, I am able to go around a day and a half with one battery, according to my "Battery Manager".

Yze said:
Is this normal? I've had several android phones and this is the first time I'm seeing Cell Standby kill SO much battery.
I'm on stock rom with tibu frozen/removed bloated apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is it searching for signal? If your in a week signal area it'll kill the battery quick.

Xalky said:
Is it searching for signal? If your in a week signal area it'll kill the battery quick.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it shouldnt be. prior to this s3, i had an htc one x, a note, an s2 skyrocket, an s2. never had an issue with cell standby til this s3.

Wesobsessed said:
Same, it seems like cell standby time is around half of the battery usage. It's ridiculous, especially considering the screen is usually the battery drainer. I've heard that others have had this problem, and that, specifically, it was very prominent on the International Version. But I heard, however, that they supposedly fixed it for the US versions.
While I'm not sure about this, especially since many others, on other carriers, have also complained about the cell standby draining battery. If anyone has a clear answer, it'd be great.
Aside from the fact that so much battery seems to be lost due to cell standby, I am able to go around a day and a half with one battery, according to my "Battery Manager".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This has been posted multiple times BUT...the Cell Standby reporting is an error - it's not really taking that much battery it is reported wrong. I'm getting expected battery life even with Cell Standby being so high - just ignore it UNLESS you're getting abnormally low battery life.

The bug is ONLY with the "%" displayed by battery in stand by mode.
The fix won't improve the battery.
the real value of the "cell stand by" should be divided by 10
so, It's only a display error.
http://www.xda-developers.com/andro...ii-cell-standby-power-drain-issue-identified/

thanks, that makes a lot more sense. ill apply the fix so I can better understand what exactly is killing my battery.

Related

Will battery life ever get better?

3 days in w/ my TBolt and VZW announces the Incredible 2 yesterday, releasing at the end of the month ...
Rumor has it that battery life will be much better than the TBolt, so is anyone returning their phone right now due to battery life or will there be an improvement once new ROMs are released? Is it worth the wait?
maybe it probably will never get any better. i would seriously maybe probably consider thinking about debating on planning on returning your phone.
i dont know what htc/verizon was thinking when they released this. i mean technology like this and i have to charge every day!! unbelievable!
i probably think inc 2 will maybe be better since its a 3g phone.
Read one of the 100 other battery threads.
BoyBlunder99 said:
3 days in w/ my TBolt and VZW announces the Incredible 2 yesterday, releasing at the end of the month ...
Rumor has it that battery life will be much better than the TBolt, so is anyone returning their phone right now due to battery life or will there be an improvement once new ROMs are released? Is it worth the wait?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like the TBolt... And not waiting on a rumor for the Dinc 2
Last I checked, the Dinc2 is a 3G-only device.
I haven't had any trouble with my Thunderbolt's battery life easily getting through a 8hr work day with plenty left over.
I'd say it's an almost certainty. There seems to be a problem/bug with the radio which makes it drain a lot of power in certain areas (my house seems relatively fine, but in town it's not ... maybe certain towers for some reason? No 4g in my area, so that's not it) when you have mobile data enabled. I'm currently at 78% battery with 13h 30m on the clock ... by turning off mobile data in the areas I've discovered where it decides to draw the obscene ~900mA (or some other fairly constant, very high number) when I encounter the "bug", I've managed to essentially make the battery life as long as anyone could expect.
For some reason, the radio will not admit to drawing practically 90% of your battery in the battery use menu.
So, I'm thinking future radio software/firmware updates can drastically improve battery life if they discover the cause.
Currently, without the area with the bug (I'm at my house) and screen off, I'm drawing 42-60mA on 3g radio and 40mA wifi. And areas with the bug, it's 700mA minimum with spikes often at 900mA and above.
Seriously, how long would you expect a laptop battery to last? These new smartphone are basically mini laptops. I'd be lucky to get 4 hours out of my laptop. My phone will make through the day with moderate use.
Just my 2 cents
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
unremarked said:
I haven't had any trouble with my Thunderbolt's battery life easily getting through a 8hr work day with plenty left over.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here..
Bought a spare stock battery on launch day expecting the worst, but have yet to have to use it. I make it through the day with good use no problem. Today was even better after loading das BAMF 1.3 ROM w/ kernel, overclocked to 1.2GHz as well..
Mine has gotten better over time. Im sure with the next couple updates the battery life will get better. But if you dont care about lte or the bigger screen you might just want to get the incredible 2.
My battery has gotten better over the past week. It's tolerable now. It will make it through a day, which is all I really need.
It's never going to get good battery life though.. there's a lot of stuff packed into this phone and on top of that, the 1400 mah battery is already small for a device like this.
Zshazz said:
I'd say it's an almost certainty. There seems to be a problem/bug with the radio which makes it drain a lot of power in certain areas (my house seems relatively fine, but in town it's not ... maybe certain towers for some reason? No 4g in my area, so that's not it) when you have mobile data enabled. I'm currently at 78% battery with 13h 30m on the clock ... by turning off mobile data in the areas I've discovered where it decides to draw the obscene ~900mA (or some other fairly constant, very high number) when I encounter the "bug", I've managed to essentially make the battery life as long as anyone could expect.
For some reason, the radio will not admit to drawing practically 90% of your battery in the battery use menu.
So, I'm thinking future radio software/firmware updates can drastically improve battery life if they discover the cause.
Currently, without the area with the bug (I'm at my house) and screen off, I'm drawing 42-60mA on 3g radio and 40mA wifi. And areas with the bug, it's 700mA minimum with spikes often at 900mA and above.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Last night I unplugged my phone at 430am. Went back to sleep woke up about 730 and battery was at 45% with WIFI on. Don't know what's going on. Some nights 8 hours with 4G on my phone won't even burn 10%. The WIFI thing is puzzling to me.
Can't say for certain, but I've heard gingerbread significantly improves battery life in most phones...
and rumour is, we will get gingerbread official in Q2. (unofficial via cm7 maybe sooner???)

[Q] Horrible Battery Life

I've read and read, searched and searched this forum and have not come across my exact problem yet...
I know there have been overheating issues, and I know there have been boot looping problems... all causing terrible battery life, mine has neither. Let me rephrase, my overheating issue is not due to me actually using the phone... On idle (with the screen off), my Rezound only lasts about 2 hours on a full battery. Granted, I live in an area where there isn't full service, but there is some service. I can watch as data is being exchanged with no apps running. What the hell is using data? I have a feeling this is what is killing my battery, the phone is not at all sleeping. I have deselected "always on data" and I turned off fast boot and auto sync.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
BTW, my phone is a bone stock refurb.
Try a factory reset maybe?
I can do that, but it doesn't really solve the problem. It just started doing this yesterday. I've had it over 2 months and haven't downloaded anything different. I would really rather just figure out what is causing it, so I don't have to do a factory reset every time something like this happens. You know? Thanks for your suggestion, I'm afraid that is going to be my last resort right before exchanging it...
Try exchanging the battery first. Start small. Work your way up to the big stuff(exchanging the phone). Why give up the customizations you've done if you just have a bad battery?
I was thinking it may be a bad battery, but it concerns me that I can watch the data stay running even though I'm not using anything that requires it. My brother has a Rezound and I placed mine next to his and literally watched the battery life deplete 10% in 5 minutes while his lost no percentage at all, both were idle with the same screen settings. Is it common for a battery to fail that drastically out of nowhere?
sanders858 said:
I was thinking it may be a bad battery, but it concerns me that I can watch the data stay running even though I'm not using anything that requires it. My brother has a Rezound and I placed mine next to his and literally watched the battery life deplete 10% in 5 minutes while his lost no percentage at all, both were idle with the same screen settings. Is it common for a battery to fail that drastically out of nowhere?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is it common....no, possible yes, plausible given the circumstances....absolutely.
sanders858 said:
I was thinking it may be a bad battery, but it concerns me that I can watch the data stay running even though I'm not using anything that requires it. My brother has a Rezound and I placed mine next to his and literally watched the battery life deplete 10% in 5 minutes while his lost no percentage at all, both were idle with the same screen settings. Is it common for a battery to fail that drastically out of nowhere?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If data is constantly being used, something HAS to be using your data. I'd get an app like better battery stats and CPU spy. CPU will show you if your phone is going into sleep mode at all and better battery stats can show you which apps may be causing it.
Do you have the 4G antenna on?
I have betterbatterystats, it shows android system at the top of processes. That program is a little difficult to understand since everything is abbreviated.
I appreciate all of your responses. I just got off the phone with Verizon, they're sending me another phone AND battery for good measure. During lunch today I watched the percentage of my battery deplete while it was plugged into the wall and not being used, used a different charger, nothing. It wasn't even hot. I turned the phone off to try to get it to charge. when I turned it back on, it got to the lockscreen and then restarted itself. Boot looping now. I'm not going to fool with it anymore. Maybe the third Rezound will be better.
AtLemacks said:
Do you have the 4G antenna on?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't changed anything from out of the box other than visual properties. I'm assuming the network has a little to do with it, but it started failing way too fast to be a radio problem IMO.
I received my 2nd Rezound last week. First one had the hiss/feedback/interference issue through the headphone jack that escalated to a level of to not being able to use the headphones at all without being painful. Anyway, the new one is running very hot (battery) and is draining the battery almost as fast as you're describing yours to do. I've used both the standard battery and extended. This morning while using it at home on wifi with most of my syncs either disabled or set at a min of 2 hrs it drained my extended battery by 20% in 20 mins. I wasn't even using the internet or streaming any music or video. I was working on setting up calender and task list widgets. Phone is stock, not rooted. I will be calling Verizon tonight to see about getting a 3rd one. Sucks as I really like this phone when it's working properly. If the 3rd one has issues to and HTC isn't rolling out any fixes for them I might have to look at something else. But I don't want to!
I feel like if I can get the hardware to cooperate with me, I can get the software to. I was planning on rooting after the ICS push, but the phone obviously had different plans.
Set your phone to CDMA only, especially if you don't live in an area with LTE coverage. You will see significant battery advantages from that alone.
AtLemacks said:
Set your phone to CDMA only, especially if you don't live in an area with LTE coverage. You will see significant battery advantages from that alone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I'll be sure to try that when I get my new phone tomorrow!
AtLemacks said:
Set your phone to CDMA only, especially if you don't live in an area with LTE coverage. You will see significant battery advantages from that alone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I should have mentioned that I'd already done that (only 3G here anyway). I've done all the battery management tricks I've read about but this phone has an issue. I'm not even getting half the battery life out of it that I was on the 1st one. And the battery gets significantly hotter then the other phone.
tried wiping battery stats after 100% and drained/recharged a few times?
sent on tapatalk on my htc rezound
if I helped please be sure to use the "thanks" option for me

New to Note and AT&T - Battery drain question

I switched to AT&T last week from T-Mobile to get the Note. Overall the AT&T service has been good and the Note is great! My only concern is battery drain in no signal areas.
Specifically, I went to a movie last weekend and the theater was in the basement and there was no signal. At the start of the movie I had about 95% battery but by the end my battery was dead. I'm guessing the battery drained because it was constantly searching for a signal.
Is this common for the Galaxy Note? Is it common for AT&T? I ask because my t-mobile phones never did this. I've been to this theater many times, always had no signal, never had any battery drain on any t-mobile phones (sensation, galaxy s 4g, hd2, my-touch).
FWIW, my Note was completely stock but was rooted. I've since flashed UCLE2 and noticed the same drain in low or no signal areas. I'm sure I'll get suggestions to turn airplane mode on, or something like that. While I appreciate those suggestions I'm trying to determine if this is common to the phone or AT&T. I don't think I should have to switch off data/radio anytime the signal is low for fear of my battery draining in 2 hours.
Thanks!
While the battery does drain more with no signal, due to scanning for a network, as long as there is a signal it should be comparable to full service. That's a constant signal mind you if it goes in and out it is scanning.
I work downtown in a brick building surrounded by high rises, i get 1 bar in my office, my battery lasts me an entire work day.
What I did, spend the money on extended battery
Yeah I know you think 2500 mAH should be pretty good, but isn't, just spend the money on extended battery. Am at 26 hours, with fairly hard use, on Mugen 5400 mAH and have 15% remaining. Does add some depth to it, but that is the price, daughter ordered me case that fits over extended battery can't wait till it gets here. If you are interested can post pics once the case is here so you have idea on overall look.
Would no signal cause that much more drain? In the theater there was no signal. I couldnt browse or make a call. If memory serves there was a circle with a line through it where the 4g symbol would normally be. Still seems like an excessive amount of drain.
__McB__ said:
Would no signal cause that much more drain? In the theater there was no signal. I couldnt browse or make a call. If memory serves there was a circle with a line through it where the 4g symbol would normally be. Still seems like an excessive amount of drain.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh yeah, if it is constantly looking for signal, will suck a battery down in no time. Job has me go to places in the mid-west, my supervisor and I just know to put in airplane mode or turn off in certain places or we will have bricks due to quick battery drain.
vanemburghj said:
Oh yeah, if it is constantly looking for signal, will suck a battery down in no time. Job has me go to places in the mid-west, my supervisor and I just know to put in airplane mode or turn off in certain places or we will have bricks due to quick battery drain.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting. Is this something unique to AT&T's service? I never had this occur with tmous. Maybe I'm just lazy but having to track if I have a signal all the time for fear of my battery draining that fast doesn't seem right.
__McB__ said:
Interesting. Is this something unique to AT&T's service? I never had this occur with tmous. Maybe I'm just lazy but having to track if I have a signal all the time for fear of my battery draining that fast doesn't seem right.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not unique to AT&T, but once you figure out where you get no signal it becomes automatic reflex to go into airplane mode or turn off. Would assume since AT&Ts network coverage is larger than Tmobile would not occur as much.
just got one for me and bro.
i got no signal half a day during work and it keep searching for it.
by time i finished, lost about 5-10% most.
OutCastedSheep said:
just got one for me and bro.
i got no signal half a day during work and it keep searching for it.
by time i finished, lost about 5-10% most.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow. Big difference from what I saw. I think I'll need to go back to the theater now that I'm running UCLE2. I'll install CurrentWidget and see what is going on.
Maybe it was a fluke...hopefully cause I love this phone!

[Q] Stairstep battery drain

My wife and I both have the Galaxy S4, verizon flavor.
My phone's battery usage is very nice. Most of the time I go to bed with 30-70% left on the battery. Hers does the same. The only difference is I use my phone a lot and she barely uses it during the day. A couple of texts, maybe a phone call and on occasion an internet search. Before this happened, and I don't know what was the tipping point, she use to charge her phone every third day, now she charges it every night.
Her phone is also 6 months newer than mine. Both are running stock, both are Android 4.3. I have both phones setup as close as possible so I can make comparisons between the two. Obviously she has different needs and will have different apps running/installed.
I have taken all of her apps off the phone and it hasn't changed the battery problem. I have reset the phone and still the battery drain persists.
I have put Battery Monitor Widget and GSam on her phone and I really haven't been able to locate the offending app/program/function. The only possibility is the 1013 system and "AudioOut_2". But that seems unlikely as this drain is about every 20 minutes and goes on all day.
Usually she runs with her phone in minimal activity. Data off, Sync off, GPS off, Power Saving on.
Here is a chart from a while back, everyday looks similar with the drains. My phone has long periods of straight white lines when inactive, hers just keep going down.
can't post the image of the battery chart. Gonna make it more difficult to solve.
Just wondering where to look and if this is something that can be solved or is possibly a phone problem/defect. As I mentioned, mine works nice and I have it setup as close to my phone as possible to get results that can be compared.
first of all im no expert, but i think it could go either way. before assuming its hardware it wouldnt hurt to back everything up, try a factory reset and a wipe mk2 odin flash. then seeing if the issue persists. just throwing my thoughts out there. hope it gets resolved regardless. :good:
Leo G said:
My wife and I both have the Galaxy S4, verizon flavor.
My phone's battery usage is very nice. Most of the time I go to bed with 30-70% left on the battery. Hers does the same. The only difference is I use my phone a lot and she barely uses it during the day. A couple of texts, maybe a phone call and on occasion an internet search. Before this happened, and I don't know what was the tipping point, she use to charge her phone every third day, now she charges it every night.
Her phone is also 6 months newer than mine. Both are running stock, both are Android 4.3. I have both phones setup as close as possible so I can make comparisons between the two. Obviously she has different needs and will have different apps running/installed.
I have taken all of her apps off the phone and it hasn't changed the battery problem. I have reset the phone and still the battery drain persists.
I have put Battery Monitor Widget and GSam on her phone and I really haven't been able to locate the offending app/program/function. The only possibility is the 1013 system and "AudioOut_2". But that seems unlikely as this drain is about every 20 minutes and goes on all day.
Usually she runs with her phone in minimal activity. Data off, Sync off, GPS off, Power Saving on.
Here is a chart from a while back, everyday looks similar with the drains. My phone has long periods of straight white lines when inactive, hers just keep going down.
can't post the image of the battery chart. Gonna make it more difficult to solve.
Just wondering where to look and if this is something that can be solved or is possibly a phone problem/defect. As I mentioned, mine works nice and I have it setup as close to my phone as possible to get results that can be compared.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried Better Battery Stats + a Wakelock Detector? Between those two it should be really easy to see if this is a software problem or perhaps a bad battery.
I'll link you to the wakelock detector I use. In my opinion it's the easiest to use.
Here
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.uzumapps.wakelockdetector
You can see wakelocks in BBS as well.... But I just like the options this one gives
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
I haven't tried BBS+, but Wakelock Detector has been running since the problem was detected. That is how I found the 1013 and Audio2_Out running. At the beginning it seemed to correlate with the problem but as time moved on it seemed less and less the culprit.
I haven't really found anything using wakelock detector. I could give you some stats off of it tonight when I have access to my wife's phone again.
Any stats that you'd like me to post I can do that. Eventually I'll be able to post that Battery Monitor Widget graph so you can see what is happening.
Pretty sure we can rule out a bad battery. About 99.9% sure.
First things first I would swap batteries between the two phones. Lets rule out a faulty battery first, because trying to figure out battery drain with a faulty battery can be maddening!
Coycaine said:
First things first I would swap batteries between the two phones. Lets rule out a faulty battery first, because trying to figure out battery drain with a faulty battery can be maddening!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, all day with swapped batteries. Same thing. My phone is fine, her's is still doing the same stair step battery drain.

[Q] Galaxy S3 Stock/CM10 drain?

I think we've ALL been here. Is there any uniform answer to this?
Let's be honest, I'm one of the not so frequent xda user, I always read several articles but have been, so far clueless.
I have the international model running on CM10 and constantly switch between ROMs of stock and CM, I've always liked AOSP ROMs, love the simple and uncluttered interface as opposed to the ever so bloated touchwiz. What else can I say? It has 32GB SD card and 16GB onboard storage, and it has a little trouble with 3rd party chargers (lose connection / disconnects every so often ) Its an old phone in technology time, but its still great.
So, I've tested wirh CM, stock and 2 other kernels which still make me feel like the phone is gobbling up a power plant everyday. One main culprit is Cell Standby which is very odd since it's usually just in my room (I use an other phone otg) and has a pretty decent signal (3-4bars)
On the most recent checks:
Cell Standby - 25%
Android OS- 18%
Screen - 15%
Google Services - 10%
Phone idle - 10%
Android System - 6%
And the rest are some of my apps..
I just recently started using Deep Sleep Battery Saver and wakelock detector. I'll send the info when the results are in for a day.
I'm not that fond of using 3G since data rates in my country are time-based and the KB-based pricing is off the charts. So I only use my phone for call and text and the occasional casual gaming and browsing (usually the cnet app)
I can only say that, if we could help on this either way, there are a ton of xda threads related to fast battery drain with varying issues because of Androids openness, I can only think if there would be some sort of centralized thread for this, or if you guys could help. That would be pretty awesome.
Ask any question or request anything so I could get this phone going. Thanks
Cell standby will be highest because you don't use your phone.
It's not a culprit,it is normal that it is up on the chart
But if you are experiencing any battery drain of more than 1-1.5% on standby then you have to look for an app or similar service running in background otherwise there is no problem
Press thanx if i helped you in anyway...
I don't think so. I left my phone's battery last night at 29% and after waking up 6-7 hours later, I got 16% left.
So that's around 13% consumed in one night without using it, or 2-3% drain per hour.
I already greenified Facebook and Lookout which were the biggest wakelocks, deep sleep gave me no noticeable difference even on Slumberer mode. I'm suspecting this is due to cell standby. the location which my phone was in had 3/4 bars of signal, wifi and location services are also turned off.
What's the big problem here really? I suspected it may be due to facebook but nothing has changed so far
Update: Signal strength is 73-80+ dBm, When I got home today the phone was dead from 16% this morning. The highest consumer is Cell Standby at 26%, Facebook is already turned off and everything, Still no perf difference.
So I also have a friend on and he's got a GS4, battery life was terrible for him since the kitkat update.
Anyone??
Sent from my GT-I9300 using XDA Free mobile app

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