Rapid Battery Drain on Standby

[Hotweldfire]

Note: this is not a general complaint about the N95 standby time but a specific battery problem I'm having. I've posted this on a couple of other forums so apologies if you've responded elsewhere.

I'm getting a fairly random fast drain of my battery when the phone's on standby. WLAN scanning is off, 3G disabled, bluetooth off and GPS is not being used. All network connections are set to ask so shouldn't be connecting without asking me first.

This happens most days but not everyday. Typically the phone will be sitting on my desk doing nothing. An hour or two later I pick it up and find the battery has dropped from full to nothing or next to nothing. Scanning through apps shows nothing running but the back of the phone is always hot when this happens.

Orange reckon it's a wiring fault in the phone/battery and are willing to swap it for a new handset. However, I've noticed a few other people on various forums have reported this problem and am wondering if it's some kind of software rather than hardware issue. As such I'd rather not have to go through the process of reconfiguring a new handset to find it's doing the same thing again.

Anyone have any ideas what might be causing it?

[sbc]

Do a soft reset or update the firmware and don't adjust/install anything, just synchronize your personal data back to the phone so it can be used. Then try is out for a few days and see what happens. If it's ok, then you know you had some bad soft installed/bad settings. If the problem continues, consider having it replaced.

[Hotweldfire]

Thanks. Don't think I can do a firmware update on orange without debranding the phone and thus voiding the warranty (although I might be wrong). How do I do a soft reset?

[dope on a rope]

Originally Posted by Hotweldfire

How do I do a soft reset?

*#7780#

[pa49]

How are you charging the phone?
How often? How long?

[sbc]

A firmware update will never debrand your phone, unless you hack its ID, so it is perfectly safe for you to try. Even if there isn't an actualy update available, you can always reflash your current firmware.

This is the easiest, cheapest and most bullet proof way of finding out if your phone is dead, but of course not the only one...

[Hotweldfire]

Dope on a rope - thanks for that

pa49 - every night for about an hour and a half (or until it bleeps at me)

sbc - when I reported the fault to Orange I asked the tech I spoke to whether I should update the firmware as this might provide a solution. He told me to not to although he was a bit vague as to why not. Mumbled something about Orange having not agreed/authorised the latest firmware update with Nokia or something like that. Didn't sound too convincing.

Anyway I'll try the firmware update in a few days but have noticed something else since I originally posted. I assumed the GPS only runs when I specifically ask it to or when running maps but have noticed that you can disable all GPS connections manually. Unlikely that it's using the GPS randomly but you never know. Will try this for a couple of days and if it's still happening I'll try the firmware update.

BTW the only other software I have on it is the Gmail app and any updates Orange have sent through so not sure what dodgy software might be eating up the battery. Some spyware might have got on there but then that would be trying to connect, right?

Anyway, thanks all for your help. Will report back with any progress.

[sbc]

The Orange guy most likely was trying to communicate that they haven't branded the latest v12 firmware yet, so only the v11 is available to you. This doesn't mean that it is unsafe for you to flash your device, it just means that it won't get you the latest Nokia update. Don't worry about that, you just need to get your phone in a usefull state right now.

The GPS isn't the problem, so don't worry about that either.

If you are kinda interested in trying out the firmware update but don't want to spend the time downloading and flashing, try the reset method instead. It is very fast and almost as effective. Just hit the keys *#7370# on the standby screen and accept the warning. All settings will return to default and everything installed is gone. You are back to factory defaults and can now sync your calendar and phone book back via Nokia Suite. DON'T restore a backup, or you'll be back at square one.

Stuff on your microSD card can autoinstall after a flash/reset, so you might want to empty your storage card too (format) or leave it out of the phone for a few days while testing.

Btw, try leaving the phone off and the charger plugged in all night, and only use the original charger supplied with the phone.

Good luck, what ever you decide to do

[dez_borders]

Originally Posted by Hotweldfire

I'm getting a fairly random fast drain of my battery when the phone's on standby. WLAN scanning is off, 3G disabled, bluetooth off and GPS is not being used. All network connections are set to ask so shouldn't be connecting without asking me first.

Anyone have any ideas what might be causing it?

This sounds like one of 2 things.

1. Faulty battery / charger.

2. Some app running in background consuming CPU cycles and power.

If we discount the battery / charger can you please launch the TOOLS -> App Manager and make a list of everything listed there, and post the list. Version numbers might help where you know them.

[mwice]

Not sure it was posted here, so sorry for dup.

Simple example how to drain your battery fast. Connect phone to PC. Upload some content on it (it goes to memory card).
Disconnect. Phone's software will scan ever dir and file. If that was pictures, you're in troble - phone will make
3 thumbnails for every pic it will find. Not sure this is the case, but if you uploaded something prior to
battery drain......

[kyle07]

My battery drain very fast after I had 2 pictures on my N95.So is there anyway to fix this problem.Thanks

[Hotweldfire]

Not to do with a connection to the pc as it does this fast drain at pretty random times. I will update the firmware on Monday as I need the gmail app this weekend.

Originally Posted by dez_borders

This sounds like one of 2 things.

1. Faulty battery / charger.

2. Some app running in background consuming CPU cycles and power.

If we discount the battery / charger can you please launch the TOOLS -> App Manager and make a list of everything listed there, and post the list. Version numbers might help where you know them.

I know there's a theory floating around that there's something wrong with the phone's power monitoring, namely that it isn't really fully charged when it bleeps at you and tells you that it is. I'll try charging it overnight and see if that makes any difference.

I hadn't thought of checking the apps list - just as well you flagged that up as there's a bunch of weird search plugins in there that I didn't know about. Unfortunately I'm having a hard time viewing the version numbers as app manager is running with an incredibly slow lag. Takes about 30 seconds to bring up the details pop up for each plug in. Something's clearly not right here.

Anyway there are 19 different "Search-" plugins with names like "Search-localplugins-India" or "...-UAE". Any idea why I've got search plugins for random bits of the world?

[dez_borders]

Originally Posted by Hotweldfire

I hadn't thought of checking the apps list - just as well you flagged that up as there's a bunch of weird search plugins in there that I didn't know about. Unfortunately I'm having a hard time viewing the version numbers as app manager is running with an incredibly slow lag. Takes about 30 seconds to bring up the details pop up for each plug in. Something's clearly not right here.

Anyway there are 19 different "Search-" plugins with names like "Search-localplugins-India" or "...-UAE". Any idea why I've got search plugins for random bits of the world?

30 seconds is not unusual. App Manager is very slow on all Symbian OS Phones, so there's nothing wrong.

I don't think the Search apps are likely to be the cuplrits, and they are installed with the Firmware. You can (probably) delete them without causing any problems if you don't use them but it won't save much memory, so personally I just left them installed.

If you post (or PM me) a list of installed Apps, we can try to identify which ones run automatically on bootup, or which ones might fail to close properly and consume the CPU cycles. One culprit I found in the past was a call-recorder app.

[Hotweldfire]

Ok, apart from the search local plugins here they are in the order they're listed on app manager:

MMSSync v 1.00(0)
System Rush Evolution v 1.00(0)
Welcome v 1.00(0)
Search v 2.20(0)
Search-globalplugins v 2.16(0)
Search v 2.20(0)
Photography v 1.32(32)
Search-CISPlugins v 2.17(0)
Welcome Demo v 1.09(2)
Snakes v 1.00(0)
Google Mail v 1.01(1)

I think the gmail plugin is the only one I've installed myself.

I'm starting to wonder if my problem isn't as weird and unusual as if first seems. My thinking is that there appears to be a big disjunct between different users' experiences of battery life on this phone. Some people manage to get the thing running for two or three days on low usage whilst some only get an afternoon's use on the same level of usage. The latter tend to be newer users whilst the former tend to be people who've had their phones for a while.

What I'm wondering is whether people who complain on various forums that the battery life on their N95 is rubbish and they can only get it to run for a day before charging aren't having the same problem as me but just don't know it. The thing is I can very occasionally get my phone to run for a couple of days on standby but most days it does this fast drain thing. Maybe my problem is an old firmware that causes some app to hog the battery randomly. Given that new users are likely to be using an old firmware too maybe they have the same problem whereas people who report decent battery time on their phone are using a newer firmware?

[Hotweldfire]

I know this is going to sound deeply implausible but I'm almost certain that this problem is being caused by the GPS. The only thing I changed at the beginning of last week was to disable the integrated GPS option and I haven't had the fast drain problem once. In addition I did use the GPS with navigation at the weekend and the speed of the battery drain as well as the heat on the back of the phone were very similar to when I've had the battery drain. Will re-enable the integrated GPS and run it for a week to see if the problem reappears.