iPhone 4S battery problems

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Lizard1977

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Topic # 96081 19-Jan-2012 22:39

I know the issue is pretty well documented. I've had a look round the Internet and found a number of suggestions for fixing the problem of battery draining fast on the iPhone 4s, but so far there's been no improvement. I've turned off most of the high power functions like location services, push notifications, Siri and auto brightness. In the time it took to write the above, it dropped 4% and the back of the phone is getting quite warm.

Does this sound like a good case to take it back to Telecom and get it repaired? Or is it likely to be some other function I've overlooked?

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Reply # 571111 20-Jan-2012 09:29

Have you tried a proper restart? I have read that there could be some additional rogue processes and loops due to the new (world mode) baseband chip which means the phone talks to the cell towers a lot.

Hold down the Home and Lock buttons until the apple logo appears, this appears after the "slide to turn off screen", just keep holding till it appears.

Jon

dothack

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Master Geek

Reply # 578951 8-Feb-2012 21:35

Try doing a restore. But before doingthirds make sure you go into location services and system services and turn setting time zone to off. Then do a back up and full store updating to the latest iOS version. This is what I did and my phone has been lasting much longer now. Also of note before I did the restore I noticed that my standby and usage under general -> usage were displaying the same amount exactly. After doing this my usage now shows values like 15hrs standby and 4hrs usage since last full charge. So it seems like before something was constantly running hence why usage and standby were showing the same.

Hope this works for you. Worth a try as it only talks about 10 mins to do a restore

dothack

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Reply # 578956 8-Feb-2012 21:40

Sorry about bad typing above did on my iPad lol

astroboy

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Reply # 581620 15-Feb-2012 03:47

I managed to reduce most of the battery issues on my ipad and iphone by turning off push email from exchange. Everything else imtried had a negligible effect

Lizard1977

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Reply # 581661 15-Feb-2012 09:15

I realised I should probably post an update. We tried pretty much everything that we could find documented on the internet. I managed to boil it down to a handful of apps, location services, and wifi.

I eliminated the apps by a process of elimination. I charged the battery back to 100% and then left it on standby. When the battery started draining, I checked which apps were "in memory", and it was Settings, Safari, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I cleared them from memory, did a full restart, and then charged it back to 100%, and then loaded each app into memory on it's own, and tested for draining. Irrespective of the app, the draining still occured. Figuring that it was unlikely that all these apps were draining the battery in the same way, I rationalised that it might be a hardware problem. I cleared all the apps, did a full restart, and recharged it to 100%. I turned wifi off, and the battery didn't drain. Problem identified, I thought - faulty wireless. So my wife continued to use her phone normally for a while, but with wifi off. After a few hours, the drain problem came back. She played around in settings for a while, and tried turning off Cellular Data, and turned wifi back on. The battery stopped draining, but then started to drain again after a few hours. So she turned off wifi, and it was fine for a while, but then the accelerated drain started again a bit later. Though she wasn't as scientific as I was, restarting and recharging before testing each new theory, I was satisfied that it was a hardware fault - something to do with either the wifi or cellular data, or the battery itself. In the end, we gave up, and went back to Telecom to hand it in for servicing.

Disappointingly, the sales rep at Telecom wasn't particularly confident or knowledgeable about the iPhone, and his notes to the service team weren't as descriptive as I would have made them. So while' I'm hoping the phone is fixed, I'm worried that they will give it a cursory exam, not be able to replicate the inconsistent problems we found, and just send it back without fixing it, and charge the $80 inspection fee.

Loismustdye

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Reply # 581681 15-Feb-2012 09:57

Had a similar problem where the battery was draining faster than I liked, a friend suggested turning the auto-settings for the clock (time) off in settings. Ive gone from 1 day on a charge to 2 days with 30-40% still remining.

Lizard1977

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Reply # 581730 15-Feb-2012 11:28

Yep - tried that. Made no difference. Thanks for the suggestion though...

clicknz

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Reply # 582122 15-Feb-2012 23:46

Hi - a couple of general battery saving tips (maybe voodoo, but they seem to help if you can live without them switched on), along with others mentioned here - under settings>store tap on your account & sign out. I guess it's often checking back with the store to see if your apps have any updates, plus it will sign itself in every now and then - like when you sync with your computer... so go back & sign out again. As well as settings>mail and setting Fetch to off by having Push off and Fetch to manual - also scroll down a bit further to Advanced and make sure all your accounts are set to manual under that tab. HTH somebody.

Cheers,
Mike

Photographer/Videographer clickmedia.nz

tardtasticx

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Reply # 582124 15-Feb-2012 23:55

Just being captain obvious, but whenever my battery doesnt work the way I want it to, I first drain it entirely, IE keep using it until it turns itself off and will no longer turn back on. Then connect it to the charger and leave it and dont touch it until it says 100%, that usually makes a difference for me. Just sayin. You'll find it stays on 1% for quite a while.

Bachelor of Computing Systems (2015)

Late 2013 MacBook Pro with Retina Display (4GB/2.4GHz i5/128GB SSD) - HP DV6 (8GB/2.8GHz i7/120GB SSD + 750GB HDD)
iPhone 6S + (64GB/Gold/Vodafone NZ) - Xperia Z C6603 (16GB/White/Spark NZ)

Sam, Auckland

bitserf

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Reply # 582457 16-Feb-2012 16:52

Out of curiosity, do you alternate between areas with bad reception and good reception?

When I was traveling down South, my 4S drained a lot faster than it does now that I'm back in central Auckland.

I can usually get around 2 days on one charge here, whereas I sometimes drained to empty before 1 day had elapsed while traveling.

Lizard1977

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Reply # 582645 17-Feb-2012 07:42

Being in Palmerston North, there are areas with good and bad reception. But the battery was draining even when it was just in one spot, sitting on the table next to the charger. So I don't think it was that. Thanks anyway.

Lizard1977

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Reply # 583852 20-Feb-2012 13:02

Got a result from Telecom today - they've replaced the iPhone, rather than try to "repair" it. Unfortunately, won't be able to test anything until we get home tonight and restore it from a backup.

In the meantime, I have a question. Presumably this replaced iPhone will have a new serial number than the original phone. The receipt from Telecom no doubt records the original's serial number. Is this likely to create any difficulties with future claims? Telecom didn't provide any paperwork to indicate the phone was replaced, and I'm wondering whether I should go back and ask for something to refer to in the event of any future claims...

clicknz

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Reply # 583891 20-Feb-2012 14:15

Hi - yes, I would certainly suggest that you get something in writing with regard to the replacement. I believe the usual practice is to still only give 12 mths warranty from the original purchase date rather than starting again with the date of receiving the 'new' phone (this may possibly be a refurbished unit).
Either way, anyone with Apple hardware can check the status of their gear by keying in the serial number at this site https://selfsolve.apple.com/agreementWarrantyDynamic.do

Cheers,
Mike

Photographer/Videographer clickmedia.nz

Lizard1977

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Reply # 583927 20-Feb-2012 14:53

Thanks for the link - I checked the serial number of the new unit, and it came up "Not yet activated." Which is fine - we'll see what it says once we activate it at home and restore the last backup.

As a matter of interest, does anyone know of the way to work out whether it's a refurbished phone or a new phone? I've googled a few links, but most of them seem to refer to older models of iPhone (e.g. refurbs serial number starts with a 5, etc). The serial number of this phone starts with a C, so go figure. What makes me think this is a refurb is that it was presented in bubble wrap rather than official Apple packaging. Is this standard practice for replacement iPhones? I didn't want to kick up a stink in store (the wife was just so pleased to get her precious phone back), but it did seem a bit odd to me. Some google results I read spoke about plain white or black boxes for their replacement phones. I wasn't expecting anything too fancy, but it looked more like they just handed over one they had lying around. It's got the official protective coverings that new phones come with, so I don't think it was just any old iPhone. I guess it doesn't really matter - so long as it works, that'll be the main thing.

mattwnz

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Reply # 583930 20-Feb-2012 14:59

I know someone who had this problem with their iphone 4s in europe. The apple store just switched it for a new one, and they haven't had any problems since.

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