# Samsung phone battery crash



## bi0boy (Nov 28, 2015)

So I was merrily pissing about on the internet on my phone on the train. Before I started reading an article my battery was around 30%. a couple of minutes later I noticed it was 22%. As I was staring at the battery indicator the 15% battery low warning popped up. I dismissed it and the percentage dropped immediately to 7 and then it counted down before my eyes and turned off within a few seconds.



 

Was this a one off freak occurrence or should I continually worry about this happening again when I am actually doing something important. The phone is only about 18 months old?


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## xsunnysuex (Nov 28, 2015)

Samsung phones are shockingly bad on battery power.  I have a spare battery in my bag that I keep fully charged.  Then just swap it over.


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## bi0boy (Nov 28, 2015)

I had a USB battery with me so was able to plug that and turn it on again. it soon reached 30 percent again. 

What worries me here is that the phone can apparently just power off within seconds from an apparently reasonable battery level.


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## xsunnysuex (Nov 28, 2015)

bi0boy said:


> I had a USB battery with me so was able to plug that and turn it on again. it soon reached 30 percent again.
> 
> What worries me here is that the phone can apparently just power off within seconds from an apparently reasonable battery level.


The battery life is bad.  However my samsung hasn't charged down that fast.


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## The Boy (Nov 28, 2015)

Mine seems to run of charge at an accelerated pace once it drops down past 30% if I'm using the interwebs.  But then it *is* an S2 so probably about half a decade old.  

Maybe try replacing the battery if it happens again?


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## Mojofilter (Nov 29, 2015)

How old is it? It's possibly a symptom of battery degradation. 

If you've always previously charged it before its gotten below 30% you could try completely cycling the battery from 100-0 a few times to get it better calibrated but I think you're probably looking at a new battery.


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## emanymton (Oct 14, 2017)

I've been having some really odd battery behaviour on my phone recently. It's a S7 edge just over a year old.

A couple of weeks ago, a had an experience similar to the op. The battery just drained in a few minutes, it carried on draining when locked. I tried battery maintenance to close any apps draining it and it didn't help, I tried switching it of and back on and that didn't help. It even carried on dropping when charging. In the end I gave up, let it run down and shut off. I changed it up and it's been Ok since.

Untill yesterday. This may be an unrelated problem, as the behaviour is different, but maybe not?

Yesterday morning, I noticed the battery was dropping much faster than normal, not like the last time but noticeably faster. I was planning to be out most of the day, and using it quite a lot, so I took my power bank with me. Something I very rarely need to do with this phone. 

So I was able to get through the day ok with occasional boosts from the bank. As I was heading home I noticed it was dropping really fast, similar to the previous occasion. I started to look forward to the train journey home with no phone to play with. Except it drops to 1% and just carries on working. 20 minutes on the train working fine, short bus journey home, still going. Get home, wack the brightness up to max and play a couple of random videos and it's still going!

So I charge it a bit, and see it happens. Same thing it drops really quickly, but carries on going at 1%. I was able to get an hours use at of it with the battery at 1%. Then I went to bed. Same thing seems to happening today. Battery is dropping faster than normal, and I assume it will drop to 1% and keep doing.

My current plan is to try and let it run right down until is shuts off. But it's difficult to manage as I need to use it and I have no way of knowing how long it might take. There is also an update I have been putting of installing, I can't see it helping, but I might as well try it.

If that doesn't work, I was thinking of trying some of the battery apps out there. But I tried a couple of those in the past and was not impressed. Anyone with more phone knowledge than me got any suggestions?


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## magneze (Oct 14, 2017)

Factory reset helps. Recently did that to my S7 and battery is back to usable.


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## emanymton (Oct 14, 2017)

magneze said:


> Factory reset helps. Recently did that to my S7 and battery is back to usable.


Yeah, but then I lose everything on my phone. So I'm hoping it won't come to that.


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Oct 14, 2017)

My Note 4 did that occasionally. Luckily not happened to my S8 yet.

I miss the days of easily replaceable batteries. Not because I want to carry a pocket full around, but because after a year it was a very cheap and straightforward job.


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## emanymton (Oct 14, 2017)

UnderAnOpenSky said:


> My Note 4 did that occasionally. Luckily not happened to my S8 yet.
> 
> I miss the days of easily replaceable batteries. Not because I want to carry a pocket full around, but because after a year it was a very cheap and straightforward job.


Yes, with an old phone, I could just buy a new battery for £30 or whatever. The real pisser is Samsung phones have a 2 year warranty but the battery only gets 1 year, so I'm out of luck by about 2 months.


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Oct 14, 2017)

emanymton said:


> Yes, with an old phone, I could just buy a new battery for £30 or whatever. The real pisser is Samsung phones have a 2 year warranty but the battery only gets 1 year, so I'm out of luck by about 2 months.



So they charge much to do it officially so the rest of the guarantee stays intact?


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## emanymton (Oct 14, 2017)

UnderAnOpenSky said:


> So they charge much to do it officially so the rest of the guarantee stays intact?


Guess, so. I don't actually know how much they charge. Bet it's alot more than just buying a battery, and they probably keep your phone for a week.


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## ohmyliver (Oct 16, 2017)

emanymton said:


> Anyone got any suggestions?



Have you tried clearing the system cache partition'?
Wipe cache partition: Samsung Galaxy S7

and then resetting app permission
How to clear default applications on the Samsung Galaxy S7

Doing both improved battery life on my S7 edge after upgrading to 7.0 without being as destructive as factory resetting the phone.  Although you do have to go though lots of 'do you want this app to this one time only, or forever' dialogues.


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## keybored (Oct 16, 2017)

18 months is a fair age for a Li-Ion battery that is being constantly discharged and charged daily. Genuine replacements are inexpensive.


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## editor (Oct 16, 2017)

ohmyliver said:


> Have you tried clearing the system cache partition'?
> Wipe cache partition: Samsung Galaxy S7
> 
> and then resetting app permission
> ...


My S7 has swiftly gone from a fairly decent battery one to a really crap one (like 12-13 hours to 8 or 9) so I'm trying the 'wipe cache partition' option now. If that  fails, I'm going to flog it off.


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## ohmyliver (Oct 16, 2017)

You should also reset app permissions afterwards, before determining if it's worth flogging it off. 

You can also check how much MaH capacity on the battery actually is by tapping on 'battery capacity' in the battery settings.


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## editor (Oct 16, 2017)

ohmyliver said:


> You should also reset app permissions afterwards, before determining if it's worth flogging it off.
> 
> You can also check how much MaH capacity on the battery actually is by tapping on 'battery capacity' in the battery settings.


Where do I find 'battery capacity'? I've checked the apps and there's no real drainers in there.


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## ohmyliver (Oct 16, 2017)

you're on 7?  go to settings, search for "battery", and 'battery capacity' should be the final result at the bottom of the screen.

*eta* it was misleading to say it's on the battery settings page, but I've got in the habit of just using search to navigate to the relevant part of settings, and just assumed.


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Oct 16, 2017)

editor said:


> My S7 has swiftly gone from a fairly decent battery one to a really crap one (like 12-13 hours to 8 or 9) so I'm trying the 'wipe cache partition' option now. If that  fails, I'm going to flog it off.



Why not just replace the battery? 

It's what I plan to do with the S8 around the year mark, even if it's harder as it will have to be done by someone else.


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## editor (Oct 16, 2017)

UnderAnOpenSky said:


> Why not just replace the battery?
> 
> It's what I plan to do with the S8 around the year mark, even if it's harder as it will have to be done by someone else.


Err, because you can't change the battery on a S7 unless you take the whole thing apart. And good luck changing the battery on your S8 too. It's a huge job and not without some risk.


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## sim667 (Oct 16, 2017)

Mines started doing this....... but to be fair its still lasting me from waking up to when I go to bed, so that will do me. I'm iPhone though.

I think its just the sign of an ageing battery.


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Oct 16, 2017)

editor said:


> Err, because you can't change the battery on a S7 unless you take the whole thing apart. And good luck changing the battery on your S8 too. It's a huge job and not without some risk.



That's why I plan to pay someone to do it.


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## editor (Oct 16, 2017)

ohmyliver said:


> you're on 7?  go to settings, search for "battery", and 'battery capacity' should be the final result at the bottom of the screen.


Ah, OK, It says 3000MaH.


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## editor (Oct 16, 2017)

UnderAnOpenSky said:


> That's why I plan to pay someone to do it.


And how much will that cost you?


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Oct 16, 2017)

editor said:


> And how much will that cost you?



Not sure exactly, but the guys I've used in the past for things like screens and charging ports have never been that much more when compared to the cost of the part from ebay, so doubt it will be a fortune.


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## ohmyliver (Oct 16, 2017)

hmm, that doesn't sound correct, because I'd expect some sort of decline of battery capacity.  Possibly it doesn't do what I expected it to do.


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## editor (Oct 16, 2017)

UnderAnOpenSky said:


> Not sure exactly, but the guys I've used in the past for things like screens and charging ports have never been that much more when compared to the cost of the part from ebay, so doubt it will be a fortune.


If you look at that video, it's a much bigger job than changing a screen. Good luck with it anyway.


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## emanymton (Oct 16, 2017)

Well I was able to let the battery run all the way down and have installed the last update.

And it seems a little more stable now. Although it is still dropping faster than it did a few weeks ago, it is more reasonable for  14 moth old phone. Crucially it looks like I can get through a normal work day with around 50% left (It spends most of the day turned off but I use it a lot on my commute), so it is still fine for my normal usage. At some point I might look into doing a full system restore, it might not be a bad Idea to clean it up a bit anyway.


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## editor (Oct 16, 2017)

So what are Samsung users getting from their batteries? Mine struggles to hit 11.5 hours on a good day, and that's when I'm not doing a lot. Losing ten per cent an hour happens a fair bit and that's surely rubbish?


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## ohmyliver (Oct 16, 2017)

It depends on screen on time.  It also depends on things like bluetooth use, and camera use, and app usage.  It also depends on signal strength, as low signals will eat more battery. I get pretty good battery life tbh on the S7 edge, if I don't play stupid addictive shooting games like Sky Forge reloaded, or take lots of photos.  I get roughly 6 hours of screen on time if I'm not gaming, but about 4.5 if I am.  I was getting to about 3 or 4 pm (leaving the house at about 8.30) with about 60% battery.   Have you tried setting the resolution from 2k to 1080p (it's in the display settings), that can help with battery life depending on what you do on it (although I've heard that it can have little to no effect).

*eta* you can check screen on time, by going to battery > battery usage > screen

*eta eta* I'm 42% battery, it's been off charge for 6 1/2 hours, but screen on time has been 3 1/4 hours, and I've caned bloody sky forge on fag breaks, journey back home etc. That's significantly better than my S5 ever was.


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## editor (Oct 16, 2017)

ohmyliver said:


> It depends on screen on time.  It also depends on things like bluetooth use, and camera use, and app usage.  It also depends on signal strength, as low signals will eat more battery. I get pretty good battery life tbh on the S7 edge, if I don't play stupid addictive shooting games like Sky Forge reloaded, or take lots of photos.  I get roughly 6 hours of screen on time if I'm not gaming, but about 4.5 if I am.  I was getting to about 3 or 4 pm (leaving the house at about 8.30) with about 60% battery.   Have you tried setting the resolution from 2k to 1080p (it's in the display settings), that can help with battery life depending on what you do on it (although I've heard that it can have little to no effect).
> 
> *eta* you can check screen on time, by going to battery > battery usage > screen


Bluetooth is on all the time for the Samsung watch but it's supposed to be low drain. The screen res is already low (tbh, I could barely notice the difference when it was high res unless I was using Cardboard) and the brightness set on auto but lowered a notch. 

This is how it looks now:


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## ohmyliver (Oct 16, 2017)

what's your screen on time though?  Nougat knocked about 10% off battery life.  It's a shame that 7.1 (which ironed out 7.0 battery life issues) hasn't made it (so far) to the S7/S7Edge. On 6 people were saying about 8 hours of SOT on the S7 Edge.


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## emanymton (Oct 16, 2017)

editor said:


> So what are Samsung users getting from their batteries? Mine struggles to hit 11.5 hours on a good day, and that's when I'm not doing a lot. Losing ten per cent an hour happens a fair bit and that's surely rubbish?


I was probably a little better than that. Think I'm probably a bit worse now.


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## editor (Oct 16, 2017)

ohmyliver said:


> what's your screen on time though?


Not that much at all. 1hr 50 mins


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## ohmyliver (Oct 16, 2017)

that's very poor. 

*eta* that's after wiping system cache and resetting app preferences?


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## editor (Nov 8, 2017)

In unexpected good news, I popped into the Samsung store on Oxford Street on the off chance.

Given that I'd bought the S7 from a random eBay seller around a year ago, I wasn't expecting much in the way of support. The staff scanned in the barcode contained in the phone, told me it was from Austria and, yes, they would put it in for repair. No need to show any receipts.

Two days later I get my phone back with a new battery, new screen and new motherboard - all for no charge. Turns out the phone did have some faulty hardware causing the problems. 

Excuse me while I rocket Samsung up to my #1 slot for tech support. That was bloody amazing service.


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## Riklet (Nov 14, 2017)

Shit maybe I should try that when im in London.

My Samsung J7 camera has stopped working and I haven't got round to doing anything about it yet....

Do you know where the work was done on the phone editor? Locally? 2 days is amazing.


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## Saul Goodman (Nov 14, 2017)

Greenify is handy for lowering consumption


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