Child Item

Site Totals

61432 Questions Answered 270 Categories

Rapid battery drain on my Galaxy s5 after 6.0.1 installed - same for my wife's galaxy s5

After the upgrade to Android 6.0.1 our galaxy s5's had rapid battery drain - less than 8 hours from 100% to 0 - idle except for the occasional call on my wife's phone - 1 call on my phone. Went to the Verizon store and I will never do that again - he said phone was too old, needs new battery and NOT helpful at all. I played around resetting cache, then phone back to factory defaults to no avail. I then turned off my wifi and now it is working normal 3 to 4 days of battery with moderate use. I had replaced the new battery with the old as there was no difference. I had tried all the different remedies I saw on line to my phone only. When I turned of the wifi connection and battery usage returned to normal I did that to my wife's galaxy s5 and got the same result - normal battery drain. I wonder what turning off the wifi did. Is

Comments

kathy65793

Have you ever gone into backup and reset-reset network settings ? Sometimes it will keep info from other wifi settings and when it can't connect right it just goes thru the list that it has stored from all the wifi places you have gone to

tommcg

I tried clearing cache then reset to factory defaults with no significant change - the factory reset did add 2 hours from 8 to 10. I also downloaded and ran some apps that were supposed to detect wakelocks which some online techs for android said could be problematic, but it did not seem to help. It was turning off the wifi that caused the drain to normal of 3 to 4 days between charges. I tried these changes over a period of a week as I did not want to make several and then not know what changed or fixed the problem. I did not do anything to my wife's galaxy S5 until I found that turning off wi-fi eliminated the heavy battery drain on my S5. The results were the same on hers when I turned off the wi-fi. It just does not seem logical that the wi-fi could cause such a drain issue. Maybe it does some search for other wi-fi connections even after connecting to our home wi-fi net. The drain issue started after the Android system was upgraded to 6.0.1 on Feb. 28 2017.

tommcg

I would also say that the Verizon store in Vero Beach is useless when it come to resolving tech issues. The tech said buy a new battery - he did not seem to see any link between the upgrade to Android 6.0.1 and the drainage and the fact that both my wife's S5 and mine had the same problem occur at the same time. When I pressed the issue he said that the phones were old and I should probably get a new one.

This was not my first time I went to the Vero Verizon to get no answer. I had bought the Verizon Network extender for our house as we kept getting dropped calls and a weak signal in our house with a metal roof and shutters. The network extender worked great until they came out with the HD audio/picture that allowed video chatting - great for keeping up with grand kids, but we were dropping calls once again. They could offer no solution for me, but I found out on-line that the HD calling feature required the 4GLE and the extender only handles 3G so we turned off the HD and all was well again. We turn HD on when we are going to talk to grand children or ???? requiring video chat. It seems when you tell a tech that calls are dropping and that you have a network extender that they should be able to handle it. Usually the techs I have encountered in other places I lived were knowledgeable and resolved my issues quickly. I have been a Verizon customer since 1991 through the various iterations of the baby bells etc and generally have a positive view of their products and services, but I shall skip the Vero Beach store in the future.

kathy65793

I know when my s5 was up and running the wifi was one of the most reliable thing about the phone. I would listen to podcast and leave the data off and would have over 8 gigs of the data over wifi per month. It seems odd that we have the s7 edge now and when we first got them we were having problems staying connected to wifi. Of course when I came on here to ask for help thru Verizon they just went through the list of question is there damage to the phone has it gotten wet etc. I do wonder if there is something with Verizon software there apps or something that is doing this to the wifi. Do you have any other apps installed that did not come with the phone?

Verizon_Support

Tommcg, I apologize for this inconvenience. We don't want our customers to feel this way and let's turn this around. Thank you for trying all those steps for us and let's continue to work on getting this issue resolved with your device. I would like to submit feedback on this experience and ensure this gets addressed. I have sent you a Private Message to discuss this further and get additional information. I look forward to working with you and getting this resolved.

GersonG_VZW

If my response answered your question please click the �Correct Answer� button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

tommcg

No, I have the basic ones. Turning off the wifi remedied the problem and as you said wifi is generally very reliable and over the years never had a problem. My wife and I do not use phones other than to talk to friends and family, text and pix - no banking or gaming etc. If I turn the wifi back on the drain starts again. I have also re-installed the old battery and it works just fine. Tech just caused me to waste 40.00 bucks. As I said I did not make any changes to my wife's S5 until I stumbled on turning off the wifi. I then did turn off hers and the excessive drainage stopped. I did not see a connection but it fixed the problem. Eg. I have 17 hours 3 minutes on old battery and still have 87% battery charge and if let go to the end according to the battery info in settings it would die at 8 am on the 22nd. If I turn wifi on the drainage starts right away. Eg. After I charged old battery I left wifi on and in I used 8% in less than an hour.

tommcg

I am not comfortable with giving you my number and pin and since turning off the wifi remedies the problem. I would like to find out why it fixed it, but it is not that difficult to reconnect to wifi if needed.

As I said in my response to kathy65793 we do not use phones for banking, couponing, gaming etc, just communication (voice and text) and pictures and the occasional gps for directions.

Verizon_Support

TOMMCG,

Thanks for checking back in with us to let us know about your experience. We definitely want to get to the bottom of this issue. Have you tried running your phone in Safe Mode with the WiFi turned on to see if this issue continues? You can enter Safe Mode in this way: http://vz.to/2oFUCFW

EricW_VZW

If my response answered your question please click the _Correct Answer_ button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

kathy65793

Do you just use the wifi at home or do you use it when you go out to places that have free wifi? Have you tried to reset the router at home? I have a router that has a lot of traffic on it and every so often I have to clear and reset it

TraeWhit

I have the Galaxy s5 as well and I noticed battery drain and phone getting hot even when mostly idle .. for me it was The Cloud constantly trying to backup my system .. I disabled it and my phone went back to normal battery usage.

tommcg

Yes I did, also cache and finally did reset back to factory defaults

tommcg

That makes sense-I will check that out-maybe I turned off the cloud backup at the same time as turning off wifi.

Verizon_Support

TOMMCG, Thanks for your continued partnership, as we're looking to get your device back in tip top shape. We see that you've recently performed a factory reset and confirming your cloud settings. How's the battery working for you? Please keep us posted with results.

CoreyM_VZW

If my response answered your question please click the _Correct Answer_ button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

tommcg

Resetting modem did not make a difference ergo I/we just leave wi-fi turned off and we have no problems with drainage, but it does increase our data usage a bit.

kathy65793

Have you gone into the play store and make sure that your apps only update on Wifi? There is also settings on your other apps that you can restricted not to use the mobile data. The last update I got for my S5 was the G900VVRS2DPL1 and I can get at least about 3 days on the battery while listening to i-pods thru the night at least about 8-hrs a night. I don't know if the phone not being activated helps this or not but that is about what I was getting when the phone was activated. Of course there were a few less updates since then and as we ALL know the updates make our phones more productive. Enjoy those video chats with the kids and grand kids I know that is one of the thing that makes me take care of this phone and that it is working right.

Child Item