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Original iPhone 3.0 upgrade - No battery life and running warm to hot

I upgraded my original iPhone to 5.0 with no problems. After playing around with some of the new features I noticed that my iPhone was hot to the touch. I left it alone for a while in standby and it was still warm. I turned off "Find My iPhone" thinking it had something to do with running hot, it made no difference. I also noticed my battery life is shot. At 4:30 I had a full charge and only used the phone once. It has been in standby mode since that call, it is now 8:20 and I am down to 10%. Something is running that is killing my battery. Anyone else experience this problem?
Any help here will be greatly appreciated.

iMac G5 iSight/Macbook Pro 08, Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Posted on Jun 17, 2009 5:21 PM

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162 replies

Jun 18, 2009 7:25 AM in response to Vito A.

Same problem here.
I deactivated the Push mail and Wifi and that seems to have gotten rid of the overheating and the super fast discharge of the battery.
I tried turning just the push mail on, but it looked as if the battery again started to discharge very fast.
Tonight I'll try to wipe it (backup) and do a full restore. See if that clears up any old 2.1.1 code that might interfear with the 3.0 update.

Jun 18, 2009 7:58 AM in response to ct2k7

With the previous OS I always had push, bluetooth and Wifi turned on and I had no issues with battery life. Even on the odd days that I had a lot of phone time. I find it unacceptable that I would have to change my settings with a new OS and change the way I use my iPhone. It seems to me that there is an issue with the original iPhone and Apple should fix the problem.
Another thing I noticed is if I charge my iPhone on my MBP is that the charge indicator in iTunes doesn't show that charging is complete. It always shows the lighting bolt, when I look at my iPhone it shows fully charged and the little plug in the battery.
I also read that some people having trouble with frame rates on games. I tried playing Glyder and Pocket God this morning and it seems fine. When I get a chance I will try some other games and report back

Jun 18, 2009 8:02 AM in response to Vito A.

I upgraded my 3G to 3.0 yesterday, and am experiencing the exact same issue -- the rear of the phone heats up tremendously, the battery runs out in like 3 hours (even though the phone is off and I'm not even using it), and now it won't charge from the USB sync cable plugged directly into my Mac. They better figure out this one soon, as my phone is pretty much useless without any significant battery life. I use this phone for work, so this is pretty unacceptable.

(BTW, there were also major quality issues with the initial release of the 2.0 software update last year, so I'm not surprised that such a major issue yet again slipped through Apple quality assurance. Typical.)

Jun 18, 2009 9:26 AM in response to Fabrizio Fontana

I had the same issues with my iPhone (original, only 1 1/2 years old) running warm and the battery discharging quicker then normal after updating to 3.0. On top of that, it kept telling me that I did not have a cellular data plan whenever I tried to access the Edge network. I turned it off and on, rebooted it, turned airport mode on and off, finally after taking out the sim card and then reinstalling it I was able to access the Edge network without the message. It ran sluggish at first, slower then usual, but has started to run at more normal speeds. I did recharge it on the cradle after all this and am playing with it some more now. Since then it has not run as warm as it was after the update and the battery seems to be operating more like normal. I have played with many setting, such as location settings and wifi and such, but not the push settings.

Jun 18, 2009 9:41 AM in response to Vito A.

I updated mine last night, played with it after it finished, and today I still have a full charge. I'm not running 'push', but I check email, chat on facebook, check weather radar, etc. all over Edge and no problems with battery life or heating up.

I will add that I exchanged my iPhone a couple months ago (under extended warranty) due to a volume button sticking. I think this was a refurb first gen. But, I am not having any issues after the 3.0 upgrade.

Jun 18, 2009 10:27 AM in response to Dutchotties

I had the same issue, but noticed it before the phone heated & drained the battery (my PC speakers are nasty unshielded, so I could hear the phone constantly communicating as soon as the 3.0 update completed). I have a Microsoft Exchange mail account; its push was constantly running. (I tested by putting my phone by the speakers so I could hear the GSM transmissions.) Deleting & recreating the mail account did not help. I fixed it by changing the ActiveSync settings on the mail account on the phone from Use SSL: On to Off - I could hear it transmit once and it went silent. I switched Use SLL back to On, it stayed OK. (Whatever couldn't get through while SSL was on got through OK.)

Jun 18, 2009 10:29 AM in response to Vito A.

Same situation here. Original iPhone.

Disabling WiFi fixed it for me. Case is cool again, battery consumption is back to where it was. I had tried changing all the email push settings, etc., with no effect. Just turning off WiFi did it.

Having this happen and Mail crash upon checking for new mail on my work account (each time, so I cant use that account) has somewhat reduced the luster of this upgrade.

Jun 18, 2009 10:36 AM in response to Yancy0

Having this happen and Mail crash upon checking for new mail on my work account (each time, so I cant use that account) has somewhat reduced the luster of this upgrade.


THAT I fixed by deleting & recreating my mail accounts (maybe only needed to delete the offending IMAP account, but I deleted every account, including an old unused account which I didn't recreate.)

Jun 18, 2009 10:46 AM in response to Vito A.

I don't know what happened, by my iPhone seemed to magically fix itself AFTER I charged it to 75% in the car.

I don't know why, but it's suddenly nice and cool again, everything is on - wifi, 3G, Push, Location Services and Bluetooth, and it seems to be running really well now. Even tethering doesn't heat it up.

I don't think Apple are capable of magic fixes over the GSM networks, but something happened and now it's working better than ever.

Original iPhone 3.0 upgrade - No battery life and running warm to hot

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