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Vito A. Author

Level 1

80 points

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

162 replies

Jun 26, 2009 12:47 PM in response to sex_ed_boi

Just a quick question guys:

When you guys say disable push, does this mean disable push only for email or anything that has to do with push? I only have push contacts and calendar through google sync. Do those fall into the category of disabling push as well?

burton2

Level 1

35 points

Jun 26, 2009 8:33 PM in response to Vito A.

I was having very similar issues with both the iPhone 3GS, which I returned, and then when I updated my original iPhone to the 3.0 OS. It turns out that the problem (at least in mine and others case) is an unassigned dummy email account on the iPhone. On the settings icon open up mail, contacts, calender and look at the end of your list of e-mail accounts. The dummy account will have the word e-mail in the margin but the rest of the field is blank. Select this for the account information go to the end of the information field and delete it.

When I did this it completely resolved my battery life issue and the over heating in my original iPhone. The cause it is suggested is because of the dummy account, the iPhone goes into perpetual search mode because of all the missing information. I wish I had know this before returning the 3GS.

Hope it works for you and you can begin enjoying all the benefits of the new 3.0

TriniG

Level 1

81 points

Jun 27, 2009 7:56 AM in response to TriniG

*OK Everyone - Problem solved.*
I have tested several background running features.

"PUSH" email is the problem
"Location Services" is NOT the problem

I had both switched off and have normal battery life back.
I switched Location Services back on.... did not affect battery.
I switched back on PUSH and immediately the battery began to drain.

So I have switched back off PUSH and reverted to Fetch email.

This is unfortunate as this feature may be useful to some people.

g-pod

Level 2

308 points

Jun 28, 2009 12:58 AM in response to Vito A.

iPhone 2G (1st gen) here, and after the OS 3.0 update, I am experiencing rapid battery depletion even on standby (2% drop over 1 hour +/-). It also runs hot when I charge. It used to run cool on charge prior to the update. I'm also seeing some lag when swiping between screens, and sometimes when scrolling through a list of calendars. I have mail fetch and mail/calendar push off, and I never messed with the new push notifications (which I hear is off by default anyway). Any ideas?

Edit: My battery won't charge past a certain point.

Jun 28, 2009 7:15 PM in response to Vito A.

I've been having this problem on my original model iPhone since the 3.0 update. I've never had Push enabled. It was not enabled before the update, it was still not enabled after it, and I'm still getting fairly rapid battery draining. I even restored the phone and it's still doing it.

Jun 29, 2009 12:18 AM in response to Vito A.

Just to add a similar perspective to this.

I purchased a 3GS on launch day and since having it have experienced the appalling battery life reported by many. My original 3G was given to my wife and despite having the same settings and accounts set up, her battery life has remained as expected albeit slightly less due to having push notifications on.

We both have a couple of email accounts plus an Exchange account set up only for contacts and calendars, no mail.

I have taken the advice given to turn that Exchange account into fetch rather than push and this morning it is plain to see that the 3GS is going to last much longer.

Also, albeit slightly off-topic, doing this has not cured the problem where push notifications absolutely do not work if your phone is locked on to your wifi whether or not it still has cell service.

Regards,
Danny

g-pod

Level 2

308 points

Jun 29, 2009 1:48 AM in response to g-pod

Update: Battery charges fine to 100% now. The issue was that ejecting the device through iTunes while keeping the phone plugged into the USB port (on the MBP) meant no charging, while keeping the device recognized (not ejected) allowed it to charge. At least, that was what seemed to happen.

Battery depletion is no longer that noticeable (the cause of depletion was something I left on by accident), although it does still seem to drain slightly quicker than before 3.0. But it could be perceptual.

Jun 29, 2009 6:23 AM in response to g-pod

I don't believe push is the problem. I have exactly the same settings on the 3Gs as I had on my original iPhone, which used push for the calendar to sync with Google and I get half the battery life with the 3Gs or 3.0. It's something in the new OS that's causing the problem. Same settings using 2.21 and I get great battery life. Same settings regardless of the phone with 3.0 and battery life stinks. It's the new OS that's the problem

Jameson!

Level 1

45 points

Jun 29, 2009 7:00 AM in response to Effing Technology

Do you have any IM apps (like IM+) which utilize push? If so, delete them for now and report back with the results. It is NOT and exchange, or push email problem.

Jun 29, 2009 7:46 AM in response to SuperShick

For me, it is disabling push for fetching email.

I don't use Exchange, so that is not the problem for me, BUT I do use MobileMe and setting push to 'OFF' has solved the overheating and battery life problem.

Jun 30, 2009 2:58 AM in response to Professor Pizza

I also had the battery drain and hot iPhone 2G running OS 3.0 (updated).
Disabling Push did the trick, but a guy just posted a possible solution which makes sense in a way.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2063246&tstart=0

{quote:title=xingkai wrote:}Go to "settings" and hit "general" then "restore all settings."
Your iphone will momentarily pause and undergo some changes as all the settings are changed to default. After switching all your settings back, you may change them to as you like. For some reason doing this fixes the battery drain. I think it's because some 2.2.1 settings were not carried over in 3.0 and so you must set everything back to default to kind of "refresh" the system. {quote}

I restored using iTunes, but then I put back my settings and apps through iTunes, so the settings were from my old iPhone 2G. I think that can also be the problem with the 3G and 3GS (new 3GS users shouldn't have this problem since they have no old profile they transfered).

I'll try and see if this works and post back.

Jun 30, 2009 3:01 AM in response to Vito A.

Hi there, same issue here with iPhone 2G and OS 3.0 update. My phone worked great with 3 days standby. I now get 1 day standby and can fry an egg on the back of the phone. Try this, it may help - Go to Settings>General>Reset>Reset All Settings. It clears alot of the muck left behind from 2.2.1 and seems to improve battery life and temperature conditions.

Jun 30, 2009 3:29 PM in response to Joel Munson

Hi,

Another "same here" iPhone 2G upgraded to 3OS, battery drains in 4hrs after full chargeon stand by, no push, no fetch, no BT, only wifi on.

I did the full restore to 3OS, also did the settings reset recommended earlier...

So... Apple...***???!!! had a fully functioning iPhone up untill two weeks ago now I have a full disfunctional brick...lol

Really, any other suggestion? or just sit tight till a new SW arrives?

Tx a million for all ur tips and advise you've been awesome.... Im starting to sound like a groupie...my bad...

Regards from Caracas Venezuela.

Vito A. Author

Level 1

80 points

Jun 30, 2009 7:23 PM in response to luisjoset

I have been monitoring my post and never expected this many views and responses. For me the issue was with the missing data plan, once I added a customized APN with the iPhone Config tool my problem has gone away. I have push and notifications turned on. My only App so far that does have notifications is Leaf Trombone. I confirmed it was the missing data plan by removing the APN and running iPhone Configuration Tool and watching the log. It was trying every second to connect to the network. I then reinstalled the APN, restarted my iPhone watched the log and didn't get a hit every second. I still can not connect to you tube, see my earlier post in this topic. I have a question for any one using the iPhone Configuration tool. When you watch the log what is the field next to the time and date? In my log is says Unknown. You can see an example in my earlier post. What does it mean by Unknown and I am wondering if this is part of my you tube problem. Since I never used the log before my update I don't know if it is normal or not.

Last, I want to take a poll from the users that have been posting to this topic if I should mark the question as answered or leave it open. Apple release iPhone OS 3.1 beta today, should I wait to see if the fix is in OS 3.1 and people respond back stating the problem has been resolved. If Apple monitors the board they should see the this is a very active topic with over 15,000 views and 130+ responses.

Skadoush

Level 1

0 points

Jun 30, 2009 7:55 PM in response to Vito A.

I'm having the same problem, running hot, no battery life, have a date with the genius bar Friday. Will update after visit.

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