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User profile for user: David Theriault
David Theriault Author
User level: Level 1
9 points

battery drains fast with 4.2.1

I thought I'd post this on this forum to let folks know about a possible solution to a battery draining problem.

I have an iPhone 3GS 16Gb. After the upgrade to 4.2.1 I started noticing a problem with fast battery drains when I was travelling out of the UK, e.g. to France.
From a full charge, battery would go down within about 3~4 hours with very little usage. During this time, it would be pretty warm, good enough for a hand warmer on a cold day.
Of course, I tried turning off everything to track down the problem and force quitting all applications - nothing seemed to make a difference.

Eventually tracked it down to something I was turning off when I travelled: Data Roaming. With Data Roaming "ON", battery drain is normal and phone stays cool. If turned 'OFF' (which is the financially prudent and sane thing to do), then you have a rather expensive hand warmer.

This may have been happening before 4.2.1, not sure about that.

I hope this can help other travellers!
cheers
D

iPhone 3gs, iOS 4

Posted on Jan 20, 2011 3:25 AM

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2 replies
User profile for user: Phil Meltzer
Phil Meltzer
User level: Level 1
0 points

Jan 23, 2011 7:31 PM in response to David Theriault

Had the same experience last week in Vanuatu. While on holiday there from Australia. I'd also turned off everything data related to avoid the huge bill horror stories you read about. Same result as you but I didn't know what was causing it. I went through the settings about 3 times to find the cause to no avail. Ended up turning the phone off most of the time unless it was on the charger.
I'll try your solution next time and just get my network to shut down data roaming and then restore it when I get back.
Last time I went away I did that and didn't switch off data roaming on the phone. It worked fine and I still had calls and texting available. This time I thought I'd just shut it down myself in settings.
I guess the other advantage of having your network shut the data roaming down is that it puts the responsibility onto them for any charge from the overseas networks you may use.
For the sake of a couple of phone calls to cancel and restore the data roaming I think it's worth it.

Thanks,

Phil
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battery drains fast with 4.2.1

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