iPhone 3GS Battery Issue (iOS 5)

I had the same problem yesterday with my ipad 2 and 3GS, but found this https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3786800?start=15&tstart=0 which helped me.

lool

@moazman, I had horrible prob. with my 3gs when I upgraded to 5.01 -- new battery helped a lot, but I feel like the new battery is starting to drain faster again. Thanks for e-mail push tip. I'll start doing that

I really think it's down to the amount of data that the phone Uploads with Email Push ON on iOS 5.01. There is an improvement with iOS 5.1 tho so upgrade asap and i hope it works for you dude!

I even had the same battery problems on a brand new 3GS tho! (It was a replacement thru my provider's insurance scheme)

I do have a very large Exchange email account (2GB+) at my office and upwards of 40 emails a day + calendar invitations - so there is a lot of data to Push to the phone.

But Push switched OFF = approx 48hours of battery life on iOS 5.01 (with low usage btw 😝 ).

I upgraded to iOS 5.1 last week and battery life is slightly improved (or the same - i dunno haha!) with Push OFF.

Out of curiosity i did another test over 24hours a couple of days ago (with new iOS 5.1) with Push switched ON = approx 14 hours battery life and 15MB Downloaded in 24hours with only 1.8MB Upload.

Compare that with my last test results on iOS 5.01 which was 25MB D/L and 23MB U/L.

So you can see there is a massive improvement on iOS 5.1! Shame it took Apple 6 months to get there.😠

I think the Push feature is not as good as Blackberry and HTC. And the sheer amount of data Uploaded as well as Downloaded over 3G network causes the battery to drain too quickly with iOS 5 & 5.01.

Imagine the time and battery power needed to UPLOAD (which is slower than download) 23MB while DOWNLOADING 25MB at the saaaaame time - no wonder the battery was dead after 6 hours!!!

I only switch Push ON when i am out of the office so, 3 replacement phones later, i'm happy with the overall performance of the 3GS and battery now that it lasts nearly 2 days with average usage (and Email Push switched OFFFFFF 😉 ).

Good luck with yours!

Peace

I wish I had known about the battery problem before I made the update. Before I update my 3gs I was getting 20+ hrs on a charge now I'm lucky to get 6 hrs on stand by. If I make a call or stream I'm getting less then 3 hrs. The phone has become a good paper weight. ;-(

i was tired to find a solution to settle my problem....

my 3GS was fully charged. It can play music for 7-8hours or few hours for talk, but it will automatic shut down if i use online apps, like whats app, drawing something or facebook. if i recharge, after a minute my 3GS was re-start, and show my battery still having 98%, sometime 90%.....

anyone can help me.....it drive me crazy for few weeks.....

I have update to IOS 5.1....pls help!!!

Hi Sola.rain,

Well, you're not the only one. The good news for you (I hope) is that if you read through these posts, you'll find an answer that will work for you. There is a lot of advice here. I would do them all, especially the part about replacing your battery. My phone has been working like a charm since I made my first post.

Good luck!

Thanks goofbear....I have try to restore, but result still same....too bad

At the end, I change my battery... Is work.... Now my battery still 38% since 9hrs ago

I do think there are issues with 5.1, but I believe the BIG deal here is that these old 3gs batteries are too weak to push the new iOS. Batteries do get old over time.

Hey Guys! Well, I have the same problem. My phone was shutting off anything between 50 - 60% of battery. Initially, I thought that this was because of enabling 3G or data. But, this was happening even otherwise. Hence, I went ahead and replaced the battery. Even after this, I am having the same issue.

Now, I have given the phone to another gentleman who said that he would check on this by downgrading the software, use another battery and check. Frankly, I am not sure where else to go fix this **** problem. Am not sure whether Apple actually is listening to this issue since I see thousand's complaining of the same issue.

hi,

same problem m facing. m using 3gs bought from singapore. and now they are saying that SINGAPORE PURCHASED IPHONES CANT BE REPAIRED IN INDIA AT OFFICIAL ISTORES!!!!! lols!!!!!!

i upgraded to 5.0.1 then 5.1 after dat i again rostored the ios but still d same problem. so should we now say that these cant handle it after steve jobs (RIP)????? and we should move ahead towards windows mobiles or blackberrys after facing ro resolvance of same problem of thousands of people???

1. replace your battery -- you can do this yoursel -- but google it for directions. 2. try all the tips on this forum. It helped my problem. Maybe it'll help yours.

Having the same problem here with my 3GS shutting down between 40 - 45% since I updated to 5.1. I don't think it's worth spending money on replacing the battery. The new hardware should be out sometime this year and the 3GS will suffer the same fate as the 3G did with the newer software update. At this point we know our 3GS is cooked but If Apple can just resolve this issue so that we can atleast get by until the new hardware is out would be fantastic... but as history has shown us... improbable.

Just wanted to say thank you to moazman !! Trawled through this site all weekend to solve the hideous battery issue with my updated 3GS. Never had an iPhone and my son upgraded and gave me his old one. Initially thrilled then wanted to launch it because it kept shutting down etc. Alll the same problems as on here. tried lots of previous suggestions and was about to go for a battery replacement and then bingo followed moazman suggestion of switching the email push switch off 😁 And not had another problem !!!! Yaaaaaaay 24 hrs on and it hasn't switched off THANKYOU Moazman xx

I too, have been through swapping battery. The result doesn't appear to be worth the trouble. I have assembled a couple of 'theories':

1. iOS 5 is too heavy and 'smart' for the 3GS-battery by design.

2. You can go only some of the way by nudging or killing the various background processes.

3. Apple still has some explaning to do about iPhones with new batteries shutting down at 30%-80% power.

I have been wondering if some powermanager somehow needs resetting. If the phone is confused about a new battery, you might never really benefit from the supposedly larger capacity of a fresh replacement battery. I have been using BatteryDoctor faithfully to ensure at least a monthly full recharge and following almost all the tips (full cycle loading, closing of background apps, turn off ping, location service, turning 3G + Edge off while on WiFi etc.) Still my one-month-old replacement battery routinely dies on me at around 50%.

What we really need is some hard data on the battery condition. I don't think Apple allow access to anything of value. Not even the number of recharging cycles as we know it from Mac OS. So we are left with reading in tea leaves and trusting geniuses (which we BTW don't have in Denmark ;-] ).

All this said, I will look forward to testing Moazman's tip about the the mail-settings. Good one. Especially when you have 6-7 different mail accounts to synchronize. Thanks.

PS: BatteryDoctor claims that an iPhone (which version?) should still have 80% of it's capacity left after 400 recycles. FWIW...