iPhone 6S slow and low benchmark scores.

Hi, guys. I have the same problem on my 6S with samsung processor. Antutu shows near 50k... Sometimes animations get stuck and this is really annoying me. I've read this topic and see that problem must be in battery. But battery life is fine and I can use my phone all day without any problems. This must be rare problem and I don't know what to do now.

There is no point in battery replacing if problem will not go away. I've download CPU DasherX and thats what I see.

600 mhz.

I'm waiting for an answer, because the problem get me toxic toxic

Anperis wrote:

So, last chance, i am waiting for 10.3.3 and i hope they will solve this. Apple please, hear me...

Not here they won't. If you want Apple to know how you feel about something, use the feedback page:

http://www.apple.com/feedback

And for those people who will, almost inevitably say, "Yes, Apple IS reading here; they removed my post!!!!", the people who moderate these forums are not Apple engineers or developers. In fact, most of them work in a different state.

Sorry, I cannot help you, but my iPhone 6 (not 6S) has the exact same problem. I get about half the benchmark score as I did with iOS 10.1. There is no difference when I enable low power mode. Everything seems to run and start slower. I believe the problem is caused by Apple's battery "fix" that came in iOS 10.2.1.

How it works is that it somehow detects that I have a questionable battery, either via serial number or measurements. Then it throttles down the processor speed to avoid power spikes that would otherwise have caused drops in battery voltage. It is these voltage drops that can cause unexpected shutdowns.

So for me, iOS 10.2.1 works better in that there are less shutdowns, but I have to accept that everything now runs at about half the speed, compared to iOS 10.1. This has been confirmed via benchmarks, which now run at about 40-60% of the speed from November last year. The lower the battery, the slower the phone becomes. It can also be seen from how enabling power save mode, no longer changes the benchmark scores. The phone always runs in power saving mode (the processor speed part of power save mode). I am not sure how I feel about this solution.

What can be seen from the public benchmark database for Geekbench, is that there now seems to be two categories of iPhone 6: 1) those that run as before, 2) those that run at about half the speed. I think that those that run at half the speed are being down-throttled to prevent unexpected shutdowns. If anyone can explain these benchmark differences otherwise, please do so. I would have liked my phone to run as it used to when it was new, I can always charge it before it gets to 35% or so, when shutdowns start(ed) to occur. And yes, I have tried a clean iOS install as New Phone, and run all benchmarks with Background App Refresh off and in Airplane mode.

Indeed. I experienced the same problems on iPhone 6 on iOS 10.3.1 even 10.3.2 beta 2. It drove me nuts. But I believe you are right. It's logical and the shutdowns don't occur anymore. But it leaves me with a bitter feeling that the phone isn't at it's peak performance anymore.

Massive drops in Antutu and Geekbench. Always changing. Lowest was - 50% perf. drop.

Even on full charge or with power connected the performance won't go to 100%. Maybe 80% max.

And yes, it depends of the battery charge. Lower the battery - lower the scores.

My battery life is estimated to be at somewhere of 83%. Shutdowns we're present on 10.2.

I'm seeing the performance drop using the phone too. First I thought it was the OS. Now, I know.

I understand the idea. It's kind of an elegant solution to resolve the shutdown problem. But it bugs me.

Now my question is ... If I replace the battery, would the CPU continues to throttle like this or will it be normal again ?

I agree, I am really annoyed my iPhone is forced to run in this low power CPU mode. I (almost) always charge the phone before it gets to 30% where the shutdowns sometimes happened, and would have gladly had back its original performance. Sadly, the iPhone 6 is far long out of the limelight, and no one care what Apple does to it to avoid having to replace batteries en masse. If Apple had done this to a newer model, it would have caused quite the furore. As it is, it does not appear to affect all iPhone 6's still in circulation, and for those affected, only a very small minority notices the problem, and if anyone does, they write it off as "normal old cell phone, new OS slowness". I was surprised to see your reply to my post..

You raise a very good question - I have also considered paying for a battery replacement, but since I don't know if it will bring it back to original performance, I put it off for now.

Hi, same issue I had with my iPhone 6 (age 2yrs, iOS 6.2.1). Battery charging cyles 560+ out of 600 - as per Apple Store Support Tool.

Performance was half of the speed before and battery got drained withing few hours with sudden shutdowns.

They have replaced the battery and the performance issue vanished. Speed is back to normal.

Hope this information helps someone.

Bedt Regards,

Marcel

Hi. Good to know that others like yourself fixed the problem by swapping the battery via apple service. I hoped at the beginning it will work in my situation and not getting stuck with half the CPU speed. It's all good know. Phone working as it should.

The discussion was originally longer, but has been censored by Apple.

However, the short answer is, if you replace the battery, and according to Apple's rules, I can only advice that you go to an Apple store to get this done, your phone will likely get back up to full speed, as the phone will then no longer be throttling the processor speed. That was my experience, and that of a couple of other people in this thread, but I can of course not guarantee your results.

For more info, see first page of this thread.

Both iPhone 6 and 6S have shipped with bad batteries, but Apple has only voluntarily replaced the battery for free, for a relatively small number of 6S phones. Officially, Apple issued a software fix for the rest of the phones with iOS 6.2.1, without disclosing how it works or which phones it affects. However, it has been deduced that for those phones the firmware detects have questionable batteries, either via serial number or diagnostics, the firmware runs those phones in low power mode at half the processor speed, without telling owners via the normal low power mode UI indication. It's easy to tell via benchmarks though - see first page and also the linked reddit thread.

Good news is that replacing the battery, causes the phone to lift the restriction on processor speed, and it's back to the speed it was supposed to run when purchased. If your phone is out of warranty or you can't explain this to an Apple Store, you have to cover the replacement cost yourself. I tried Apple Support for my phone woes, and officially, there was nothing wrong with it, diagnostics showed all was in order. The work-around, running the phones at half speed, is meant to be perfectly fine.

It will be unlikely. If you experienced sudden shutdowns in iOS 9.3.5 and in 10.3.1 there are no more shutdowns but performance drops, most likely the battery is the problem. This is my experience and of the rest of the guys here.

Not sure if this thread is still going. It I wanted to leave my story anyway.

I have an iPhone 6s Plus and have been having the same performance issues. Scores as low as 1700 in multi core when my phone is at low battery and +-2400 when battery is full. I fear it is the battery and have decided to take it in for a replacement. Apple Store in my country (RSA) turned me away and said they won't cover a replacement as my serial number does not fall into the "range" they specify. I am taking the phone to a verified repair shop tomorrow and will post my results once new battery is in. So sad that my 6s gets lower scores than my 4 yo 5s, which I have reverted back to using. Shame on apple! This post will probably get deleted now hey??....

Caelas wrote:

Not sure if this thread is still going. It I wanted to leave my story anyway.

Why? This is a user-to-user technical support forum. It appears that most of the people posting in this thread are of the opinion that only Apple can fix this and Apple isn't reading here.

It's perfectly acceptable to be critical of Apple in these forums. As long as you're civil and not engaged in speculation, it's unlikely that your post will be removed.

I have not taken the phone in yet as I am running the Geekbench 3 battery test. It's been running for over 7.5 hours and it's still got 13% battery. This early indication tells me two things. Either the phone is definitely running in low power mode (without letting the user know) and therefore the battery can last longer or that the battery capacity is perfectly fine (as this result is in line with average) and it's just the software which throttles CPU based on battery serial number or something? Either way I am going to take the financial hit to see if it resolves the issue.

So u are still going to change the battery? The problem is not the capacity of battery but the voltage. Apple made changes in software to avoid drops of battery voltage that caused previusly shutdowns. Because of that feature, if ur battery had voltage drops, now you have problem with phone working on low power mode

Long story short I will say again. In my experience changing the battery with a good one will resolve the CPU limit. I did this myself with the right tools but apple doesn't like this kind of method and removed my posts and evidence. The scores in geekbench went back to normal from 800 single core and 1600 multi core to 1600 and 2600 I believe. So problem solved. Go to apple service to be safe and change the battery. This is my experience and others.