Is this a problem with the phone software or battery?

[Wrichik Basu]

I am experiencing weird problems with my phone. It is a Samsung Galaxy On7, running Android 6.0.1, updated to the latest version, unrooted.

Since some days, the battery is falling very fast. For example, if I charge my device to 100%, open chrome and start writing this thread, at the end, it will go down to 60%. And the worst fact is, it just switches off.

Previously, I have used my phone even at 20% battery. Now, I cannot keep it switched on at 60%.

Today, I charged it to 94%, and switched it off. Then I took out the battery, waited for some time, and again put it in. It showed 2% charge was left. I again took the battery out, reinserted it, and found a charge of 75%.

Does this seem to be the problem of phone hardware, OS or battery? Maybe the hardware parts reading charge from battery have become faulty. I have the option to take it to a service centre, but since I cannot go at this moment, I am trying out software trucks to help me.

Any ideas?

 

[jedishrfu]

One a battery that discharges fast may mean there's an app that is running in the background causing it. I had one such video app that even when in the background unduly used up my battery.

The other issue is that your battery may be on the way out and you may need a new one.

When you removed it from your phone, you might need to wait several minutes before replacing it as some phones might retain the old battery status in memory and report that.

Search online for others who may have the same issue or go see your phone shop:

https://www.technobezz.com/fix-samsung-note-7-battery-life-issues/

 

[anorlunda]

Go to settings/device maintenance/battery

There you can see a report on app energy usage.

One other factor may be significant, that is signal strength. If you are in a location where the cell phone signal is low, almost zero, the phone works extra hard to keep a connection.

 

[jedishrfu]

Mentioning signal strength reminds me of the time my data plan went through the roof because my wife tried to send me a photo while visiting some natl parks and because of the shoddy signal the phone tried to send the file and failed sending half only. Later it tried again and failed again.

It used a few gigabytes trying and failing to send a photo of a few megabytes because of signal dropout before file transmission was complete.

 

[Grinkle]

Its certainly possible something has gone wrong with the charge controller in your phone. Battery charging is not a trivial thing and if something in that sub-system is misbehaving your battery might never be charged as much as the charge controller thinks it is.

Anyway, Google it, if you can't easily find the same issue reported by others, its more likely software than hardware (because many users have exactly the same hardware, very few users have exactly the same software).

 

[Wrichik Basu]

One a battery that discharges fast may mean there's an app that is running in the background causing it. I had one such video app that even when in the background unduly used up my battery.

In the developer options, I set the background process limit to 1. Just to check this. But same results.

When you removed it from your phone, you might need to wait several minutes before replacing it as some phones might retain the old battery status in memory and report that

I waited for about 30 minutes.

The other issue is that your battery may be on the way out and you may need a new one.

That is a possible problem. I need to go to the service centre to check this.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Go to settings/device maintenance/battery

There you can see a report on app energy usage

I have seen that, and I have got the most unrealistic graphs in lifetime. One graph goes like this:

As per the app usage, all charge is being taken up be the screen. Previously, this was not the case. The screen brightness and timeout are the same as before. But I don't know how a dark screen can take up charge.

One other factor may be significant, that is signal strength. If you are in a location where the cell phone signal is low, almost zero, the phone works extra hard to keep a connection.

Chances are less. I live in an area where signal strength is always high.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

It's a long time since the last message was posted, but I felt it's my duty to write what happened to the phone finally. I went to the service centre. They examined it, and informed me that both the motherboard and the battery had to be changed. Got a bill of around 56 USD.

Also, they told me not to install too many apps, because that reduces the motherboard life. That can happen? Maybe. I did install and uninstall quite a number of apps since I had bought the phone. Never heard that it affects the motherboard.

 

[jedishrfu]

I think the app thing was bs. I’ve heard that raspberry pi memory is like that with a limited number of reads before failure since its an SD card.

 

[Rive]

All flash type memories are affected, but it is more about erase cycles, not reads.
For smartphones, with normal usage there should be just a few unlucky cases within the useful lifetime.