[xweb10]

I use my playbook sparingly and mainly leave it in standby. The battery has been emptying faster as of recent. Anyone else experiencing declining battery performance?

[tommynap01]

there are soo many problems with this thing hopefully when 2.0 comes out in 10 years it solves them all

[xweb10]

there are soo many problems with this thing hopefully when 2.0 comes out in 10 years it solves them all

I'm overall happy but this is a battery question.

[anindoc]

i suggest that you download the battery guru app from app world and then monitor ur battery health and charge over time. The app gives lot of feedback that helps decipher if any problem do exist.
You also have to check ur user settings- do u have the backlight to low levels, do u have the autoadjust of backlight off, are ur applications set to stop when in the background, so there are a lot of factors that will contribute to ur battery drain and life.
hope this helps.

[anindoc]

there are soo many problems with this thing hopefully when 2.0 comes out in 10 years it solves them all

then come back in 10 years and let us know.......

[xweb10]

i suggest that you download the battery guru app from app world and then monitor ur battery health and charge over time. The app gives lot of feedback that helps decipher if any problem do exist.
You also have to check ur user settings- do u have the backlight to low levels, do u have the autoadjust of backlight off, are ur applications set to stop when in the background, so there are a lot of factors that will contribute to ur battery drain and life.
hope this helps.

Thanks. I will check it out. I have nothing running when in standby.

[peter9477]

Thanks anindoc for the plug.

xweb10, one key thing to check is whether you've recently changed your usage patterns in some way, even if it wouldn't otherwise seem to have any impact on battery usage.

For example, I'm still attempting to narrow down an issue involving increased power consumption after using GPS apps. I can generally reproduce the problem by running two different GPS apps simultaneously, and I usually manage to get one to fail. Then even after exiting both of them the power usage is about 0.25W higher than it would otherwise be. That's the same increase you'll see any time the GPS is being used, but in this case the condition persists until you do a restart of the tablet.

(Battery Guru does show the actual power consumed, as reported by the OS. It can take some patience given how slow the updates are, but it's been working well for many people on different types of power/battery problems.)

[xweb10]

The only apps I use on a regular basis are the browser, ScoreMobile (Sundays only), and Gee reader. I always leave WIFI and Bluetooth on. No apps are left running when I put the PB in standby.

It just seems that for at least a month after purchase, it would decrease 2-4% overnight in standby. Now it is 4%-8%. Very odd.

[bpdude]

there are soo many problems with this thing hopefully when 2.0 comes out in 10 years it solves them all

haha good one

[peter9477]

xweb10, it's possible your "battery health" value (which is an estimate calculated by the operating system, updated from time to time, which attempts to show your battery's max capacity relative to a factory-fresh battery) has dropped suddenly.

Most units ship with somewhere around 95-97% capacity, but that value typically (based on maybe 12 units that I've had reports on so far) drops in the first dozen recharge cycles to the low 90s. After a few months it will probably be around 89-90%.

On a few units, from time to time, the value suddenly plummets down to about 80% for no apparent reason, and may stay there for a few days before jumping back up again. (Or maybe it stays down there for longer... too few reports from people to really know yet.)

Since the % battery level is in effect showing you what proportion of your current max capacity is left, if this health value drops then each 1% of your battery life corresponds to less actual energy.

Basically the two possibilities are that your tablet is really using more power in standby now, or that it merely thinks it has less capacity so the same amount of power used is a higher percentage of the total.

[ealvnv]

have you tried calibrating the battery?

just let the battery go all the way down until it turn off the device, try turning it back on and if it doesnt turn on, fully charge the battery before you disconnect the charger and do the same a couple of times, do it every once in awhile and you will see the battery working better.

[ericlc2]

any update on this? i have the same issue and i even turn wifi off before putting in standby. In previous os versions I had insanely good battery life. In the past month or so the battery for me is absolute ****. Thanks for the app rec. will have to give it a try.

[xweb10]

Update: I just RMA'd my PlayBook. We'll see what gets sent back to me.

[xweb10]

I received my PB back. The language was set to French so setup was rather challenging. Hopefully the battery is better now.

[xweb10]

Interesting that I sent my Playbook to RMA with my battery at 90% health and received it back "fixed" with 90% health. Nevertheless, the battery seems to be draining much too fast. All day (8 hours) it was left in standby with only Wifi connected and it drained 10%. This is definitely a problem.

[peter9477]

xweb10, that's using about 200mW on average during that time. What does Battery Guru show? You can export the data, copy the .csv file to your PC, and open it in a spreadsheet program. Check the Power column during the time in question and see what's going on. If it was in standby, with no wifi activity, it should have been well under 0.1W (100mW).

You should probably repeat the test with WiFi and Bluetooth turned off and see whether that's any different.

Also should try a test where you cycle power (or restart), then immediately run Battery Guru and put it into standby for another 8h stretch. If it's using that much power immediately on startup, with wifi off, something is wrong.

[xweb10]

peter,

Thanks, I will look into it. I was not running batter guru during the day so I will try again tomorrow or overnight.

[thymaster]

It's winter time. Have you been leaving your PB in the car?

On standby, cold environment will drain your battery fast and lessen your battery lifespan. This has happened to me in the past with laptops and cameras.

[peter9477]

xweb10, sorry to take so long to analyze the export file. I'm looking at it now.

On Nov 22 around 9pm it was using about 0.340W, presumably in standby, and as you noted that would lead to an excessive drain in battery level. At 22:11, however, the drain drops to only 0.065W... did you disable WiFi at that point, or enable Airplane mode or change anything else?

It then used a normal amount of power in standby until 4:40am on Nov 23, at which point it jumps to 0.315W or so. Unless you get up really early and simply re-enabled WiFi, I can't think of a good explanation of that yet.

In any case, I'd consider a PlayBook that uses over 300mW in standby, with WiFi on, to likely be defective unless you were in an environment where lots of WiFi traffic was occurring to/from it.

What's your local WiFi environment look like? Are there a dozen hotspots around you? And on your own network, are there other computers, some possibly that you've used to access your PlayBook's MEDIA network share, and which might still have a connection to it?

As a final test, if you have the means, disable all external WiFi stuff so that nothing could possibly be talking to the PlayBook, restart the PlayBook, and monitor power again with WiFi on, then with it off. In my opinion, there's no way it should still be sitting at >100mW even when WiFi is on, with nothing talking to it. Either a hardware or software problem, and one RIM should investigate and/or they should replace or fix your tablet. (Not that my opinion holds any weight with them mind you. )

[xweb10]

Peter,

Thanks for the tips. I will try more options.

I left WIFI on the entire time with no apps (other than Battery Guru) running. I do have my playbook mapped as a drive on my PC, but there was no activity during that timeframe. I was not up at 4:40AM, either.

[gregerator]

ive had my pb since May. This weekend i went on a trip. Pulled the pb from the charger at 6:30AM. Used it to watch 3 hours of video via HDMI from about 8PM to 11PM. i always leave gps, wifi, and bt on. At the end of the day i was at 79%. Battery on my pb is fine for my uses .

[emtunc]

Peter,
Does his battery profile follow the dodgy one I posted about several months ago?
See @ http://forums.crackberry.com/blackbe...e-rmad-654672/

Sounds a bit like the issue I had.