Long post.... Skip to the end if you'd like to read my resolution)
Like many others have recently posted, there exist battery drain issues since the .148 release. I previously posted about my trials trying to chase this down, so for the benefit of others thought I would summarize my findings.
Doekim's Storm Background
Purchased Storm Dec of 2008. Factory fresh .75 OS (never installed any leaked/hybrid OS's). Had over the last few months installed several popular apps such as Facebook, Ebay, Weatherbug, etc. My smart phone use is fairly typical; about 30 mins (or so) of phone use, email, IM and occasional camera use. Most of the time, I'm in a very good reception area (3G). The past 7 mos, I get about 24hrs of battery life (down about 50% at end of day), and would place it on a wall charger each evening. Bluetooth was used infrequently but left on. Didn't use the phone much for music. And I use a 'magnetic' holster (which quiesces the phone to conserver power).
The .148 Upgrade
Within days of receiving an email from RIM, I decided to upgrade to .148 OS. The steps I went through were as follows (all accomplished with Blackberry Desktop Manager v4.7):
- Complete charge of Storm
- Downloaded new .148 OS
- Complete backup of all software on Storm running under original .75 OS
- Desktop Manger install of .148 to BB Storm
- Note that upgrade went without any anamolies (including what I believe are normal phone resets during upgrade process)
So far...So good. The first thing I notice is that several settings have been reset to presumably factor or application defaults. I painstakingly go through and restore settings to where they were previously (for ex. 'brightness'). Not having spent much time with all the apps I had installed I didn't specficially try them again (CLUE #1).
- Back on charger that night....100%
The Quick Discharge
Day 1, at about 2p phone signals that battery is about dead... What? I had made one phone call that day, and nothing more than the normal email management. Hmmmm....Never had that happen before. Recharged phone.
Day 2, a pay a bit more attention to battery drain, and....Sure enough. By 11a, the battery is down to 40%. Again, no phone calls that morning and only minor emails and one online web access.
Something is NOT right. On Crackberry, there are several members (at least 3-4 threads) also exhibitiing simlilar problems; all with the same symptoms (only change to Storm was OS upgrade to .148).
Chasing down the problem
Several suggestions on this site refer to fixing Storm problems by "pulling the battery." As an electrical engineer, I can understand the justification for pulling the battery (once) as it removes power from the Storm's volatile memory (not to be confused with non-volatile; such as flash memory that retains it's memory contents).
More than one battery pull is a waste of time. (If the phone is NOT utilized in any way, subsequent battery pulls are of insignificant (if any) value. Once volatile memory is cleared....it's cleared. It doesn't get more 'cleared' with every subsequent 'pull'.)
My attempts to fix the battery drain problem with a 'battery pull' produced no difference in the drain issue. I also double checked (and strongly encourage you to confirm) any power savings modes (lower brightness, turn off GPS, etc) and closed any apps running in the background; none of which solved the issue.
Someone else suggested that new 'antenna/receiver/transmitter' code in the .148 OS might be responsible for draining the battery by more agressively trying to adjust for cell tower signals. Since I was already in a 3G reception area, this didn't make much sense, but I was willing to give it a try. Simple test was to turn off the Mobile Network Connections (under system settings). This is 'airplane mode' and shuts down the Storms receiver/transmitter. After 5 hours, same battery drain results (down about 50%). So its NOT some new OS algorithm gone wild.
Clue #2
Back to the drawing board...3rd day, I use Facebook (which I had not attempted since the Day 1 upgrade). I open the app and there sit 4 messages: Unable to connect, Failure to Log IN...etc.) Here, Facebook had attempted to connect and login WITHOUT my ever initiating Facebook since the .148 upgrade. That made me think. I wonder how many other apps on my Storm which require some sort of credentials (login, password) might be attempting to do the same thing. And (unlike Facebook which gave up) how many continuously attempting that did NOT give up; or continued some other background activity that chewed up the battery? At the suggestion of others, I started examining the apps that might culprits.
The Culprit (and Resolution)
Slowly but surely, I started removing apps and monitoring battery drain; gmail, ebay, WSJ.... No change. Battery still drained about 10% per hour. Poynt, CB Launcher, Slacker....No change. Then....Weatherbug. And BINGO. Battery drain issue disappeared. Recharged battery that night, and haven't had a problem since.
My suspicion is as follows: Weatherbug (and potentially other apps), either leave around a rogue piece of code or attempt far longer than needed to initiate there apps. I suspect that many folks either use the app within a short time of upgrading the OS and allow it to complete it's needed initialization. Unlike Facebook that finally gave up, this app may be continuing on for infinity. To be clear, without examining the code, or getting some sort of acknowledgment from the Weatherbug authors, it's speculative. But certainly evidence points to Weatherbug being the culprit in my case. It's equally possible there are OTHER apps misbehaving, which is why some folks find a common app that caused there issue and other members a different app.
A few notes on battery use
The Storm uses a cryptographic lithium cell battery. Lithium batteries are chosen for consumer applications because they are 'memory free' (unlike ni-cad).
A lithium-ion battery provides 300-500 discharge/charge cycles. The battery prefers a partial rather than a full discharge. Frequent full discharges should be avoided when possible. Instead, charge the battery more often or use a larger battery. There is no concern of memory when applying unscheduled charges. A very good online write up is located at:
Welcome to Battery University
A battery with an 'internal meter/guage' (which the storm does NOT have) is used for measuring capacity. While full discharge will reset the 'metering' it has NO effect on storage capacity (stated differently, resetting the 'metering' does NOT have the ability to increase capacity of the battery itself). Full discharges of the Storms' battery provides NO benefit. With an average life of 2-3 years for a new lithium battery our Storm batteries have not even depleted measurably yet. And while statistically there MAY be a few defective batteries, it is unlikely that all the .148 OS upgrades caused accelerated battery failures.
So...in your quest for .148 battery drain search, I would recommend exploring which applications might be suspect. But continued battery pulls, resets, etc, are not going to surface the faulty app. My suggestion is to uninstall (delete) apps and monitor battery consumption until the culprit is discovered.
Hope this helps...
Doekim
Thread Author
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Resolved MY Battery Drain issue on .148 (and other thoughts) 
), so I never even thought about installing it on my phone...
.141 Battery Drain = App problem. 
Linear Mode
