[Woody1786]

Hi....I'm a noob at the cb forums...got my first BB three days ago. I couldn't believe how horrible the battery life was...I had read somewhere that it should have 14days standby time and 300 minutes talk time. My battery was going from fully charged to dead in 6-7 hrs time.

Anyhow...I know alot of ppl were having this same problem...but I think I may have found out why. For the people who's battery is dying real quick...have you hooked up your phone to the newest form of Desktop Manager available? I was going thru the "Blackberry 101" on the Welcome disk (since this is my first BB), and it reads (which I found weird) in the "Battery" section: To get full charging rate make sure the Blackberry USB drivers are installed on your computer.

So...I plugged it into the computer for the first time, it downloaded some new files and put them onto my BB. Guess what:

Walahhh...made it thru the entire day and still have 75% battery power. Now, this isn't the "14 days" like I said I read...but it still is 100x better than the few hours from full to empty that I was getting yesterday. I just did this and my battery problem has seemed to go away, but again keep in mind this is only Day 1 after having the software installed.

May just be total coincidence...but its worth a shot.

*******EDIT!! Read Post 24!! That has the names of the 5 updates!

Have the people that have been having battery problems not hooked up their Tour to the computer yet and download some of the new files? I think there were four files (or maybe four steps) and then it was good.

[GG1]

Good observation, hope this resolves the battery issues that some have.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[spenchey]

This will be interesting to hear from those that have crappy battery life now.

What files were installed?

[Woody1786]

you know i'm not exactly sure. i did it not attributing it to the battery this morning so i wasn't paying attention. there were definitely 4 steps/files tho.

quick question...is there anywhere else besides the box where you can see where your phone has been made? Reason I ask is i returned my first Tour (not knowing about all the issues) because the charge port was loose. They gave me a different one, but i kept my old box. Is it safe to assume that this second one is a "Mexico 5" (what my first one was) since it came from the same store within 48 hours of the receiving the first one?

[dontae20]

Well here's an oddity regarding the battery. I took mine off the charge yesterday at 530am after putting on charge around 1030 the night before. It then turned the radio off at about 8pm. I then had the phone on charger from around 815pm until 10am this morning. It's now 2 bars down at 1045pm. So that's almost 11 hours off the charger and it's going pretty good. And I've spent prolly a total of 3 hours now surfing web, some emailing and BBMing, and a few 5 min calls. Maybe the trick also is to let it completely die and charge it back up?

I will also try this with DM, thanks for the tip!

[expertandrew]

I downloaded the desktop manager because my cd did not work. However, my battery life is horrible. I unplug it around 530am, and i would say i use it for a total of maybe 1.5 hours and the batter will be around 15% by 430 pm. Any details or trick or anything will be much appreciated.

[GG1]

You can check where your phone was made by taking out the battery. Its on the sticker in back of battery

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Woody1786]

I downloaded the desktop manager because my cd did not work. However, my battery life is horrible. I unplug it around 530am, and i would say i use it for a total of maybe 1.5 hours and the batter will be around 15% by 430 pm. Any details or trick or anything will be much appreciated.

since you didn't have the cd...when you downloaded it online...did you have the files that downloaded onto mine automatically?

somebody who has not used their BB Welcome CD yet...put it into your computer and hook up your BB. Please look at what the files/steps are.

[lindros2]

This would only be relevant for those charging via computer, no?

[Woody1786]

You can check where your phone was made by taking out the battery. Its on the sticker in back of battery

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Figures...my first one was Mexico 5 and this one is Canada 1. The other one had no software problems...just the loose charging port. My Canada 1 one kind of lags every once in a while...but if i stop pressing buttons it resumes after about 5-10 seconds.

[Woody1786]

This would only be relevant for those charging via computer, no?

No...I don't believe so. I use the wall charger, but now since I've setup the Desktop Manager, received the new files, and synced up my BB, I've had much better battery life.

[expertandrew]

I cant remember what i downloaded. I think I just downloaded the desktop manager or whatever it called. However, for it to work that must have also downloaded the drivers and all. I came over from the enV and I would get 3 days of more of battery life with heavy use. My wife just got the enV touch and she charges that maybe every 4 or so days. So as you can imagine this is very odd for me to get hours for a battery charge rather than days and days

[Woody1786]

agreed, I had a chocolate for my personal phone and some horrible HTC Mogul for my work phone...the chocolate lasted 4 days, the mogul 12 hrs. i was thinking that the BB would last somewhat along the chocolate hrs

[GG1]

Figures...my first one was Mexico 5 and this one is Canada 1. The other one had no software problems...just the loose charging port. My Canada 1 one kind of lags every once in a while...but if i stop pressing buttons it resumes after about 5-10 seconds.

Mexico 5 and runs quite smoothly.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[expertandrew]

dont get me wrong coming from the enV I feel like in the past I was using a tin can instead of this amazing machine. i have read battery life gets better with time. i have read that the new OS will make it better, but I want your solution to work for me. any more details you can think of or anything that anyone else has would be awesome

[Woody1786]

ok...i just plugged it in again...its 4 steps, not 4 files. however, it loads them too quick for me to actually read what they say.

I can make out the word "script" tho. Make sure you click the "check for updates" tab on the bottom of the manager with your BB plugged in.

[hollyhoodle]

dont get me wrong coming from the enV I feel like in the past I was using a tin can instead of this amazing machine. i have read battery life gets better with time. i have read that the new OS will make it better, but I want your solution to work for me. any more details you can think of or anything that anyone else has would be awesome

Have you changed your mobile network settings to 1XEV? (Options>Mobile Network>Network Technology). Having it on Global (the default) is a battery drain. Also turn of GPS when you don't need it.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[GG1]

Bluetooth always on drains battery also

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Woody1786]

All three are correct, 1XEV, GPS off, and Bluetooth off.

[b.asagba]

hmm. has anyone else actually confirmed this has worked. cuz i really dnt wna deal with desktop manager if i dont have to.

[SmoothG]

I have DM 5.0 but just realized that my CD that came with the phone does not work. Is there a way to do this without the CD?

[expertandrew]

I turned it from global to 1XEV. lets hope that helps. I have the gps on and i like it so is there a way to make a short cut that would turn my gps on and off so i would not have to go to the options and turn it on and off? I really just want to get a whole day of battery life without having to worry

[expertandrew]

I think i have the battery life problem solved. I installed the score app and apparently it was set to update every 5 minutes while in the back ground, i set that to never. I changed from global to 1xev. and berry weather from 30 minutes to 1 hour. I still have the gps always on. I was up at 8am this morning it is now 530 and i still have like 85% of my battery life left

[Woody1786]

Ok...

So my Canada 1 BB broke...I had to go get a new one and its a Mexico 5! Woowhooo!

Anyhow, I now have exactly what was updated on my BB from the Desktop Manager. It was 5 updates in 4 steps. The names of the updates are as followed:

Blackberry 4.7 Core Applications
Blackberry API Library
Blackberry Crypto 1 Library
Blackberry Crypto Applications API Library
Email Setup Application

Now...again...here is my disclaimer! I'm not a techy at all...this was just simply something that I picked up on. I'm sorry if it doesn't work, but I would suggest everyone to download the latest version of Desktop Manager, plug in your BB and search for updates.

Please give me feedback on if this works or not. Obviously you want to take the other precautions to help conserve battery life (be it the gps or the global, or the autostandby app...but this may be the reason why battery life is so poor.

[lartmander]

Also if you're running the facebook app, it takes a big drain on your battery (I learned that the hard way with my old BB Pearl)