Pearl 8130 Battery Drain

[jdwright]

Hello all,

Thanks for checking this out, since it has been VERY frustrating for me. My wife and I have the exact same 8130 in different colors. Neither of us are heavy users, but she does use it more than I do. Anyway, her phone's battery drains really quickly. About half of the time that mine does. In fact, last night I charged her phone to full and left it over-night. It has been auto-set to turn off at 11:00 and when we checked it this morning, it was down to 70-80%.

So, long story short, I took her battery and put it in my phone and now it is working just as long as mine did. I figure now I have the problem narrowed to the phone. I've checked applications that are running and nothing beyond the default. I turned off GPS. She uses the exact same case that I do. In fact, I stream music from mine to my car stereo and still get significantly better battery life.

If you have any idea what could be causing the phone to lose battery life, I'd be eternally grateful. This has been a real pain and I'm sick of her complaining =P.

TIA for any suggestions.

J

 

[gorcorps]

So she uses it more doing what? Texting, calling, internet, what?

 

[foghorn67]

Check the free memory under the settings--->status menu throughout the day. If it's constantly low, like below 2MB free it tends to drain the battery. Also check with your provider's web page for the latest BlackBerry OS.
My 8130 had two issues, battery life and memory leaks. Mostly fixed by the upgrade.

I would start with that and go from there.

 

[jdwright]

She uses it mostly for calling, but she's only around 40 min a month, so not excessive. I just updated the OS and will see how the charging goes tonight. Thanks for the tips and I'll report back =).

J

 

[Matilda]

It could constantly be searching for a signal, which drains the battery. I used to work in this concrete prison-esque place where no one got any service, and by the time I'd leave in the evenings my phone would be dead trying to get a signal all day.

 

[jdwright]

Well, here's the latest:

I installed the latest OS last night after a backup (which I was hesitant to restore, given that it had the issues). All went according to plan and the phone is now working with the new OS and restored with all the settings from before (address book, etc.). I also added a 4 gig card and 3.2 gig of tunes. Two things I noticed are that it is still draining quickly and it also is skipping when playing the music. In fact, it had a hard time even starting the music player. Once I removed the card, though, it was fine - so I think that might be unrelated.

@Matilda: I have the same phone and since we've been home so much over the break, you'd think that they would both suffer from the drain...not the case =/.

I am again thinking that there is an application running or a setting that is screwing it up. I may reinstall the OS and leave the default settings for a while to see if it will keep a charge then.

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll keep the updates coming - I don't think I'm the only one with this problem. We may have to take the phone back...

J

 

[foghorn67]

Is it constantly warm?

 

[uli2000]

My wife's pearl is having similar problems. After trying several things, I think I may have found the culpret. Dose she keep it in the case it came with when its not in use? My wife doesnt keep hers in the case, and it seems there is a tiny magnet in the case which keeps the screen off until its removed. My wife just keeps hers in her purse, no case, and the screen never goes completly off.

 

[gorcorps]

Originally posted by: uli2000
My wife's pearl is having similar problems. After trying several things, I think I may have found the culpret. Dose she keep it in the case it came with when its not in use? My wife doesnt keep hers in the case, and it seems there is a tiny magnet in the case which keeps the screen off until its removed. My wife just keeps hers in her purse, no case, and the screen never goes completly off.

That's a setting you can change. Go to options>screen/keyboard> change 'backlight timeout' to whatever time you want.