What is causing my iPhone to discharge so suddenly?

[Green Cymbeline]

I have an iPhone 4G, and it's a year old. I have never had a problem with it holding a charge before until 2 days ago. It was fully charged that morning, and had at least 85% charge left. A couple of hours later after sitting in my purse unused, it was completely dead. It happened again last night, it was almost fully charged when I went to sleep, and I woke up to a dead phone. This has never happened before. Any ideas on what could be causing this?

[Candyman74]

Have you got bluetooth switched on? That's quite a heavy drain.

[Green Cymbeline]

Nope, Bluetooth is not on.

[beowulff]

Do a soft reset.

To do a “soft reset” on an iPhone, hold down the “home menu” button and the “power” button, both at the same time, for aprroximately 10 seconds.

[Candyman74]

Do a soft reset.

If it's run out of power, it'll have turned off. So its been reset, presumably.

[beowulff]

If it's run out of power, it'll have turned off. So its been reset, presumably.

I don't think a power-out reset is the same thing.

[stpauler]

Have you installed any new apps recently? Delete those and see if you still have the same problem.

[Rachellelogram]

Maybe your iPhone is not-so-fresh.

Sorry, couldn't resist a good discharge joke.

[brittekland]

Sorry for asking 'what goes without saying' but you didn't have any phone calls? I know you said you didn't use it but I thought maybe you are not including the calls.

Often people don't realize bit longer calls and/or how hard a phone needs to work to send signals out based on where you are making the call, and even how you are cupping your phone in your hand, can drain the charge way faster for example. Sometimes, particularly your battery charge is not on the side of fully charged, it can give you an impression of charge suddenly being drained out, like how sometimes you seemed to have used way more gas than you expected.... Probably not the case based on what you stated though. There is also a possibility of something inadvertently being on like an app or whatnot.

[Celidin]

Something I've found that discharges my battery really fast is if I'm in a location that has poor or spotty/intermittent cell reception - the phone chugs and chugs to keep find and losing a signal, which eats up a lot of battery power.

For example - when I'm at work, at my desk (by a window), my phone will be okay during the day and generally last the whole day, but I still eat up like 50-60% of the charge (I get a signal, but it's weak). If I'm in and out of conference rooms in meetings all day, the phone's battery is usually dead or close to it by the time I go home. Finally, when I'm home and getting a solid, steady signal, my battery will only go through 10-20% of the charge in a day. This seems to because the conference rooms are mostly interior rooms and my phone goes through what I describe above.

You don't mention it in the OP, but are you maybe travelling or something and in a hotel or location other than where you normally charge the phone?

[Green Cymbeline]

To answer a couple of questions...

During the times it discharged, I took no phone calls. The first time it rang once, but I did not answer it, and had one text message. The second time I had no calls or texts.

However, both times were in places other than home. But I was getting a decent signal in both places. And, at home, where it usually is, I get a really bad signal, and the battery never discharges so fast there. Usually the charge lasts for 2 days with normal usage.

Also I have not gotten any new apps recently. And I often make sure any running programs are shut down, although the camera, messages or the iPod may have been running.

I am closely monitoring it today. So far, OK. It was at 100% this morning and is now at 80%, and I have only done a few texts and one 1-minute long phone call.

I am worried that my battery is bad. How does one go about getting a new battery in an iPhone, or do you have to get a new phone?

[beowulff]

To answer a couple of questions...

During the times it discharged, I took no phone calls. The first time it rang once, but I did not answer it, and had one text message. The second time I had no calls or texts.

However, both times were in places other than home. But I was getting a decent signal in both places. And, at home, where it usually is, I get a really bad signal, and the battery never discharges so fast there. Usually the charge lasts for 2 days with normal usage.

Also I have not gotten any new apps recently. And I often make sure any running programs are shut down, although the camera, messages or the iPod may have been running.

I am closely monitoring it today. So far, OK. It was at 100% this morning and is now at 80%, and I have only done a few texts and one 1-minute long phone call.

I am worried that my battery is bad. How does one go about getting a new battery in an iPhone, or do you have to get a new phone?
Do what I suggested.

[Green Cymbeline]

Do what I suggested.Sorry, forgot to address this. I did do that twice after the problem occurred. I am doing it again now. I hope it helps. Thanks.

[brittekland]

You'll have to take the phone in or send it Apple to replace the battery as far as I know.

[beowulff]

You'll have to take the phone in or send it Apple to replace the battery as far as I know.

The battery on the 4s is pretty easy to replace (http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing-iPhone-4-Battery/3141/1), but if none of the "soft" fixes work, I would hit Apple up - they will probably replace it for free.

[Al Bundy]

You could always have some strange anomaly that developed a drain in the phone, but if it has been keeping a charge all this time, the battery is suffering "infant mortality."

[Baron Greenback]

The battery on the 4s is pretty easy to replace (http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing-iPhone-4-Battery/3141/1), but if none of the "soft" fixes work, I would hit Apple up - they will probably replace it for free.

Anything that needs tools to replace isn't "pretty easy". Does opening the case invalidate the warranty?

[Fiendish Astronaut]

I am getting exactly the same problem on my 3Gs and so is my Dad. I can understand if the battery is draining at a much faster rate but the battery indicator doesn't suggest that - like the OP, the phone will appear to completely discharge itself quite suddenly from a reasonable charge level. My Dad suggested I double tapped the home button to get the open applications (to get the a row of icons along the bottom), hold one of them so they shake and then close each one from there. I'm dubious it works though.

I've just been looking on the Apple forums and deleting and reinstalling your email settings seems to be the consensus fix to a fast draining battery in the new OS. Haven't tested this yet.

I'm not sure if it's acceptable to link to another forum here so I wont do so for now.

[slm2955]

Sounds like you could use a new battery!

[Dolomite]

What version of iOS are you running? 5 has battery drain issues, 5.0.1 fixed some, but not all.

[AaronX]

If you have time, I suggest you close all apps, restart the phone, disable all radios and leave it in airplane mode, and see if it still drains.

[mnemosyne]

Did you update any apps lately? Do you have apps that push information to your phone home display, like a sports tracking app, or even Facebook? I turn all the "push" and "badges" notifications off on most of my apps on my iPod Touch because they tend to drain the battery. Skype is the worst - the automatic sign-on and constant refreshing just kills my iPod.

I'd go through the Settings for all your apps and see if there's anything there that might suddenly be contributing to your phone constantly trying to connect to a service to get information.