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IOS 5 Battery Drain - N Network??

M

msroboto

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 23, 2011
5
0
I have had a horrible experience with the battery life on my iPhone since upgrading to IOS 5.
I have seen that a lot of others have had issues as well.

I have an N network. I also still have my G network up and running. If I stay on the G network all is fine with my battery. If I am on the N network forget it.
It will be drained by morning.

I tried a bunch of the suggestions turned off location services etc and nothing worked until I removed the N network and put back the G. After returning to the G network for a few days I went back to the N to see if I was crazy and sure enough the fast battery drain was back.

Is anyone else seeing this with an N network?
 
Makes no sense. The only thing I can think of is that on the N it may be having trouble catching the connection as the 2.4 may interfere with some other device, such as a cordless phone - but same should apply for the G. Try to set up a 5GHz on the 802.11N and see how that affects it.
 
saberahul said:
Makes no sense. The only thing I can think of is that on the N it may be having trouble catching the connection as the 2.4 may interfere with some other device, such as a cordless phone - but same should apply for the G. Try to set up a 5GHz on the 802.11N and see how that affects it.
Click to expand...
There's no iPhone that supports the 5GHz band. The 4S only supports 11n on a 2.4GHz band.
 
I use an 'n' network at home where am I most of the day. Hasn't seem to affected my battery life much. In fact my battery has stabilized pretty much after a week. I'm to where I've got 30-50% left after a full work day. This weekend I'm sitting at 70% after a full day. I chalk this up to having hardly any push email delivered and fewer calls on non work days, though.
 
Shouldn't make a difference at all. It's likely a coincidence with something else. I wish I could run my 2.4Ghz on N but as it is a member of my household has an ancient notebook that doesn't support it so I can only run N on 5Ghz.
 
It's possible your iPhone is dropping connection with the router if the router has issues. My Netgear WNDR4000 starts to drop wifi after a couple of weeks of normal operations. When that happens, I can see the wifi indicator on my iPhone go off and come back on constantly. When that happens, the iphone is searching which I think drains the battery quicker. When I power cycle my router, the phone drain disappears.
 
Well as far as interference goes...
This house is the interference zone for sure.

I am running two wireless networks. Well three really. The 11g, the N 2.4 ghz, and the N 5 ghz. I have 2.4 ghz phone system.
There are a lot of wireless devices on the network.

Well for now I'll keep it on G and maybe go see the geniuses.

I was mostly wondering if anyone else was seeing this.
I am pretty sure that it truly has something to do with the N network. I don't know what exactly but it is involved in my issue.
 
Thanks amro. I will try recycling and see what happens.
It is a netgear router btw.
 
interesting. I've been watching several threads about battery life and mine did mysteriously get better recently. Before it got better I did recycle my AEBS(N) and Mcell... I have no idea if that played a part..
 
Weak 3G signal maybe?

I am curious if perhaps iOS 5 handles a weak cell signal differently then iOS 4? I work in a building where iPhone 4 & 4S devices are really struggling with battery life, I was home and away from work over the weekend and noticed my 4S battery life seemed to improve - I was thinking maybe they fixed this issue, but this morning I have been at work and have literally not used my phone at all - but just check and my phone died! When I turned it on - it was searching for a cell signal until I walked to a near by window where it picked one up - walked back to the desk and it showed a signal - although a little weak - so tomorrow I'll bring in my MicroCell (which I haven't been using) and see if this helps improve the battery life.

We have iPhones of all flavors here - the 4 & 4S operating on iOS 5 - some are downgrading back to iOS 4 because of the impact of this quick battery depletion.
 
I have a Microcell as well. My connection is
generally great on that.

For my case I will try to reset everything.
 
HellDiverUK said:
My 3GS is on a 2.4GHz N network at home - no issues with battery. It drains exactly the same as it does at work on a 2.4GHz G network.
Click to expand...
The 3GS only supports 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, not 802.11n. That would mean that it's running on G speeds even on the N network.

>>>

Out of curiosity... OP, what iPhone model do you have?
 
I have an iPhone 4. The phone was always joined to this N network even under 4.0.

I did finally reset the network and the battery life is much improved.
Thanks everyone.
 
AT&T MicroCell - Weak 3G - Battery Drain

I am operating a iPhone 4S, others at work are mixed - 3GS/4/4S, the 4 & 4S operating under iOS 5 appear to be draining quickly - this experience appears to only occur while at the office - this past weekend I noted my phone appeared to operate better, not as well as my prior iPhone 4 did, but at least it would make it through a full day - then on Monday - back at work - it died at 2pm after no usage at all through out the day.

Today I brought my MicroCell in - set it up - and before I began using it - checked my phone at 9am (3 hrs) which was presently at 60% - I hadn't used it at all - so I charged it full, and at about 11am I began using it until I left all the while operating on the MicroCell for 3G, the battery when I left work - 5 hours later, was at 85%.

Clearly the weak signal at the office is impairing the battery life - perhaps those with weak wifi or poor wireless routers - may also be impaired, my assumption is that iOS 5 may have implemented a new mechanism for dealing with weak wireless signals which has inadvertently been a drain on the battery life.

Tomorrow will be a full day on the Micro Cell - I have registered it with 5 others - all in proximity of my MicroCell so we will see what the outcome is after a full day operating on it.
 
msroboto said:
I have an iPhone 4. The phone was always joined to this N network even under 4.0.

I did finally reset the network and the battery life is much improved.
Thanks everyone.
Click to expand...

Awesome. Glad that worked. Wonder if iOS5 is retrying more than in the past when a signal is weak or dropped.
 
It's not a problem with wifi. I have wifi turned off, and battery drain after being unplugged from the charger for 4 hours is 50%...

All apps closed...
Icloud off
Push email off
Reset network settings

NO dice... Piece of crap.

Was working fine when I first upgraded to 5.. now it's not.

Thanks Apple.
 
I fixed battery drain issue. Go into notification settings and turn off calendar notifications. There is some problem with this, which when you go into notification center you'll notice your calendar flashing... Once I turned that off, my battery drain stopped and the phone seems snappy again.
 
djrobsd said:
I fixed battery drain issue. Go into notification settings and turn off calendar notifications. There is some problem with this, which when you go into notification center you'll notice your calendar flashing... Once I turned that off, my battery drain stopped and the phone seems snappy again.
Click to expand...

I had seen that too but it eventually went away. Almost like there were too many notifications happening. Anyway, I'm getting decently batt life now though I don't know exactly what "fixed it".
 
New Microcell Bad battery drain

I'm new to the iphone, just retired and had to turn in my company Blackberry. My battery life hasn't been great on the 4S because of the IOS 5 battery problem but it has been live-able until I connected my MicroCell.

I activated my MicroCell today and my 4S battery has dropped to less than 5% since I added my number to the MicroCell at 10:00 this morning. It was at 90+% when I started.

I have spent roughly 90 minutes on the phone and recieved about 79 emails (all text no pictures or attachments). *We had some storms pass thru and I spent about 10 minutes on weatherbug (yes I turned off weatherbug when I finished) and I've been at home with my wifi turned on all day.

I have used my phone much heavier before and it has never drop below 15 - 20% before I put it on the charger at night. *I charge it at night and start with a full charge every day.

I'll try some of the suggestions listed in this forum but if this is what I can expect out of the MiroCell I'll go back to straight 3G. * I live on a hill and my cell tower is on the other side of the hill. * I have pretty good reception upstairs but only 2 bars downstairs which is why I went to the MicroCell to start with.

Since my wife also has a 4S I don't have anyway to compare it with another brand of phone.
 
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