Help A few problems. Related?

[old_codger]

Posted this in the Alpha forum Monday AM with no responses. I now hope my problem is not specific to Alpha.

I don't know if my problem(s) is/are Alpha specific or android in general. I'm posting here and hoping for resolution.
SM-G850-A

In the last 2 months I've noticed a few changes to my phone.

On manual restart, I get 4 telephone ring tones instead of the standard Saumsung startup tone. When the Alpha starts up spontaneously (don't know why), I get the stadard startup tone.

At times, updating or opening apps is glacier like. Evernote takes 40-50 seconds to open, Google Play takes 30-40 seconds, Firefox can take over a minute (timed, no exaggeration).

More puzzling to me, the battery drains amazingly fast, umm, depending on time of day. With the phone off (not shut down), the battery loses 40-50% of power per hour, but only before 8AM. Between 8AM and 11-12ish, battery drains 13-15% per hour. After 12P, it loses 2-3% an hour. After about 6P, it loses 13-15% an hour. These are all averages over one week. In use, I can drain the phone in an hour and that is with NO video and few graphics.

Per GSam battery app, screen uses 10%, phone radio 14%, Android system 16%, Kernel 12%. No other app uses more than 3.5%. During early AM, Android system can use 40-42% of battery. FWIW, running two apps in the background, probably more but I know of these two.
1) Sound Profile PRO
1) My Data Manager

 

[Hadron]

I suspect that your problems are specific to the particular setup of your phone, rather than either the model or Android in general.

I've never met the "4 rings on startup" thing. PC BIOS signal some errors by a specific pattern of beeps on a startup, but I've never heard of the phone do it. My guess at the difference between a manual startup and a sponteneous one is that the spontaneous one may only be restarting the shell rather than a full reboot. That said, spontaneous restarts of any sort are not good. Do these happen in any particular circumstance? If it's only when the phone has been used heavily (heavy downloads or gaming, heavy use when plugged in) then it could indicate overheating, which may indicate a fault or may not (overheat any phone enough and it will shut down to protect itself).

Drain that depends on the time of day has to be app/process related. GSam will only report usage since the last complete charge, so to spot the difference between say overnight and daytime you may need to charge it, then let it run for a couple of hours, then see what's different. Can you see what is keeping the phone awake? Some versions of Android make that hard without root, but if it's spending a lot of time awake that may be an indication of a problem itself even if you can't see why. And do you leave data/WiFi on all the time, including overnight? The power drain may be related to something downloading or uploading data, which may give another way of identifying it. Standby drain will also depend very strongly on signal strength, so if you are typically in good coverage during the day but fringe cover during the night that could make a difference too (if drain varies through the day my first thought is "where are you at different times of the day and what's different about your network connection in those locations?").

Draining in an hour's use, or 40-50%/hour in standby at any time, is just not right. For the first I'd ask how old the battery is, and whether it may have been damaged (overheating is a battery's worst enemy, so personally I regard things like gaming while on charge as a bad idea)? For the second, unless you are really on the edge of cover (so constantly disconnecting and reconnecting) then you have a rogue process of some sort, the question is what. Unfortunately "android system" covers a large range of things, as you'll see if you click on that and scroll down, so telling which is the problem isn't always easy, and sometimes an app can cause these things to drain (e.g. constant location service requests: it doesn't cost much power for an app to ask for location, but it costs more to update the location itself, so a badly-written app could make "android system" do more work and hence appear to be misbehaving).

 

[old_codger]

Thanks for the response.
Spontaneous reboot, AFAIK, has happened twice - both times after updating an app.
FWIW, I do NO video and NO games.
Power usage is derived by turning on phone, acquiring % charged, turning off phone, waiting 30 minutes, turning on phone and acquiring % charged. Never immediately after unplug. Haven't checked wifi strength. I'll monito that. Phone shuts down after one minute without use.
Battery - I would suspect, if the phone only uses say 5% an hour at times, the battery isn't the problem. No?
Battery temp - I'll watch that.

 

[old_codger]

Update. Starting yesterday, my phone went to continuous boot loop. Tried VOL UP/HOME/POWER and "wipe cache." No change. Tried plugging phone in to PC and reboot. Booted successfully but re-started loop 20-30 minutes later. FWIW, crashed and started loop while using Firefox.

 

[chanchan05]

Personally in your case. I'd back up data that's important and reset the phone. It sounds possible hardware issue at this point. At least a factory reset would make the diagnosis.

 

[old_codger]

May not have a choice . . . I can get the phone to boot up and stay on, but only if it's connected to an outlet. Unplugged, the phone lasts 20-30 minutes before looping. HATE the reset though. Only time I tried it, it took 3 days.