my 1st GSIII was defective(phone HOT while off)

meccadon123

Senior Member
Jan 26, 2008
207
25
0
Just an FYI,

My 1st sprint GSIII was fine for the 1st month. I could get upto 3 1/2 days of battery with very light usage (mostly standby time). NOt sure what caused what happened next but the phone became extremely warm and the battery life dropped to approx. 2 hours. The phone was very warm even while off for hours!! And it obviously got even hotter while on the charger. The only way to get the phone to return to room temp was to pull the battery and leave it out for a few hours. Turning wifi/data/sync/GPS etc. off did nothing. The odd thing was, the battery was a normal temp. The heat came from the lower part of the phone (where the processor is). It also gave incorrect battery readings. While plugged in it would read "100%" and "charging" the LED stayed red, never turning green. I also could pull the battery and put it right back in and it would read 20-30 % difference VS. when I took it out.
The phone was swapped at a sprint store covered by insurance.

The only thing i did differently usage wise was link the phone to my dropbox account. It seemed to sync normally so i can't confirm dropbox caused the issue. I just can't figure out what the phone was "doing" while it was off. Just thought i'd share the story with the phone. The new 1 is running fine.
 

ndh777

Senior Member
This doesn't sound good at all. My cousin's GII on AT&T did something similar to this. The phone would be completely turned off and it would vibrate every 10 minutes. Even pulling out the battery and reinstering it made it automatically turn back on and vibrate again and again.

Hopefully this is an isolated issue what you are talking about.
 

ilostmypistons

Senior Member
Jan 25, 2011
1,037
252
0
McHenry Il
Just an FYI,

My 1st sprint GSIII was fine for the 1st month. I could get upto 3 1/2 days of battery with very light usage (mostly standby time). NOt sure what caused what happened next but the phone became extremely warm and the battery life dropped to approx. 2 hours. The phone was very warm even while off for hours!! And it obviously got even hotter while on the charger. The only way to get the phone to return to room temp was to pull the battery and leave it out for a few hours. Turning wifi/data/sync/GPS etc. off did nothing. The odd thing was, the battery was a normal temp. The heat came from the lower part of the phone (where the processor is). It also gave incorrect battery readings. While plugged in it would read "100%" and "charging" the LED stayed red, never turning green. I also could pull the battery and put it right back in and it would read 20-30 % difference VS. when I took it out.
The phone was swapped at a sprint store covered by insurance.

The only thing i did differently usage wise was link the phone to my dropbox account. It seemed to sync normally so i can't confirm dropbox caused the issue. I just can't figure out what the phone was "doing" while it was off. Just thought i'd share the story with the phone. The new 1 is running fine.
What kind of signal are you getting?
Mine was like what you descrbed for a couple days(almost no signal at home) and I was getting ready to return it but didnt have time because I was leaving for Vegas. Long story short when I got to Vegas I upated profile and PRL and havent had a problem since. Maybe the towers in your area are under constrction.

Sent from my GT-N8013 using xda premium
 

loveshinesthru

Senior Member
Feb 26, 2011
380
49
0
Bend, Oregon
My phone has gotten hot ever since I got it, but it will cool down when I stop using it. I am getting horrible battery life even witha 4300 mah battery. today it wouldnt even last 11 hours. It had 3 hours total usage time on it. I am now trying another 4300 mah battery to see if that is the problem or if its the phone. my reg battery wont last me very long either. I am also using juice defender free version and advanced task killer plus the built in task killer and I cannot get my phone to last very long. With my orig Evo I had the sprint extended battery (2500? mah) and it last me til bedtime with 50% left.
 

poit

Senior Member
May 10, 2009
1,439
710
0
Colorado
The only time this happened to me was when an badly behaving app "ran away". I would get really bad battery usage at the same time. I could cure it by clearing ram, which shut down all the running apps. Since this hasn't happened to me in a while I'm guessing that whatever app was doing that to my phone has been updated to fix the bug.
 

meccadon123

Senior Member
Jan 26, 2008
207
25
0
My issue was very odd. My phone was normal lasting up to 3 days with very light usage. It would sit for hours at "room temp"..the only thing i did differently was link it to my dropbox accnt. It seemed to sync ok..it was shortly after that i noticed the phone was very warm towards the lower 1/3 of the phone. I thought maybe there was something running or taxing the processor. So after working on it for a few days(turning everything off i.e. wifi/gps/data/sync/etc etc.) the battery got worse and worse. I then unlinked dropbox, stopped all running apps and let the phone sit in airplane mode over night. Still no joy. So i turned the phone off and let it sit for about 6 hours. It was still "very warm" while off!! At that point I pulled the battery for about 2 hours and the phone returned to normal temp. What could the phone be doing while turned off for hours?

The phone was stock and updated. I use an airrave so i dont have signal issues. The processor seemed to be running at full load even while the phone was off. The battery life went from around 3 days to not even 2 hours. The phone did seem to have the known "cell standby" issue(where the counter is reporting an incorrect usage %). While charging, the phone was even hotter to the point of me thinking it would burst. Oddly enough, the battery was at a normal temp. It was no where near the temp of the bottom of the phone(where the processor is located).The new GS3 is running normally so far. The tech at the sprint store couldnt figure the old 1 out so they just replaced it(insurance/no charge).