So, you have your hands on an LG G4. The Android device was released a year or so ago, but it still holds up as being an extremely capable and successful member of the LG product line. Maybe you have found that your device isn’t performing exactly as you expected — its battery life is lackluster, and you might even be encountering issues with your device becoming hot when in use. So, what do you do if your LG G4’s battery drain and temperature becomes abnormal? In this guide, I’ll take you step-by-step and help you resolve your battery issues.

1. Ensure that you actually have a problem

This may seem silly, but it really is important to ensure that your battery and/or temperature is wrong. A fully functional LG G4 should have a battery life of around 16 hours, at the least. However, it’s important to note that this figure will differ based upon things like brightness and usage. Obviously, if you’re doing online 3D gaming, your battery will drain much more quickly than if you were just browsing the Internet. As far as temperature goes, it’s normal for all electronics to become a little warm during use, especially when you are in an application that is particular resource-intensive. You should only really be concerned with the temperature of your device if it is hot, not warm. (It should never go any higher than around 120° F. Anything lower than that should not be of concern.)

How can you objectively look for a problem? First, allow your phone to hit 0% battery. You need to have a completely clean slate. Plug the LG G4 into its charger and wait for it to reach full battery. Next, use your device as you regularly would. Keep track of how long the battery lasts, as well as how warm the device becomes. You may want to use a stopwatch app or some form of temperature monitoring app to help you with this. If your device heats up too quickly, becomes too hot, or loses battery too quickly, then you do have a problem. Read on. Otherwise, you probably don’t have any kind of problem. The LG G4’s battery life may not be what you expected, but it is what it is.

2. Download a quality battery management app

So, you have confirmed that you have an issue with battery drain or temperature. Next, you need to diagnose what your issue is. Luckily, there are dozens of great battery management apps on the Google Play store that will help you single out the culprit of your LG G4 battery issues. I have written an article on the best Android battery saving apps, which may help you on your search for a good app. You’ll want to find something that lets you look at which apps use the most battery, which apps are most CPU-intensive, and so on. Although the choice is ultimately up to you, I highly recommend Greenify. It’s important to get a good app at this point — your app will be your greatest tool during this repair process.

3. Implement a solution

To fix your problem, you’re going to need to evaluate the data that your app gives you. Take a look at what your app tells you to diagnose your problem, and go from there. I can’t give very specific tips here, but here are a few pieces of advice that may come in handy for you, based on your situation.

• Keep your brightness level as low as possible. Although using a bright screen is certainly more convenient than using a dim one, a bright screen use a lot more power than a drim screen does.
• Apps like Greenify allow you to minimize the impact of certain resource-heavy apps by disabling them when they are not in use. You would be surprised by how much battery is used by background apps.
• Disable any features that you are not using. This means things like location services, overclocking, wi-fi, and so on. If you’re not using it, turn it off.
• If you have the ability to use either wi-fi or data, use wi-fi. It is generally less resource-intensive than using data for Internet.
• Do not use vibrate mode. This will show a large performance boost in people who get a lot of notifications throughout the day. Vibrations use a lot of battery in comparison to a standard ringtone. Opt for standard ringtones, or for silent mode.
• Disable haptic feedback. This is the feature that causes your phone to vibrate whenever you tap on the keyboard. It’s neat, sure, but it’s more or less useless and it a huge battery killer.
• Go easy on the resource-intensive apps, like 3D games. You are free to play them, but consider that the app may be too much for your year old device. Try to avoid long 3D gaming sessions when you can. This will prevent overheating and battery drain.
• Disable Internet-enabled features like Google’s auto-sync, or your Internet-connected widgets. These aren’t apps, but they update regularly, which uses energy when you don’t even really need them to be updated. If you need to keep any form of auto-syncing services, go into their settings and see if you can set the syncs to occur only when you are connected to wi-fi.
• Delete apps that you don’t really use, and clear your photos and video from your device regularly. Having a phone with overflowing storage only puts more strain on your system. The general rule is to leave at least 1 GB of free space on your device at all times.

Again, those are very general tips, and they may not apply to your situation. However, I’m sure at least one of them will be of some use to you in alleviating your battery drain issue.

4. Check for improvements

Once you have implemented your system changes, you’re going to essentially repeat step one. Allow your battery to fully drain, then fully charge it, and then monitor a regular charge cycle. Hopefully, you will see improvements in terms of battery life and system temperature. Refer back to step one to see what sort of benchmarks you should be hitting — at least 16 hours of battery life and no system temperature that exceeds 120° F. Even if your performance improves, you should ensure that you are meeting those key benchmarks, since that is the kind of performance that your device is supposed to be getting.

5. (Optional) Seek out replacement or repair

However, if you haven’t been able to meet those benchmarks, then there is probably something wrong with your hardware. There are fixes that you could probably make at home, but unless you are very, very good with this sort of thing, I highly recommend that you seek out an Android repair specialist. There may be an issue with your battery, or worse. Performance issues like this could indicate that you’re having issues with CPU, display, or something else. You may need to purchase a replacement device entirely. However, I hope that this guide helped you, and it never had to come to this.