How To Fix: Samsung Galaxy Note 5 Battery Drain/Overheating
The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 is one of the best smart phones on the market. However, many users of the Note 5 have mentioned one major flaw: It is remarkably easy to overheat the phone, and the battery can drain much faster than expected. Here we take a look at these issues, and some tricks on how to solve them to ensure a long life for battery and phone alike.
Tip #1: Download an app to manage your battery usage.
One of the biggest causes of overheating is a rapid discharge of energy from the battery as a result of what’s called “rogue” apps. These apps tend to have a large amount of permissions and often run in the background, draining energy as they transfer data back and forth between you and their original servers. Oddly enough, to solve the app problem, you can download yet another.
Greenify is just such an app that can manage your app settings and prevent overheating. It does this by giving you an inside look at your own phone to see what apps are taking the most energy, as well as giving you options to manage them as you see fit. To ensure that your phone has the longest battery life possible, it is recommended to hibernate any apps you aren’t actively using at any given moment to extend the use of your Note 5.
Tip #2: Adjust Your Phone Settings
If downloading an app isn’t to your liking but you’d still like to increase your the ability to use your Note without overheating or power loss, adjusting a few settings can go a long way. The most obvious of these settings to adjust would be the brightness which can improve your battery life significantly, even with a brightness decrease of 30%.
Another, slightly more hidden setting to adjust would be your GPS and Location settings. In most cases, whether you are aware of it or not, the Galaxy Note 5 is relaying position data to multiple applications in the background, which of course takes significant energy. To adjust these settings, go to Settings, then Location and select Mode. Within Mode, you will find the options of High Accuracy (which uses a mix of GPS and Wi-Fi data to get your location), Battery Saver, and Device Only (which only uses the GPS device on-board the Galaxy). Selecting either Battery Saver or Device Only will be your best bet in keeping battery usage under control.
Lastly, an adjustment of Sync Settings may prove quite useful. While this may be a slight inconvenience in terms of getting email notifications or updates, it will greatly help in not only the longevity of your battery, but also will lower the use of your data if you happen to travel. To adjust your Sync settings, go to Home Screen, then Apps, then tap Email. From the inbox, tap the More button on the upper right hand corner. Then hit settings and tap Sync Account off, or tap Sync schedule to edit or set up the phone to update notifications automatically.
Tip #3: Calibrate Your Battery
If the above options have not worked in your favor, there is a slight chance that the Android OS your phone is running may not have your battery properly calibrated to it. To adjust the calibration and possibly extend the battery life significantly, there is a small number of steps. First, be sure to run down your phone’s battery until it shuts off automatically. Then, though it may seem odd, attempt to turn on the phone and allow it to shut off yet again. Then, plug in your phone and wait for it to charge to 100% before unplugging and turning on again. At this point if calibration is the issue, the phone may not read at 100% so plug it in until it does so, this time leaving it on while charging. Now, repeat this process from start to finish one more time and the Android Operating System should have reset its calibration protocols, allowing for a more full use of your battery.
One Final Note About Your Note
If none of the above methods have worked, there may be a hardware issue causing the rapid discharge and overheat of your Galaxy Note 5’s battery. To determine this, you can access a secret menu and check your battery information. To access this menu, go to your dialing menu and type in ##4636## , then hit the call button. This should take you to a secondary menu after a moment, where you can select the Battery Scale option to see the “real” charge percentage you have left in your phone, as well as the Battery Health option which will allow you to see if there are any detectable issues with the battery that may warrant a replacement. If this is the case, it is well advised to check the status of your phone warranty and if possible to take it to a qualified repair center to have the battery replaced.
