iPhone 5 shuts off at about 30% battery level

[projectman]

I have had a consistent issue with battery life since iOS7. It usually happens like this:

At about 30% on the battery indicator, I could be doing something like sending a text or in the middle of a phone call, I may look down and see that the device has suddenly gone into the red (indicating 20% power left) or the phone will just shut down. It behaves fine until I get down toward the 30% mark. Last night it was at 27% (noted on the battery indicator and on an independent battery measuring app that I purchased to monitor this issue), and while dialing a phone number it just shut down. I immediately plugged it into a power source and left it for about 2 minutes. I unplugged it and it was at about 29% and behaved normally. I glanced at it periodically over the next hour and it seemed fine. When it was down to about 25% I was trying to text someone and it shut down again. I plugged it in for about a minute and unplugged it (power was registering about 26%). I then performed the text actions. It did not shut down again through the rest of the night but I did not text or make anymore calls. At about 17% I plugged it in and left it for the night.
This is a company phone so I have not done a full OS restore yet...

Any ideas?

 

[iOS Gravity]

Fully charge the phone and then let the battery fully drain.

 

[projectman]

Fully charge the phone and then let the battery fully drain.

Been through that multiple times shortly after iOS7 was loaded onto it. Any reason to think it will behave differently now?

 

[iOS Gravity]

You might have to do a restore. It could also be a battery issue, but it seems unlikely since it only started happening after you updated to iOS 7.

 

[projectman]

I will try to run the battery down completely tonight and charge again overnight.


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[Tpence2177]

May be the battery going bad. My wife's was having a similar problem where the battery meter would jump around percentages. It wouldn't shut off every time but it would at times. Apple ended up having to replace the battery but it cost $79,99 cause she was out of warranty

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[projectman]

May be the battery going bad. My wife's was having a similar problem where the battery meter would jump around percentages. It wouldn't shut off every time but it would at times. Apple ended up having to replace the battery but it cost $79,99 cause she was out of warranty

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

That is not something I considered. I have started down the road (again) of trying to "condition" the battery. Last night as it fell below 20% I did not make any phone calls or send any texts and it did not shut down on its own between 10% and 20% (I don't know if there is a connection between the shutdowns and phone calls/texts - just noticed it happens sometimes). When it fell below 10% I did stuff - surfed the net, read emails, read Kindle. It finally shut down at 8% so I plugged it in for a minute and turned it back on. It had 9% and I continued my activity. When it fell to 5% it shut down again. I plugged it in for a minute and turned it back on. It was at 7% and then fell to about 3% (the iPhone battery indicator was at 3% and the battery monitoring app was at 5%). I continued activity until it shut down again somewhere below that. I was too tired to care anymore so I left it off and plugged it in for the night. It was at 100% this morning (as expected). I will attempt this same cycle tonight and note the points (and activities) when it shuts down and report back later. Thanks for all the help.

Is it still weird that it shuts down at random low points or is this an example of the battery indicator being...off? Keep in mind that it does this starting around 30% depending on the activity the phone is doing.

 

[GavinCampbell]

That is not something I considered. I have started down the road (again) of trying to "condition" the battery. Last night as it fell below 20% I did not make any phone calls or send any texts and it did not shut down on its own between 10% and 20% (I don't know if there is a connection between the shutdowns and phone calls/texts - just noticed it happens sometimes). When it fell below 10% I did stuff - surfed the net, read emails, read Kindle. It finally shut down at 8% so I plugged it in for a minute and turned it back on. It had 9% and I continued my activity. When it fell to 5% it shut down again. I plugged it in for a minute and turned it back on. It was at 7% and then fell to about 3% (the iPhone battery indicator was at 3% and the battery monitoring app was at 5%). I continued activity until it shut down again somewhere below that. I was too tired to care anymore so I left it off and plugged it in for the night. It was at 100% this morning (as expected). I will attempt this same cycle tonight and note the points (and activities) when it shuts down and report back later. Thanks for all the help.

Is it still weird that it shuts down at random low points or is this an example of the battery indicator being...off? Keep in mind that it does this starting around 30% depending on the activity the phone is doing.

One thing I did was leave it off over night and unplugged as well. This seemed to some how drain it a little more. Then when I plugged it in it took a bit longer before it turned back on but the batter is perfomring much better than before.

They recommend you do this one a month or so but I've only done it for the first time since I had my IP5 and notice a significant difference.

 

[Tpence2177]

If it continues and you are still under warranty I would definitely consider going to apple they can run a battery test and see if it is the battery or is the OS just needs to be "retrained" on the battery limits if it is the battery they will replace it for free if you are still in warranty

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[Haseeb Rehman]

I think its time for a new battery maybe. But first try a restore.

 

[tedbearclaw]

I think you have a faulty battery contact your service provider they usually can do a remote battery test


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[nickfire20]

I also have an iPhone 5, this first happened to me when it was at 35% not long after ios7 upgrade. It now happens a couple times a month to me. Sometimes the battery will run all the way down and sometimes anywhere between 10-25% it will shut down. I charge my phone about 3 times a day, because I lose about 20% for every 5 min of use!!!!!!! I also see odd charging percentage, lets say I'm at 40%, I go to plug it in, it instantly jumps to 45 or 50%, this happens daily!!! My fianc? has an iPhone 5 also, on ios6, she has the same thing happen but it just recently started! I think Apple sends out some kind of fuc$&d up signal to destroy old devices to make everyone upgrade! My old iphone 4 had horrible battery power after the software update. I've taken both phones to apple and they test the battery and "they are fine". These batteries are state of the art and should last years, not just 1 year

 

[ZOFOURTWENTY]

I also was having this problem with my battery. I ended up buying a battery on ebay and replacing it myself since apple wanted $80 because my warranty had expired. I havent had any problems with my battery since. I've also switched out 3 of my friends' batteries that they were also having the same issue. A quick search on youtube will give you the video on how to do so

 

[Hasan Jawad]

Hi,

My phone worked fine till os 7.0.6, once i updated that to 7.1. The battery dies at 20%, the rest of the 80% goes fine as usual and improved after updating to ios 7. But i would really like to know whats the issue, it was flawless till 7.0.6 but 7.1 is causing it to do this. Should i do a complete restore and revert back to ios 6 and then install the updates or what? please help. I dont want to let go off iphone and its not in warranty either.

 

[Avenged110]

I had the same issue on my iPhone 5, but since I'm on iOS 6 I couldn't restore it to check if it was the software, so I took it to Apple for a battery test. It was just on the line for being bad so they were really nice and replaced it and it took care of the issue. I was just really lucky it wasn't a software issue or I would have had some serious problems. But if you're fine with iOS 7, it's definitely worth restoring first to make sure it's not software related.

 

[Manju C]

That is not something I considered. I have started down the road (again) of trying to "condition" the battery. Last night as it fell below 20% I did not make any phone calls or send any texts and it did not shut down on its own between 10% and 20% (I don't know if there is a connection between the shutdowns and phone calls/texts - just noticed it happens sometimes). When it fell below 10% I did stuff - surfed the net, read emails, read Kindle. It finally shut down at 8% so I plugged it in for a minute and turned it back on. It had 9% and I continued my activity. When it fell to 5% it shut down again. I plugged it in for a minute and turned it back on. It was at 7% and then fell to about 3% (the iPhone battery indicator was at 3% and the battery monitoring app was at 5%). I continued activity until it shut down again somewhere below that. I was too tired to care anymore so I left it off and plugged it in for the night. It was at 100% this morning (as expected). I will attempt this same cycle tonight and note the points (and activities) when it shuts down and report back later. Thanks for all the help.

Is it still weird that it shuts down at random low points or is this an example of the battery indicator being...off? Keep in mind that it does this starting around 30% depending on the activity the phone is doing.

 

[Manju C]

I've not updated to iOS 7 still because I like iOS 6. My phone yesterday just turned off even when it had like 15% battery. Does anybody have a solution for it. If does send a mail to my gmail [redacted]

 

[metllicamilitia]

I encounter this issue too, was worse when I first updated to 7.1, but for me it seems to mainly be an issue if I'm outside and the phone is getting cold. I notice my phone will always turn off at around 35% or less battery when it's cold, after it warms up it'll turn on again and be just fine until around 10% or so.

 

[pearlyrob]

I had the same issue. A replacement battery has fixed the shutting down in the cold issue.

 

[projectman]

I had the same issue. A replacement battery has fixed the shutting down in the cold issue.

I replaced the battery about a week ago. It has not randomly shut down since. I have allowed it to reach "0%" so that it would shut off on its own and it behaved as it should. While I am still watching it, I am more confident every day saying the random shutdown problem is resolved. In fact, the battery life seems to be very good; much better than at any other time since I've owned it. I now know how all those other iP5/5S users feel when the device is as dependable as it should be. I think I am a happy iP5 owner again. It's been a long time.