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How to Fix Bad Samsung Galaxy Android 5.1.1 Battery Life

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Samsung’s Android 5.1.1 Lollipop update brings fixes to owners of the Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, and Galaxy S5 but it also brings problems including abnormal battery drain. With those problems in mind, we want to show Galaxy Android 5.1.1 users how to fix bad battery life.

Last year, Samsung rolled out the Android 5.1.1 Lollipop update. Android 5.1.1 is still the most up-to-date version of Android for Galaxy smartphones as Galaxy smartphone and tablet users continue to wait for Android 6 Marshmallow.

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Samsung’s version of Android 5.1.1 delivers a number of new features and fixes but it also comes with problems. Android 5.1.1 users are still complaining about an assortment of problems and they include weird battery drain.

Battery drain is an extremely common smartphone problem so hasn’t been surprising to see Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge and Galaxy S5 users run into problems on Android 5.1.1.

How to Fix Bad Samsung Galaxy Android 5.1.1 Battery Life

With these Samsung Galaxy Android 5.1.1 battery life problems in mind, we want to try and fix bad Samsung Galaxy Android 5.1.1 battery life for you.

This guide delivers help to get better battery life on Samsung’s Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6, Galaxy S5, and more.

Find Apps Causing Problems

We’re already seeing Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S5 users blame Android 5.1.1, Samsung and their carrier for battery life drain after Android 5.1.1.

While Android 5.1.1 might have something to do with it, there’s a good chance that a third-party application or your bad habits are to blame.

Apps, third party and stock applications, impact battery life on your Galaxy. If you use one of your phone’s applications a lot, it’s going to drain your phone’s battery. But there are also times where bugs or issues might cause an application on your phone to start draining the battery. This can happen immediately after an update release like Android 5.1.1.

It’s time to take a peek at your apps to see if you notice something out of the ordinary.

If you own a Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, Galaxy S5 or any other Galaxy device running Android 5.1.1, head into your settings and start taking a look at the effect that some of your applications are having on your device’s battery. Lollipop will give you an extremely detailed breakdown.

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If you notice some abnormalities, you should first try reinstalling the problem application to see if it corrects the issue. If the problem persists in any way, you should try uninstalling it (if you can) to see if that has a positive effect on your phone’s battery life.

If you think an app is causing an issue and you can’t figure out which it is, you’ll want to boot your device into Safe Mode so that you can single out the perpetrator.

Booting the device into Safe Mode will disable your phone’s third-party apps. If your battery starts draining with Safe Mode enabled, then you know it’s not your apps causing the problem.

Here’s how to boot the Galaxy S6 into Safe Mode:

  1. Power down the device. Then, press & hold the power button and volume down key.
  2. Once it boots up, you can let go of the power button but keep the volume key held down.
  3. When you have successfully entered into Safe Mode, you will notice the text ‘Safe Mode’ at the bottom left corner of the screen.

Here’s how to boot the Galaxy S5 into Safe Mode:

  1. Power the Galaxy S5 down. Then, press & hold the power button and volume down key.
  2. Once the phone boots, you can let go of the power button but keep the volume key held down.
  3. When you have successfully entered into Safe Mode, you will notice the text ‘Safe Mode’ at the bottom left corner of the screen.

Restart Your Device & Do It Regularly

If you’ve finished digging into your phone’s apps and you can’t isolate the problem, it’s time to take some more steps to improve your Galaxy Android 5.1.1 battery life.

The first thing we recommend doing is restarting your phone. Hold the power button on the Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge or Galaxy S5 and wait for it to completely turn off. This will clear the cache.

Once that’s done, turn the phone back on. This sometimes has a positive effect on battery life and we recommend restarting your phone regularly.

Kill Unnecessary Services

If you can’t nail down a rogue application or if a simple restart fails to improve your Android 5.1.1 battery life, you probably want to start monitoring the different services on your phone.

If you get into the habit of disabling features that you’re not using on your phone, you might be able to secure some extra juice. We recommend turning off GPS when you’re not using it. We also recommend shutting off Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, LTE, and NFC when you don’t need them.

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We are constantly manually all of these and you can turn most of these off using TouchWiz’s Quick Settings function that allows you to swipe down and easily toggle off the phone’s most important connections. Use Quick Settings and use it often.

If you’re lazy or you’re in an area with horrible service, you might want to flip on Airplane Mode. Airplane Mode will disable all of these connections. This is a useful feature when you’re in an area with spotty service. If your phone is constantly checking for a connection, be it cellular or something else, it could drain your battery.

Use a Black Wallpaper

If you’re looking to save some battery life, you should stop using live wallpapers. These have been known to suck up battery life on Galaxy phones. Furthermore, you might want to think about using a black wallpaper on your Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, Galaxy S5, or whatever you’re using for a phone.

Switching to a solid black wallpaper could help deliver better Android 5.1.1 battery life thanks to the way Samsung’s beautiful AMOLED displays consume power.

Samsung’s devices do not come with a default black wallpaper but you should be able to find one online. After you’ve downloaded one to your Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 Edge, go to Settings -> Personal -> Wallpaper -> From Gallery -> and then set your black Galaxy S6 wallpaper.

If you own a Galaxy S5, head to Settings -> Wallpaper -> Home and Lock Screens -> More Images -> set your black Galaxy S5 wallpaper.

Start Using Software Features

The Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, Galaxy S5, and Samsung’s other Galaxy smartphones come with built-in battery saving features that you should start using to save battery life on your phone.

One of the features is called Power saving mode. The other is called Ultra power saving mode. If you’re using a Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 Edge, you’ll find them both in Settings. Slide over to System and then to Battery and both features will be listed at the top.

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These features are extremely useful because they allow you to block background data, turn on a grayscale mode that helps limit the amount of battery life being sucked up, slow down the processor, reduce screen performance, turn off the lights on the buttons, and turn off GPS to save battery life.

Start using these with regularity, even if you aren’t noticing major battery issues with Android 5.1.1. They will help you in crucial situations where you might need an extra few minutes with your phone.

Replace the Stock Launcher

If you aren’t in love with the stock TouchWiz launcher, you can replace it with something else. That something else will deliver a different look and it also could deliver better performance.

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There are tons of different launchers on the Google Play Store though the Nova Launcher is one of Android’s most popular choices. It’s worth a shot if you aren’t able to figure out what’s causing the performance problems on your phone.

Look Into Downgrading

If you own a Galaxy S5 or another phone that was bumped from Android 4.4 KitKat to Android Lollipop and you are convinced that it’s Lollipop causing the battery life issues on your phone, you might want to look into the downgrade process.

A Galaxy S5 owner put together a solid guide on the process in the aftermath of the Android Lollipop upgrade and there should be a lot of other reading out there. It’s not an easy process but it’s a step that you might want to consider if you’re alright with rooting your phone.

Factory Reset Your Device

If you can’t figure it out and you don’t want to send in your phone to a carrier or Samsung, you can try factoring resetting your phone to see if that returns things to normal. This should only be performed as a last resort and you’ll want to back up all of your important files before making the move.

To factory reset the Samsung Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 Edge, go into Settings -> Personal -> Backup and reset. From there, select Factory Data Reset. From there, select Reset Device. This is an involved process and it will take some time so you’ll need to remain patient.

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If you own a Galaxy S5, go into Settings, User & Backup, and select Backup and Reset. From there, select Factory Data Reset. From there, select Reset Device and then Delete All. Same thing. It will take awhile to complete so you’ll need to hang in there while the device does its thing.

Buy a Battery Pack

If you’ve tried it all, including a factory reset, there are a few other options. You can get in communication with Samsung. You can contact your carrier and see if you can secure a replacement. Or you can replace your battery and/or buy an extended battery or battery pack for your phone.

If you own a Galaxy S5, you can replace the battery yourself. You can buy a stock battery from Samsung to see if that works or you can buy an extended battery if you want a little more juice.

The Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge do not come with a removable battery so you’ll need to take a look at battery packs, not batteries themselves.

If you’re willing to pay money to improve battery life Android 5.1.1, Mophie’s got a Juice pack available for the Galaxy S6. Mophie makes top notch battery cases and they’re worth a look if you are in need of a case and improved battery life.

38 Comments

38 Comments

  1. Steve Grim

    06/26/2015 at 5:24 am

    Wait, wasn’t 5.1.1 supposed to fix the bad battery drain from 5.0?

    • o1nk

      07/16/2015 at 6:19 am

      Samsung or Google fault?
      So if I buy my phone and see the battery drain to nothing in a few hours, I have to strip it bare to get any sort of longevity out of it?
      So if I buy a car, do they say “If you want to drive it over 25 miles you have to strip the seats out, no radio, no aircon, pull the windows out …..”
      Would you buy it?

      Needless to say my new S6 is going back. Marshmallow is out soon but carriers won’t release until late 2015 / early 2016. I’ll get a new phone then instead of fighting this one.

      • Marty

        07/17/2015 at 8:13 am

        OUTSTANDING!!!!!!!!!

      • HKashyap

        08/28/2015 at 10:59 am

        Extremely well said. I’ve been buying galaxy phones counting from 1 and s6 edge is the latest 1 that I own . Every year I thought these common issues would be resolved and ended up buying the latest 1 but got cheated everytime. I will not do the same stupidity again.

  2. l1ghtchas3r

    07/13/2015 at 10:13 pm

    My bad habits are to blame lol? That’s a cute theory. Funny, when I had KitKat at least I had a WORKING PHONE all day. But I guess maybe I should uninstall all my apps and power cycle my phone every 5 seconds so that the epic failures that created this abomination can.. feel better about being failures? -snort-

    It’s bad enough that Samsung basically laughed in our faces by making a cheap knockoff of an iPhone and ditching removable storage, then Lollipop comes out and spits in our faces too. Sooo they lost a lot of their faithful users and the iPhone users they think they won over are going to laugh at this cheap fake pos. Sure, the hardware is better than an iPhone’s hardware but if your software is crap or incompatible all the hardware in the world can’t save you.

    My boyfriend, his sister and I have all ditched android. But I want to say.. I love being blamed for someone else’s horrible, laughable, pathetic, sorry, ridiculous lack of a brain. Good day to you.

    • SusieQ

      02/24/2016 at 11:56 am

      I completely agree with you!!!! Ive had MANY Samsung (since S2). Neither Samsung NOR Google care enough about their customers to fix THEIR issues. My Note 4 is THE LAST.

    • percy

      07/04/2016 at 5:59 am

      Love the way you write

  3. Marty

    07/17/2015 at 8:12 am

    It clearly states in the beginning paragraph that the new software fixes old problems but “BRINS WITH IT NEW ONES” “SUCH AS ABNORMAL BATTERY DRAIN”……………but its our fault.

  4. Joe

    08/03/2015 at 6:33 am

    this is so frustrating, I tried everything but my battery drains in 6 hours without using the phone….I will never get a Samsung again…back to apple I go

  5. Priscillafozuna

    09/03/2015 at 10:52 pm

    0=6 Look here,,,,!my neighbor’s ex-wife makes $68 /hr on the laptop . She has been fired for 6 months but last month her pay was $18404 just working on the laptop for a few hours.
    navigate to this site>>>>> See More

    • Victor

      12/19/2015 at 7:54 am

      I can’t see anything except a spastic survey that has not explained why am i asked to answer those idiot questions.

  6. Munich man

    09/08/2015 at 1:05 pm

    I live in Germany and just experienced the same incredible problem – update to Android 5.1.1 and since then the battery drains within some 6 hours! I have spent the whole day in searching how to fix that and all I get is that stupid kind of advice given above … “start using power saving modes”, “find battery consuming apps”, “turn off gps” … etc. this is a freaking joke!

  7. Carlos Reis

    09/08/2015 at 5:13 pm

    Same frustration to me. Just upgraded my Note 4 (SM-N910C) to 5.1.1. Today, without using the phone, the battery lasts less than 8h. It is ridiculous. My next phone will be a iPhone.

  8. larry wilson

    09/11/2015 at 8:53 pm

    Surprisingly easy fix folks. Turn off google now. Battery lasted about 6 hours after recent update. Saw suggestion to turn it off on another forum and hey presto back to over a full day.

  9. JD

    10/25/2015 at 6:13 am

    This site was a true waste of time. First you said that the 5.1.1 update brings some real problems, so “watch out!” But don’t worry, because you’ve provided 37 links to “solutions,” all of which really only helps your click-through rate for your advertising platform (which is really all this site is), because those links bring us to lists of “fixes” that are almost as old as smart phones, while simultaneously assigning the problems to bad apps and bad user habits that presumably existed before the 5.1.1 update (but only had a negative affect after the update). Why did I waste my time here? If I want to support an advertising platform, I’ll watch cable TV.

  10. Michael Foley

    11/02/2015 at 9:39 pm

    Most of the suggestions here are out and out stupid. My battery life had been just fine with my Galaxy S5. Now all of a sudden the battery doesn’t even last 3 hours. And the suggestions are to downgrade, remove apps (that were working just fine and battery life that would easily last 7+ hours), disable Wifi ( are you kidding me). Basically these suggestions amount to turning your “Smart” phone into a dumb phone, being as useful as phones 10 years ago, except we now pay $500 dollars for them. Get real.

    • Fish

      11/22/2015 at 7:18 am

      My S5 has no battery life problems. The battery is over a year old, and I get about 18 hrs on it. The same before and after 5.1.1 download.

      • boychik0830

        12/03/2015 at 8:42 am

        what I am jealous my Verizon s5 barely lasts a day. I have to charge several times thought out the day. cannot count on it to get me through the day.

  11. Alex

    01/02/2016 at 5:18 am

    When your not using the phone for 30 min+ you should put it into ultra power saving mode ive done this since I got the phone at Christmas and I have to charge my phone once every 1 -2 days depending on how long I play games on my phone for.

  12. joe

    01/10/2016 at 11:25 am

    I have bought galaxy Note5 and i’m suffering from this proplem of draing battery while my screen is off the battery consumes power and it goes down about 10% in 2 hours approx. i hope i can fix it but i didn’t know how i do this. I need help !

  13. Verdcrawford

    01/11/2016 at 7:17 am

    1=12my friend’s sister-in-law makes $76 /hour on the laptop . She has been fired from work for seven months but last month her pay was $12517 just working on the laptop for a few hours.

    Look At This…. See More

  14. Suzanna

    01/28/2016 at 10:36 am

    Found the app, that was causing my battery to drain – Ingress. Was that the problem for anyone else?

  15. jaydoublebusy

    01/31/2016 at 1:28 pm

    It has nothing to do with us as users.Its obviously the update.So sick of this $.hit w Samsung,hey i got an idea,if it works, FING LEAVE IT ALONE.Why would i want a feature that sends ALL my power to another device,that im not using.Seriously youre gonna drain my phone to send the power back into the power outlet?The problem is the phones charge port,now discharges continuously on some S5s.Once again they totally missed the mark.Hey how about making chargers that automatically shut off when the phones fully charged?I didnt ask for new features,quit trying to make me take them.Its MY phone not yours dumba$$ Samsung.

  16. User

    02/03/2016 at 10:58 am

    I was able to fix battery issue with the help of this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noWa8OMX3u8

  17. Lee

    02/19/2016 at 8:45 am

    I had 5.1.1 on my S5 phone 2 days ago. My battery is warm. I charged in full at 7 pm and next morning the battery is down to 2%. I reset my phone to factory setting twice, nothing to improve. My next phone should be iphone. it is my mistake to buy Samsung phone.

    • fish

      02/19/2016 at 9:10 am

      Sounds like one of your apps is running in the background.

  18. Carney

    02/23/2016 at 9:23 am

    I have an unlocked / AT&T Samsung-SM-G920A. The phone is not rooted. I was getting four days of battery life per charge before upgrading the phone to 5.1.1. After the upgrade, I couldn’t get a full day out of a charge. Per the instructions above, I went into Settings->WiFi->More->Advanced and turned off the Always Allow Scanning option and it seems to have fixed the problem. I went to bed last night with the battery life at 57% and woke up this morning at 54%. I’ve been using the phone on and off today and am now only down to 51%. So, it appears that the battery drain problem, at least in this model phone, is a problem with the Always Allow Scanning functionality. Turn it off and rejoice…

    • Rob

      02/26/2016 at 9:39 am

      I’ll try that out. Thanks.

    • jwfirebird

      04/01/2016 at 5:32 am

      thanks for this, i have been trying to find something that actually works since they screwed it up with the update, unlike the cut paste nonsense in this article. It seems to be working. I still hate that they dont give you the option to not allow os updates, this is the second perfect phone i had ruined by OS pushes they dont allow you to not take, not going to happen again, iphone sucks but at least they dont get screwed by the people that should be doing their best to not lose customers. All they care about is the next thing, my s4 i had to factory update when screwed up i lost everything. Not again.

  19. Cati

    03/08/2016 at 9:49 am

    I found an app that was not there before I installed android 5.1.1.. it’s called smart management, it allows you to choose which apps will run all the time or not, that solved the battery drain problem for me.

  20. artreyu

    03/21/2016 at 8:55 pm

    Stupid articles ever !!!

  21. khaliltazit

    03/27/2016 at 5:53 pm

    everyone hate this this message ( low battery or connect your mobile to charge ) when we using smart phone and spend a long times surfing in internet and watching video or talking with your friends. the battery loos his power more faster. don’t worry about this anymore i have a good solution . what about to save your battery a log time or double your battery power using battery eco mode or this battery saver . only download and install the app turn on eco mode and you will see the different download link :
    https://goo.gl/Z9HSpl

  22. Greg

    04/02/2016 at 11:24 am

    Stupid article. Does little to resolve the battery issue other than to blame your usage patterns for the battery drain. I have not changed anything other than upgrade to Lollipop, and now my phone runs down the battery notably quicker than before. Two thumbs down.

  23. sirkubax

    06/10/2016 at 8:33 am

    Hi
    I’ve recently received 2 updates for my Samsung Galasy S5 (SM-G900F) Android 5.0 There was security patch 2015-05-01, and some other update.

    I can not prove that, but my battery drains like 3x faster than before updates, and phone is visibly slower. It may be some stuff in my system, but for now I blame the update.

    Making it more wired: how could we check, if the producer does not ‘break’ it’s own system (by making it slower, drain battery faster) to switch to a new phone?

    https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/148005/does-you-android-drains-battery-after-system-update

  24. Lindsey Cronkrite

    06/15/2016 at 10:48 am

    This battery thing is a software issue. Never had any problems with my phone until the update. Now i leave it plugged in all night and the battery is still not charged in the morning. It shuts off between 20-40% also restarts randomly and will keep restarting over and over. It only started after the update and i know lots of people having the same issues. I went in and got my battery tested and they said it was fine. This needs to get fixed because other wise i am switching to a different phone that wont be associated with this update.

    • Sazzadur Rahman

      06/26/2016 at 8:18 am

      Its really about Android 5.1 issue. When I rolled back to 4.2 version, now everything is fine.

  25. Sazzadur Rahman

    06/26/2016 at 8:17 am

    Its not the problem of Samsung of phone set. Its all about Android 5.1. I have both Nexus 4 with 5.1 and Samsung Galaxy s5 with 5.1. My Samsung S5 is brand new, just received from my operator. Battery is drained very very fast in both sets. Battery is drained with 3 hours in my Nexus 4 if I work in mobile. I rolled back to Android 4.2.2 in my Nexus 4 and now I do not need to charge in 2 days. I did not roll back to older version in my Samsung yet. So its all about Android 5.1, it drains battery very very fast

  26. Kenneth Edelstein

    06/14/2017 at 6:49 pm

    My beloved KitKat S5 resisted till 6/12/17 but “locked up” that day. Nothing I could do would revive it. The only option was to wipe and clear cache – yecch.
    Then the updates (3 or so) downloaded rebooted, a few times; and settled on 5.1.1

    As it was installed on a “clean machine” (I had removed the SD card) it went rater well for the install.

    Next the tedious reinstall and reconfigure started, double yecch.
    But, it works OK now – battery life is about the same, and a few new features are useful

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