OT: SIM card drawing too much current problem?

[JoeJoe]

I bought a new mobile for my wife - a Nokia E51 (I also have one).

She constantly complains that the batteries don't last more that a couple of days without any use. Mine holds charge for at leas a week with normal use and the occasional BT/wi-fi use.

Tests I carried out so far:

- Verified that no BT and/or wi-fi are active at all on her mobile.

- Removed her SIM card and used a spare (brand new) one instead. Charge was holding for similar period to mine.

- Removed everything from her SIM card (contacts...) to make sure they don't cause the problem. Returned her SIM card. Battery ran out after a couple of days...

So my conclusion is that her SIM (which works fine otherwise) must be the problem. Not a problem as she is quite happy having her number changed.

Am I missing anything?

Many thanks in advance.

PS: phone is still under warranty, so not an issue to replace/repair.

[RobertL]

If you put her SIM into your phone does the battery run down fast?

Robert

[Andrew Gabriel]

There are different power consumption SIM cards -- certainly old ones draw more power. However, my SIM card is now 9 years old (and almost certainly much higher consumption than new SIMs), but I still get very long life out of my Nokia E61i battery, providing I'm not browsing the web. You could try asking for a new SIM.

My phone did once go into a mode when the battery went flat very quickly, and I thought the battery had died. However, a complete power-down, remove battery, and then reboot seemed to solve it, so I put that down to some type of power management bug which was worked around by the hard reboot.

[Gordon Henderson]

Is it a 3g sim and the phones sitching to 3g mode? (Which will drain the battery)

Gordon

[Harry Bloomfield]

It happens that Andrew Gabriel formulated :

The battery meters can sometimes become confused, rebooting it usually sorts it.

[JoeJoe]

SIM is around 10 years old, so that could be an option.

In order to replace SIMs etc, I obviously had to reboot the phone several times, but the result with the potentially faulty SIM has always been the same (i.e. quick battery drain).

[JoeJoe]

It is a possibility, but as my phone has plenty of stuff on it I would rather not swap phones with her for any considerable length of time.

[JoeJoe]

Phone has been re-booted many time - results (with THAT SIM) always the same.

[JoeJoe]

It is a Virgin SIM, so I assume the answer is no?

[Andy Dingley]

Is this different SIM also a change of network? If one network has good coverage near you and the new one doesn't, your phone will need to use more transmit power.

[JoeJoe]

Haven't thought about that...

We are both on the same network, but during the day (~10 hours) she is at a different location from me.

Another thing that I forgot to mention is that she put the suspect SIM in her old phone last week (a Nokia 3310 I think) and had no problem with it. Battery lasted over a week.

[Gordon Henderson]

Not neccessarily - there's the "Three" network which offers services via

3g, but the other operators also have 3g services. See if the phone has any 3g settings which can be turned off. My Nokia is like that and I'm on O2. Lasts days with 3g turned off, only a day 2 with it on.

Gordon

[Gordon Henderson]

Old phone won't have 3g capability - if that's the cause.

Gordon

[Andrew Gabriel]

What's a 3g SIM? My SIM card well predates 3g, but it supports 3g just fine.

[Gordon Henderson]

And you get 3g data on it OK? I was told I had to upgrade my SIM to get 3g data... (I get 3g calls OK though - not that it seems to make a difference)

Gordon

[chris French]

In message , JoeJoe writes

So my conclusion is that her SIM (which works fine otherwise) must be the

My mobile co. (Virgin) replaced the SIM in my wife's phone Free of charge when we lost the phonme then found it (by which time the SIM was blocked)

[Andrew Gabriel]

Yes, it's used for 3g data (Vodafone).

I've had PAC codes and ported my number twice, but much to my surprise, they told me to just carry on using the same SIM each time. They were all variants of Vodafone though, and no-phone contracts.

However, the number originally started off on Cellnet, and I did need a new SIM when I first ported it to Vodafone.

[Stephen Early]

It is quite possible for the SIM to be the problem. If it is very old, it might not support the "stop the SIM clock" powersaving feature.

You can get a new SIM and have the existing phone number transferred to it. Talk to the service provider.

Stephen Early

[Andrew Gabriel]

Something similar happened to a family member a month back. Vodafone spent a couple of days claiming to have unblocked the SIM, but it couldn't register. Eventually they said they'd have to order another SIM, but it would take 14 days. So we asked for the PAC code instead, and was put through to a different department which got a new SIM delivered the next day.

[chris French]

In message , Andrew Gabriel writes

Her replacement SIM came next day, there was some problem with registering the new SIM as the block on the phone didn't get lifted properly, but it did get sorted in a day or so (I suspect communications issues twixt Virgin and the T-mobile who provide the actual service)