[drblah]

During the weekend my iPhone 3GS began consuming battery like crazy when idle. It will loose about 10 % charge each hour and it becomes warm, not burning warm but slightly above ambient temperature.
At this point I barely dare to charge it anymore and I have placed it on a dish just in case it catches fire while I back up my shit.

Could this be a software problem or should I just call it in for warranty?

So far I have tried closing all background apps and doing a hard reset. The phone is NOT jailbroken and it runs on the latest iOS 5.0.1.

[cdlink14]

Sounds like a rogue app to me. If the battery is draining then something is likely running in the background. And that also explains the battery draining so fast.

Have you tried closing everything off in the multi-task bar?

[drblah]

cdlink14 posted:

Sounds like a rogue app to me. If the battery is draining then something is likely running in the background. And that also explains the battery draining so fast.

Have you tried closing everything off in the multi-task bar?

drblah posted:

So far I have tried closing all background apps and doing a hard reset. The phone is NOT jailbroken and it runs on the latest iOS 5.0.1.

Yep did that already.

[cdlink14]

Apologies I only saw the end of that line....

Have you tried letting the battery drain completely and then doing a full recharge?

What sort of battery charging pattern do you normally use?

[drblah]

I am doing a full recharge now.

Normally I recharge it when it gets to 20 % or less and that happens every other day or so. I try to let it discharge as much as possible before I recharge but sometimes I just don't have the time for that.

Edited:

I think I might have solved the problem now. For some reason it failed to connect to my wifi which caused it to get stuck in an endless loop of reconnection attempts. I fixed it by deleting the network from the wifi menu and re-authenticating.

[cdlink14]

Jolly good, but I'd recommend you change your recharge cycle.

You should recharge whenever possible, but only do a recharge from less than 20% every month or so.

[Nipa]

Expect the battery to die, and die hard, though. Once the battery's gone (and remember you can't replace it), your shiny device will have an amazing battery life of approximately five to ten minutes, depending on what you might be doing. You should be good for some time, but do keep that in mind.

[ethandennis]

At my work they keep giving me everyone's old 3Gs and they last me about a couple months before the battery craps out in them. I am now on my 3 phone and I have been here 6 months.

they are doing what you are describing by the way.