Galaxy S8 (SM-G950F) running hot and high battery drain

[Shaamaan]

My S8 is acting up. It's running hotter than usual and during that it'll drain battery really fast - I'm not doing anything strange with it either. Every now and again I'll get the notification about the phone requiring a restart because of a system process eating up too much CPU (no information on which process that would be however). The restarts don't help. I've even tried safe mode (the one where only system apps are permitted) and got that warning there too!

Sometimes... it gets better. The phone isn't running hot 100% of the time but I can't link it being hot to any specific action. Realistically I'm not doing much with my phone - pretty generic stuff, really: calls, texts, some internet browsing or YouTube watching, some authenticator apps. The most advanced thing I have on it is a VPN for work and a remote desktop app (recently used very sparingly). But, well, since the CPU issue happened even in safe mode - I don't think this is app related.

I've tried making a report via Samsung Members but all I got was a generic response that my logs will be forwarded to some engineering team and that's it - no more communications while my phone's still running hot.

Admittedly - I haven't tried a phone reset yet. Frankly - I'd rather not do that. I've got those authenticator apps I'd need to back up, as well as quite a bit of photos and videos to back up (I keep things on the phone, not in the cloud), so it'd be a fairly lengthy process to get everything backed up and restored. I'd rather try everything else before I get there.

Any ideas what I can do? The most annoying thing is that phone "maintenance" message... which doesn't tell me which process is eating up CPU. 😕 That, and Samsung support via the Members app being useless (while a mod on an old thread about a similar issue said reporting via Members is exactly what we should do: https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5/galaxy-s22-series/overloading-the-system-cpu/td-p/4885636).

[gullisjam]

I think there is a way you can do a sort of half restarting if your phone.

One thing I would try is going back to basics with your apps, go through them all and delete anything that's not essential and see if it makes a difference. Without restarting everything and resetting then you might not be able to come up with a solution

[Leelee72]

Go to device care, click on the three dots on the right hand side and look at your app issue history. This showed me my bus stop app was crashing every morning at the same time I got the warning. I have deleted the app and will see if the CPU message comes again

[Andy3]

S8 is old do people still use them?

[Shaamaan]

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@gullisjam wrote:
I think there is a way you can do a sort of half restarting if your phone.

One thing I would try is going back to basics with your apps, go through them all and delete anything that's not essential and see if it makes a difference. Without restarting everything and resetting then you might not be able to come up with a solution

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If the issue also happens in safe mode - how could it be any app I've installed? AFAIK in safe mode only the built-in apps are available (everything else is greyed out).

[Shaamaan]

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@Leelee72 wrote:
Go to device care, click on the three dots on the right hand side and look at your app issue history. This showed me my bus stop app was crashing every morning at the same time I got the warning. I have deleted the app and will see if the CPU message comes again

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Good idea overall but sadly nothing of interest in that list - most recent app crash is from months ago.

[PaulM1]

The S8 remains a popular choice of smartphone, @Andy3, and many people take great care of their phone with the intention of keeping it for many years.

Just for the benefit of the Community, please endeavour to keep your input on-topic when posting in a thread.

[Shaamaan]

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@Andy3 wrote:
S8 is old do people still use them?

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My S8 has two issues, where only one is "age"-related.

The battery drain issue I described (which seems like a software thing) is one. The other is that I can't remote control my phone via Phone Link (Windows App) because it's too old.

Sure, it doesn't have a fancy wide-angle camera nor the CPU of modern phones... but I don't really need either. Brave works  fine, as does VPN and RDP and that's what I need the phone for, as well as the occasional YT video (and the absolute basics of making calls and messaging of course).

Now if you happen to know why my S8 is overheating and draining 60%+ battery charge overnight - I'm all ears. Otherwise - why chime in at all?

[Andy3]

Ha every s8 I have see for sake is broken. I sold my s8 off because it go slow. Now I'm after a s8 just for gear vr. All I can find is broken or screen burn. A s8 is 6 years old its not a good phone now. It is definitely showing its age now. The s9 is better than the s8 and that's even slow and showing its age.

[Andy3]

S8 is 6 years old now it came out in 2017. Its definitely showing its age. Even a s9 from 2018 is showing its age. A s8 is not a good phone in 2022. Its not even 5g and its rather slow. It struggles to run apps now such as Google earth.