Battery in Samsung S5 mini suddenly draining

[Anonymous]

I havent added any new apps or changed settings myself, but in the last few days, the battery life has been shocking, only lasting a few hours and charging incredibly slowly, while the handset has been heating up.

I've also been having intermittent sending texts, sometimes they pend sending for a few hours, and also my wifi seems to be constantly dropping connection (appreciated this could be ISP not mobile handset issue) but same issues aren't seen on other devices)

I'd suspect a software update, but looks still to be on 4.4.2.  Any other thoughts? Anyone else been having the same issues?  

Thanks

Fiona

[MI5]

Could be a faulty battery.
Take it out and lay it down on a flat surface and see if it spins at all - if it does, it's faulty.

[jonsie]

It does sound like a battery issue. A faulty battery will give all the symptons your phone is having.

[Anonymous]

Seriously?! I'll try anything at this point its driving me mad...but no, no spinning!

[MI5]

Did you try it both sides...?
OK, so if it's not bulging, go into settings and see what the phone says is using the most battery.....

[Anonymous]

May i ask @MI5 @jonsie how does a spinning battery mean it's faulty? Just asking as I've never heard of it before

[jonsie]

The battery should be perfectly flat. If it spins freely, it's bulging and faulty.

[Anonymous]

Thanks @M15. Not budging.  Apparently my screen has used 29% of battery, which seems high? maybe this could point to the problem - I noticed my screen was so bright last week, I changed the brightness to be manual and very low.  Just had a thought, I changed from the samsung default wallpaper to my own image...about the same time as I started seeing issues with the battery....

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your answer @jonsie

[MI5]

Screen is usually the biggest user of battery and I always set my brightness to Auto and have adaptive display on.
A good test to see if it is a phone issue or not is to fully charge phone and then turn it on to airplane mode. Leave it overnight like this and see if it has dropped much. If more than 2 or 3% then it would indicate something more than an app or wallpaper.