[Updated] Stuck processor cores likely causing Pixel 2 battery drain/overheating issues

Update (April 2): Google’s Twitter support says the company is working on this problem:

Original story follows:

Since the Pixel 2 February update started rolling out, a lot of users have been complaining about very poor battery life and overheating issues. We did a dedicated story to highlight these problems as soon as we got to know about them, but sadly, Google quickly washed its hands off the matter saying their analysis doesn’t show any relation between the February update and the issues being reported.

Regardless of Google’s denial, users continued to report these issues, and the main Google Product Forum thread (where the matter is being discussed) now contains close to 200 comments. So it has been difficult to conclude who is correct: users or Google. However, that changes now, as new evidence put forward by affected users has seemingly confirmed the problem is at Google’s end.

A redditor junkimchi initiated two different threads on Reddit in the past couple of days, claiming the root cause of battery drain and overheating issues is stuck processor cores while the device is on WiFi.

If you are suffering from “system” battery drain I’ll bet you a cookie that 4 of your higher speed cores are stuck at 2457Mhz. I’ll also bet you another cookie that you have Wifi turned on.

Here are the Reddit threads in question:

As you can see in the second thread, junkimchi also provided a video to support their claims.

The video shows the phone’s state when I woke up. When I went to sleep the phone had been connected to wifi for 2 hours and the clock speeds were normal around ~300Mhz but were stuck at its max 2457Mhz when I woke up. You can see in the video that the clock speeds drop down dramatically right when I turn off wifi. In other instances of this I’ve also noticed when clock speeds don’t drop even after I turn off wifi, but only after I turn off wifi AND restart the phone.

Here’s the video:

Majority of people who commented on these Reddit threads have confirmed that is indeed the case. The user also says you’ll likely see the problem if your phone is connected to a WiFi network on which other Google devices like Chromecasts or Home are connected, although that’s not always the case.

It’s also worth mentioning that a Reddit user Racer_77 – whose profile description says “I’m a Community Moderator and the maintainer of the Wiki on r/GooglePixel” – has marked the problem as Known Issue, and a dedicated thread for it has been created on Google’s Issue Tracker website. Those who agree with what junkimchi has highlighted are being encouraged to star the issue in the Issue Tracker.

So with this, the spotlight is back on Google. It would be interesting to see how the company will respond now.

Stay connected with us on Twitter (@PiunikaWeb) to hear about all related developments as and when they occur