Related
Hi all,
I have installed the WM6.1 ROM 6.1.2a16CS by C. Shekhar on my qtek2020.
It is very cool and gave a second life to my qtek. I am just a bit surprised by the duration of the main battery. It is running out of bat very fast.
As I haven't used my qtek for month before installing the new ROM, I can't tell if it's a battery problem or because this new ROM is consuming more resources. Have you noticed such behavior on your machines?
For further info I am not using my qtek as cell phone. I am thinking about using it back as a phone, but I have first to fix this battery aspect.
Moreover I have read s/t about a battery fix, that I haven't installed yet. Can s/o tell me more about this fix and what it is doing?
Anyway this ROM is a great one.
Thx for your answers
Marc
I dont know about the battery fix but i have never installed any sort of fix like that either for wm5 or wm6.x. Are you sure there isnt some background process that keeps on continuously running? It could be a battery problem if the battery had discharged alot during the non-operational period. I changed by himas battery about 7-8months back because the last battery had gotten abit too old and was discharging very quickly.
i think you are talking about SD card fix..its a registery fix that makes the battery consumption by SD-card low
well, WM5 and WM6.x IMHO are battery consuming ROMs, i can attest to this,
experiment no. 1:
same xda, same battery (1200mAH original battery)
-with WM2003SE at normal use, XDA turns off approx after 36 hrs of use including standby.
-with WM5 and WM6.x, XDA turns off WM5-18hrs, WM6.x-25hrs of use including standby.
experiment no. 2:
two xda, different OS, both with brand new 3600mAH extended life battery.
in 1 day (at heavy texting use from 7am to 7pm):
WM2003SE XDA2 - battery from 100% to 58%
WM6.X XDA2 - battery from 100% to 35%
possible explanation:
WM6.x (WM5) uses more CPU time and Memory resources, plus it probably uses more power in maintaining the persistent storage, hard and soft reset persistent memory.
MODS PLEASE REMOVE THIS POST
ather90 said:
i think you are talking about SD card fix..its a registry fix that makes the battery consumption by SD-card low
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ather, is this fix already in all/most recent releases? If not, can you give us a link? Never heard of it.
I have no battery problems, quite the contrary. My battery life is amazing me. To be honest I tweaked a lot when I started using WM6.x, too much to remember, too much to tell you.
but some parts:
I don't need 24/7 phone connection, Phone Alarm takes care of this for me
Use a bare minimum of today plug-ins
Avoid animations
Close programs except when you seriously do need them in the background
Heya Maggy...its long time since i saw u here.. think maybe month
welcome back ny ways
well that fix was in the Imate website..i have it
having some problem attaching on xda : http://www.2shared.com/file/3591354/873d3f18/SD-Card_Patch.html
In need to know the voltage across the diamond standard battery (900mAh) when the battery is fully charged and when the battery is fully discharged (the phone automatically switched off)
Could someone give me this information?
When my battery is low I read 3.2V
When my battery i high I read 4.1V
Is this correct?
That's about right, +-.1
Thanks, I've a lot of problems with the charging and discharging cicles, this information could help me to understand
While which is the charge current when the battery is fully discharged?
For my Diamond it can be very high, up to 800mA (I know it from BatteryStatus), it is a normal value?
wasm said:
While which is the charge current when the battery is fully discharged?
For my Diamond it can be very high, up to 800mA (I know it from BatteryStatus), it is a normal value?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try a program, "PowerGuard", it's a very nice (and free) program developed by Muyz that will give you current and temp info, including graphs with a lot of flexibility in settings. You can get a good feel of where the current draws are. I think charge current is in the area of 700-800mA on initial charge.
Or another called Battlog. It,s better because it logs the measurements - on Powerguard it's difficult to see the actual (current, not in electrical, but in time sense ) measurement.
Thanks I'm going to try them
For now I'm testing Batlog...
This evening I'm going to make a full charging log, so I could post it tomorrow
Could you do the same? This could give me the possibility to compare them
I'm experimenting some problems with the charging circuit
mjaxa said:
Or another called Battlog. It,s better because it logs the measurements - on Powerguard it's difficult to see the actual (current, not in electrical, but in time sense ) measurement.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with mjaxa, since your post I've found and installed Battlog. Works great on my Diamond. Very robust program and easy to read the log file or import into excel for analysis.
I have no idea why I didn't find this software when searching for a good battery monitor for my Diamond except I must have not used "log" in my searchs.
Thanx mjaxa.......
JRMX said:
Works great on my Diamond. Very robust program and easy to read the log file or import into excel for analysis.
Thanx mjaxa.......
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I should, of course, also thank Palladium TD now that I've found the source for this fine program.
I'll also add that while the data logging is very good, I found that some of the functions do not work on my Diamond (US ROM 1.93). I know it's a beta program or maybe I just haven't figured it out yet. Using 0.2.3.130 beta I have noted:
No response on the help and other icon on the left side, battery temp read is off by a factor of 10 (noted on the Battlog thread) and cum use (mAh) does not display.
I'll post the comments on the correct thread.
In the following I reported the log of my battery charging cycle in txt and graphic format
If you can post comments or other logs, I'll appreciate
P.s. another bug in Battlog (I'think) is related to the sampling interval, as you can note observing the X axis on my plots: it is not constant in time
No one want help me with a charge/discharge log?
With the holidays I haven't had too much time to work with battlog and the phone use is not typical. I did run about 16 hrs of data and it does give some insight.
Charging overnight looked normal with current draw cycles at 2hr intervals for mail checks.
I was going to upload the excel file, but the format isn't permitted. The txt file is too large. I'll mess with it some more, but I didn't see anything that was unlike your data. 800ma on initial charges, -200ma on using various applications and phone calls, as much as -800ma on internet use and -9 to -20ma on locked standby. I did not see what I'm looking for which is an unexplainable deep discharge, overnight or during the day, I'll keep monitoring.
Hey everyone. I recently purchased a 8925, and am experiencing the battery drain issue that some others have mentioned. I used to own a 8125 and its battery life was much longer (easily 3 days of my usage). I installed batterystatus on the tilt and it seems at idle with all apps closed its pulling 60-60 mA, where my 8125 used 10-15mA. Has anyone come up with a solution for this? I currently have 3.29 hardspl with the stock wm6.1 installed.. any help is much appreciated
Quintman said:
Hey everyone. I recently purchased a 8925, and am experiencing the battery drain issue that some others have mentioned. I used to own a 8125 and its battery life was much longer (easily 3 days of my usage). I installed batterystatus on the tilt and it seems at idle with all apps closed its pulling 60-60 mA, where my 8125 used 10-15mA. Has anyone come up with a solution for this? I currently have 3.29 hardspl with the stock wm6.1 installed.. any help is much appreciated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
turn the lcd brightness down, get kaiser tweak...set your mobile internet connection to go off after a period of a minute or two of non usage (thats a big one)
I have done these above listed, brightness down all the way, i disabled the internet connections with nodata, and i did a couple things with kaisertweak (sd power management). This seems to have no effect on the drain
Less is better when it comes to longer battery life....
Quintman said:
I have done these above listed, brightness down all the way, i disabled the internet connections with nodata, and i did a couple things with kaisertweak (sd power management). This seems to have no effect on the drain
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe all the extra bits of software and utilities that have been installed are gobbling up those CPU cycles (and consequently the battery charge). I have a very basic setup on my TyTN II and reducing the screen brightness right down as well as changing to GSM (rather than 3 G) makes a huge difference in battery life. Even disabling HSDPA and resorting to just 3G makes a difference. It's time to simplify things I think and rather than installing apps to stop a data connection starting up for example, delete any data connection settings on the phone and simply don't do anything that may require a data connection.
How long are you getting out of a charge, doing what sorts of things how often? I'm sure if you hard reset back to the basic ROM and test again with just these few changes, you'll notice a big difference
If I simply flash the stock ATT rom on the phone, and install batterystatus to view my drainage, it is still at 47mA. It seems turning off all the data stuff saves maybe 10mA... i understand that a bad battery would drain faster but would that make the 47mA on standby? i thought that measured how much the phone was using? maybe the battery is bad. just yesterday i left at 7:30am with a full charge. I litterally sent maybe 4 text messeges and maybe a 3 minute phone call, the rest of the day it was on standby, and at 7:30pm it was down to about 34%! this is unacceptable!
Does anyone know what batterystatus reads? either the rate that the battery is losing power or the rate the phone is using it. is it possible that the battery is bad and would cause it to drain at a higher amperage? i know a bad battery drains faster but dont know about this.
I feel your problem. My tilt is so bad that it still drains while charged in the car. Maybe a bad battery but this is crazy.
ok I talked on the phone today more than usual (maybe an hour max!) and it shows that the battery drains super fast when making a call, which to me says the battery is just toast because a call uses more power. I was hoping to find a solution but i think I will just purchase a new battery.
how about buying a slim extended battery on ebay, the 1600mah one. You will definitely notice a difference
Quintman said:
If I simply flash the stock ATT rom on the phone, and install batterystatus to view my drainage, it is still at 47mA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well from what I hear the ATT ROMs have lots more 'stuff' than the native HTC ROMs but whether that means more CPU cycles are used when those programs aren't started I doubt. It's really background utilities that'll be of concern. Rather than installing software (which itself will use battery charge) to see why your battery charge is going down so quickly, what's wrong with going about your normal usage without non-essential utilities and keeping an old fashioned log of how long a full charge lasts and what activities for how long you used your device for? If you try some of the suggestions already given and keep a careful log, you will notice a marked improvement - I did. Whether you wan't to keep those changes though is important. I found the screen was just to difficult to see at low brightness settings when out in the sunshine so I've set it back to a high level and carry 2 spare batteries with me when I'll likely be out and about using the device for a full day - I've yet to get through all three batteries in a day and they're compact enough to easily carry around. With my cradle that has a battery recharge bay, I can also recharge all my batteries overnight.
Sold phone, MODS PLEASE DELETE
Some battery threads:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=978269
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1004760
updated tl;dr for most of you lately:
Your problem is probably that you flashed a new ROM or kernel recently, which causes battery stats to be very inaccurate. The most common symptom is that suddenly the battery drains like crazy, when before it just dripped. The opposite can also happen - you flash a new ROM and it seems like the best battery life ever. Until it suddenly jumps from 60 down to 10. This can happen even if you erased stats after flashing. You need a few days with your new ROM first, then you should see what your battery usage is really like. Do full charge cycles to speed up this process. (Bump charge, erase stats, drain, charge, don't bump charge or erase stats anymore, drain, charge, drain, charge, etc.) Simply put: you cannot judge battery performance after flashing a ROM. Often it can be a week or more before battery performance and battery level reporting becomes stable.[/tl;dr]
Every time a chef makes a new ROM available, or even among those using stock OS, there seems to be wildly inconsistent feedback on battery life. Many report catastrophic battery drain, while others using the same hardware/firmware/kernel/ROM say it's the best battery life they've ever gotten.
It would seem that a battery can run away on you for a variety of reasons, and flashing back, or returning to the store, doesn't have to be the first thing you do to fix it. This thread is to consolidate many of the complaints around xda about sudden battery drain, and discuss proven (or superstitious) fixes for it. This is not another discussion on tips and tweaks to extend battery life. There's a good wiki on that already. This is specifically about when you experience an unexplained dramatic increase in how fast your battery is draining, and the usual tweaks aren't having any effect.
And, in some cases, if you are experiencing battery drain associated with one of the "more interesting" issues below, you might be experiencing lag for the same reason. Please attempt all of the below to the best of your ability before making a post about battery drain or lag with a particular ROM or kernel.
We'll start with the simple.
Don't rule out your imagination or neurotic behavior as the main problem.
I hate to open with a "shut-up-noob," but this one is real. I know I've almost fallen victim to the disease of "let me turn on the screen just one more time to check the battery %." Or hours of "man this new lagfix is great watch how fast I can swipe screens and load apps over and over!" Both of which, obviously, result in more battery usage. Then there's also the case where you just installed a numerical battery meter for the first time, and watching it tick down is weighing on your psyche much harder than the previous, barely noticeable movement of the bar and making you think your battery is draining wildly. Which then can also then lead back to disease #1 in a vicious cycle of psychosomatic battery abuse.
It may just be the battery itself. Some are reporting an apparent quality control problem with the batteries. You might get a great one, or if nothing below helps you then maybe you got a dud. I can't help much there. Try reporting the problem to AT&T or Samsung. I hear AT&T is a lot better to deal with.
Check the basic battery usage stats. Settings -> About Phone -> Battery Use. This won't necessarily tell you a whole lot, it isn't always accurate, but it can give you an idea of what the system thinks is using most of the battery. Such as whether it's playing with the screen too much, or making a lot of phone calls, etc. Keep in mind... I'm pretty sure that these stats are only based on the time period listed at the top of the screen. A lot of people get confused when it shows the display using 90% of the battery. But if that's only based on the 30 seconds since you unhooked the charger, then it isn't all that confusing anymore.
Be wary of the "battery full" status. I have repeatedly found, at least in leaked 2.2 ROMs, that this alert actually goes off long before the battery is finished charging. This bug often continues even after you've done all of the other various tricks and tweaks and recalibrations. It says "100" and that the battery is full and to disconnect the charger, but when you disconnect, it instantly drops into the low 90s and drains quickly from there. Rather, if you ignore the alert and keep charging for considerably longer, it will actually be at 100 when you disconnect, and will drain slowly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm quoting out the above, since I can't find the strikethrough tag. With new accurate battery mods, this isn't true anymore. Your battery doesn't need to go to 100%. It will be high-90s when you unplug, this is normal.
Drain and charge.
Sometimes the battery meter will seem to plummet, but then sit at <10 for hours before it finally shuts off. Giving a full drain may help calibrate where the "zero" really is. Run a long video, or just leave the camera up, until it shuts itself off. Then charge it back to 100%.
The bump charge (now commonly referred to as recalibrating).
Maybe your phone forgot where zero really is, or maybe he forgot where 100 really is. Here's the bump charge. Read carefully; I did it wrong for a while before I got it right. Charge the phone to 100% while it's on. As soon as it hits 100%, unplug the charger and power off. Now plug in the charger while the phone is off, and charge to 100 again. As soon as it hits 100, unplug the charger and power on. Wait until it boots completely, then don't charge this time, just power right back off. Now charge to 100 one more time with the power off. Power on and you are bump charged. Many also consider a stats wipe to be essential to this process as well. See below.
See joeybear's post (linked below) for more info on bum charges and battery stats, such as different procedures for CyanogenMod.
Erasing the battery stats (for you rooters/flashers)
Sometimes you just want your phone to forget everything he thinks he knows about his battery, and re-learn it from scratch. Your phone maintains a file with statistics on battery usage, which in turn is used to help calculate battery life at any given time. Sometimes, especially if you've been playing with ROMs, kernels, and lagfixes, the stats in the file just aren't applicable anymore to how the hardware is being used, so you get crazy battery drain.
Clockwork Recovery has a simple function to wipe the battery stats. If you can't run Clockwork, use ADB or a terminal emulator (search the market) to delete that battery stats file located at /data/system/batterystats.bin. The link at the bottom to joeybear's thread has a little more info.
The general idea is to start by trying the above - make sure it isn't your own fault or maybe just a bad battery, then drain, bump charge, and wipe stats - in that order.
There are lots of ideas about what may or may not happen when you experiment with the above. Wiping battery stats after a ROM flash that already wiped them for you is at least redundant and may even contribute to a battery drain problem. Some say you should wipe first and then drain and bump charge. Be careful about wiping stats and bump charging too much, though. Over-charging your battery will hasten its demise.
HOWEVER, if you're like I was when I first started this thread, you've seen the above recommended many times, and none of it has ever helped you one bit with an actual sudden battery drain problem.
Now for more interesting work.
Occam's razor. The simplest answer is the most likely. Battery appear to be suddenly draining faster? Well, it could be that you need to retrain your phone (or your mind) by using the procedures above. It could be that your battery suddenly went bad. A more simple answer is that something is draining your battery. Something is abusing your CPU, your memory, or your network interfaces. Try to find out what, or at least stop it even if you don't find out what. Simply looking at the stock report of battery usage isn't likely to tell you everything you need to know, though.
If you've recently flashed something, try your flash again, and this time be more aggressive. Make sure you turn off any lagfixes you've installed beforehand. Make sure you've got the most charge you possible can before flashing (see above - you want a true 100% charge immediately before flashing). Take the plunge and opt for repartitioning, data wiping, formatting, master clearing, or any other options you may have to start with a clean slate with the new ROM. Even flash stock first. Pay close attention to battery usage as you re-install apps and get your phone set up again. It may be one app in particular that was responsible.
Uninstall all task killers. Yes, uninstall. I know task killers are supposedly battery savers, but 99% of you (including me) don't know what we're doing when we get our hands on a good task killer. It is very possible you've got one service that is constantly trying to load and call home, and another that is constantly auto-killing it. If you really want to include task killing as part of your phone maintenance and battery tweaking processes, then download an app that is specifically designed and configured just for battery efficiency, not a general-purpose task killer that will allow you to hose up your Android system.
Check your background syncs. Experiment with turning them off, one at a time, and see if there's improvement. The app may have gotten confused after all your flashing and is doing something crazy as it syncs. If you isolate one that makes a difference, reinstall it or try living without it.
Live wallpapers. They actually improve your battery life, no lie. Ok, actually that is a lie. Some of them look awesome, but many users, myself included, experience a significant increase in battery drain when there's a fancy full-screen animation running non-stop on the phone. Try getting rid of them and see. There are some nice, simple, dark wallpapers that don't animate but are still pretty enough to impress the ladies at the bridge club. Live wallpapers can also create some majorly noticeable lag in your other apps, too.
Install OSMonitor. Set it to sort process by load, descending order. There shouldn't be much in the list, the OSmonitor app itself should show up near the top, at around 20%. Other apps should be in a 0% wait state or occasionally grabbing a few %. If you recognize an app sitting consistently at 50%+, that could be your problem. Make sure you know what it is first (not a critical system service) and try uninstalling it.
Is kswapd0 taking a lot of CPU? This is the memory swap / page file process. It's normal for it to be grabbing little chunks of CPU here and there, but if it's sitting at a high %, or jumping in frequently to a high %, then something's going on with your memory cache. Unistall your lagfix and try a different one. If you aren't using a lagfix, get OCLF and use it to install EXT2 and then OCLF V2+. Despite the changelogs and debates that claim otherwise, several have found OCLF to be very useful after flashing to any Froyo ROM (unless that ROM already includes a lagfix such as voodoo or stumpy's). If none of that works, your kernel may be the problem. Swap it or go back to stock.
Look at data/network usage. If you have a router or other device on your home wireless network that can give you some info, try that. Does your phone appear to be trying to send or receive an unusually high number of packets/data even when you're not doing anything with it? Also, while off wifi, watch the little green and red data icon in you notification bar (the 3G / E icon). Are they spasming green and red constantly every 2 or 3 seconds, even when you don't think you're doing much data transfer?
OSMonitor can also again be your friend here. Under "Network" you can expand each interface and look at live data transfer #s. Does one of them seem to be really active despite you not doing anything in particular with your phone right now?
If you have any of these signs of heavy data usage, go back to OSMonitor and look at Connections. Turn on DNS reverse lookups in settings. Turn on some whois. Ignore any loopback (127.0.0.1) and likely you can ignore the 1e100.com stuff, that's just Google (get it? 1x10^100). Are there any other established connections? Does the reverse lookup (the domain name) indicate what application might have the connection open? For example, if it's weather.com, that might be a Weather Channel widget or app. That one was responsible for destroying my battery one time. Use whois and similar tools in OSMonitor and on the Internet to help you figure out what your phone is connecting to. If you've got heavy data usage and an app or apps have open connections, uninstall / reinstall those apps and see if the battery drain stops.
Under-volting. Xan's Voltage Control App. There's a lot more of this going around now that there are several overclocking and undervolting kernels available. There isn't a whole lot to be said here. Different CPU clock steps can be individually adjusted to pull a little less juice from the battery. Make sure you keep them as temporary settings and do not "set on boot" until you're sure you've got a stable configuration. If you set something to a level your phone can't handle and script-save it for booting, you might not be able to boot again. Anyway, under-volting will not suddenly revolutionize your battery performance, but it can help.
Also, switching UV settings can significantly affect your battery meter after reboot. If you've recently switched UV settings and rebooted, your battery meter might suddenly show 20% more or less batterly life than before. This is simply what the meter thinks to be the case, obviously your battery did not just jump 20%.
Backlight notifications. I don't have hard data to back it up yet, but I've noticed that when a backlight notification is active, my battery starts racing to zero.
Cyanogenmod. It's available on Captivate now. It isn't stable/supported. It has a lot of debug code enabled. That means it uses more battery than it will someday when it's stable RC and debug code is commented out.
I've successfully used all of the "interesting steps" above in different cases where I had sudden battery drain and the basic steps didn't fix it. Anyone else have success with these? Any other tactics to share? Please post.
Thanks to joeybear23 for good info on recalibrating the battery.
Great info on the battery.
And you mentioned Occams Razor... the simplest answer is the most likely!
Ok, maybe your batteries are actually no good. Many have found theirs to be faulty and that after replacing them all is well again.
I just got a spare and the new one is great!
Maybe a batch of samsung batteries has problems and they begin to lose charge quite quickly after they have been in use a month or 2 (Or they get confused after multiple Flash's of ROMS .
Basically, I bought a cheap aftermarket battery as a spare and decided to try it in my phone today. I have made several calls and installed some apps and have played around with the phone as per normal. After 7 hours it is at 53%. MUCH better than before. With old battery it would be at 10-15% after a day at work.
Only thing different is I did install the lag fix over the Beta 5.5 to see if it helps speed.
Is it the battery or the phones software causing the problem??? Well if they have a chip in them maybe it IS the battery...???
Great read there! I haven't really been having any problems with battery life lately, but installed OS Monitor anyway just to see what was running. Nothing too out of the ordinary, as everything seems as you say it should be. OS Monitor is up there at 15-20%, android system is at another 8-10%, and system/bin/sensorserver_yamaha is running at anywhere from 7-16%. I assume this is the sensor that monitors what position my phone is in. Other than that, I don't see any other process taking more than a small slice of CPU or so from time to time.
I have done all of the suggestions before; bump charging, draining, and wiping stats, but I also feel that there may be differences since I am using a few different batteries. If I seem to get amazing battery life from a battery after wiping the stats and then using it til it dies, when I put in the next battery, it may work differently, thus screwing with the stats yet again. I have tried to not be as worried about battery life, especially since I have multiple batteries, but it's still something of interest to me.
I'll be subscribing to this thread, and look forward to reading some other users' thoughts/experiences with their batteries.
Scott -
In my own experience, putting lagfix on cog 5.5 has a huge beneficial effect on battery drain. I'm not sure yet but I believe the Unhelpful kernel uses a lot of cpu trying to manage swap unless you put an ext cache on it.
However, it's also true that you can great great life out of a new battery for the first 2 or 3 charge cycles. But a battery suddenly draining faster than normal is probably something your phone system is doing and not a bad battery.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Cog 2.2 beta 5.5 with OCLF
Also, Demented, don't forget to look at antennae/network abuse, not just CPU. I once had a malfunctioning weather widget that wasn't using much CPU but was going berserk on my 3G and sucking batt juice so fast that you could hear the battery whimpering a little bit.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Cognition 2.2 Beta 5.5 with OCLF
There should be a college class on correct battery usage.
Thank you so much for this thread, my battery thanks you as well!
Sorry if i shouldnt be posting this here. But i just read that wiki link at top and i was wondering what you guys think about leaving use wireless networks and power saving mode checked on to save battery???
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Good thread; subscribed. I'll be trying some of this stuff out and reporting back here.
roadrash7 said:
Sorry if i shouldnt be posting this here. But i just read that wiki link at top and i was wondering what you guys think about leaving use wireless networks and power saving mode checked on to save battery???
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some of the stuff there is valid; not sure I agree with using the task killer or the advice about leaving "Use Wireless Networks" on and GPS off. I leave both off, and when I want GPS access I turn on the GPS from the power control widget.There's no need for your Wi-Fi adapter to always be searching for networks and associating with Skyhook, etc.
Regarding leaving Wi-Fi on rather than 3G, it does make sense when you are using data. However, if the phone is idle, I doubt leaving the Wi-Fi card enabled will actually save battery life, as it will have to maintain connection with the access point (see your Wi-Fi sleep settings). I think a few short bursts of 3G download/upload when syncing, etc. will be less drain on the battery than leaving Wi-Fi enabled just for those small amounts of data that will be used when syncing. But, if you always want to be ready to browse, or do a lot of DL/UL at a moment's notice, I could see how keeping it on would be justified.
If manually syncing is acceptable to you, then by all means turn off the background data and auto syncing... personally I feel like the phone is really being limited and you have to balance utility and battery life, so I leave those options enabled.
Just some thoughts, if anyone can correct me on anything, I'm eager to learn.
TheYar said:
I'm not sure yet but I believe the Unhelpful kernel uses a lot of cpu trying to manage swap unless you put an ext cache on it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not really sure what you mean by that? There is no swap in use unless you add your own script to mount a swapfile.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Update
Updated the OP with some other items I forgot.
Unhelpful said:
I'm not really sure what you mean by that? There is no swap in use unless you add your own script to mount a swapfile.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry I wasn't being very accurately descriptive there of what I've seen. I rarely know for certain what caused or fixed a battery drain issue. Thanks for calling me out on this one, because going back over my history on this it looks like I was largely mistaken in thinking your kernel had much to do with it. One of my worst experiences with battery drain, it seemed that I had some apps/widgets that just didn't work well after the kernel swap, but Cog also made some non-specific references at that time to battery issues with the kernel and that stuck in my head. Another time with a Cog ROM I believe I may have misread the changelog and I was under the impression that I was on a new Unhelpful kernel, when I wasn't. Looks like that time it was actually a stock kernel partly responsible for the drain, which makes sense. Was I totally confused thinking Cog 2.2B5.5 uses an Unhelpful kernel?
As for what I was seeing (thinking now it was actually not on your kernel), kswapd0 was going berserk on my CPU. All I know is that is generally the name of kswapd0 is referring to virtual memory management, and putting OCLF on fixed it.
Well, vm also allows clean pages that are backed by files to be "swapped" out by freeing them, without using a swapfile, because the data already exists in storage.
A release or two ago I had some battery drain issues that were resolved by reverting some config changes.
Cognition 2.2 can't use any of my kernels, the froyo leak uses a different kernel version, and we don't have Samsung's modified sources yet.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Unhelpful said:
Cognition 2.2 can't use any of my kernels, the froyo leak uses a different kernel version, and we don't have Samsung's modified sources yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right, which makes sense when I look back over my flashing history. DG had two versions in one changelog, and a line about re-adding your kernel to Cog 2.1.7 slipped in between some changelogs about Cog 2.2 beta releases. So I originally misread and figured that you'd somehow made a 2.2 kernel. It started draining my battery like crazy, which is exactly what happened the previous time I used an Unhelpful kernel (though again probably unrelated or only somewhat related to the kernel), and so I figured I was on to something. I was wrong. My b.
The issue that still remains is that I believe many people who flash to Cog 2.2.B5.5 (and perhaps 6), without master clearing and stocking first, end up with some odd behavior with whatever kswapd0 does (e.g., odd behavior like constantly using up to 90% of CPU for no dang reason). This is probably a cause, or the cause, of the Lagfixgate scandal and maybe Sudden Rapid Battery Drain Syndrome. And for whatever reason, OCLF fixes it.
I master-cleared and flashed 2.1 stock and then Cog 2.2B6, and kswapd0 and lag are no longer an issue even without OCLF. Battery is too soon to tell, though. Seems to be fairly normal, but not as good as some of what I used to see on Eclair with various other kernels swapped in.
Great resource here. Please keep updating! Subscribed...
Although you can't see it so well in the vid, the lagfix demo I captured also demonstrated a couple of points of battery life improvement.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=8631303&postcount=15
Bumped for updates in the OP.
With any of the 2.2 builds my cpu runs at constant 10%. We know its beta but worth looking into. Only info i have seen on my phone was android system. So im unsure what it is. Havent tore into it yet. But that was all stock with no apps installed. Even cog 6 i have the same cpu readings. So who knows.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Guess its not really 10% but up there
Just a tip. I was using latitude and wasnt getting the normal battery life i usually was when i wasnt using it.
I didnt know it was effecting it though cause you dont see it in task manager but you will in applications/running services. Anyways i signed out of latitude and battery life is back to normal.
It wont be remarkably better but it was noticeable to me. Just a tip.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
smokestack76 said:
With any of the 2.2 builds my cpu runs at constant 10%. We know its beta but worth looking into. Only info i have seen on my phone was android system. So im unsure what it is. Havent tore into it yet. But that was all stock with no apps installed. Even cog 6 i have the same cpu readings. So who knows.
Guess its not really 10% but up there
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How does that compare to when you're on earlier (eclair) builds? I expect there'd always be a little utilization going on.
I've been revamping this thread for new devices for years hoping to share some of the love with newer users. Over the time I've been on android, I've learned a few simple things that can greatly assist in the battery life of our wonderful smartphones.
If you get anything out of the thread, please don't hesitate to rate it and drop me a thanks!
If you read the thread and like the tips, have a new one to suggest, or have a revision, please post it.
On a similar note, moderators, thanks for the sticky!
General Lithium Ion Battery Information - This link includes stuff about charging, including trickle charging aka SBC (Why NOT to use it, or at your own peril)
My tips for good battery life:
Tips for both Rooted and Non-Rooted users
1.Turn off all radios when not in use.
(Bluetooth, wifi, data, 4G/Wimax/LTE, NFC, etc) Use a widget like the default power widgets, Switchpro, or a similar app from the market. *Many rooted ROMs generally allows users to access these radios and other settings from the notification pulldown menu.* The radios of the phone draw power if on even if the user isn't actually utilizing the radio's functions. A radio searching for signal (if you are in a low-signal area) drains more than a radio with good signal, so again, turn 'em off when you aren't using 'em.
To manually turn off radios without a toggle, go to Settings>wireless & networks. This can be accessed from the notification pulldown and hitting the cog icon.
Wifi uses less battery than 3G, so use wifi when you can. Another important setting to note is more dependent on the user. If you live in an area without 4G LTE coverage (check here to see), then go into Settings>Mobile data>Network Mode and check CDMA Only. This will prevent your phone from unnecessarily searching for LTE coverage, which wastes a ton of battery life.
3. I love live wallpapers, and I’ve always been a fan of pixel zombies, but they are really only good for showing off due to their battery drain.
4. Set your screen timeout/brightness to something that fits you.
The screen is the highest drain of battery power on any smartphone. BY setting the timeout, you can prevent your phone from staying on when you don’t manually turn off the screen. Also, manually turn off your screen when you’re done with your phone.
Another huge tip is to turn on automatic brightness (it is enabled by default). This greatly reduces power consumption by constantly changing the brightness of your display, tailoring it to your needs.
Settings>Display, gestures & buttons>Sleep
I use 30 seconds.
4. Task killers used to be all the rage, but no longer.
Here is the ultimate, in depth, graphically assisted, explanation by the famous Fresh ROM's chef, Flipz. Shortly, in light of recent testing, really don’t do anything but force apps that the android OS needed to be open, and thus didn’t close, to re-open. So try not using them, unless for stuff like trying to figure out why your phone isn’t sleeping with system panel. You really won’t notice a performance difference, and the adverse effects you aren’t seeing will stop
+=+ A good alternative is the application SystemPanel Pro. It has a free version, but I highly reccomend purchasing the paid app. It basically monitors everything going on with your phone's usage both in real time an in terms of usage history. If your battery is draiging fast, it tells you what app was doing it, how much it was doing it, and allows you to stop it.
5. I'm sure you have all heard around that your phone isn't "sleeping".
This is referring to the phone's "awake" time, hence the name. When you go to Settings>Power>History. You can compare the lines from awake to screen on versus time on. "Time on battery" refers to the amount of time since the last reboot. The "awake time" is how long the screen has been active. The problem is, a lot of the time, due to the endless possibilities of inconsistencies between apps/ROMs/kernels/phones, the phone will not go to "sleep", drawing power proportionate to the screen being in use when it reality the phone is sitting idle.
If you compare these times and they are the same, or if you note the difference (turn off the screen for a minute, then re-check and they are the same), then your phone is not sleeping.
One solution is to reboot.
I recommend two apps to help monitor:System Panel and Better Battery Stats. These two apps (explained in their FAQ's and descriptions greatly aid in finding those rogues.
Usually, SystemPanel will show an app that has gone "rogue" and is keeping your phone awake.
-This is done by hitting menu>settings>monitoring enabled. Then after some time has passed, ht menu>monitoring>history>change tab to top apps, and see if anything is above, say, 2-4%.
Uninstall applications/reinstalling them slowly, checking after every install to see what is causing it is one tedious but surefire solution.
Lastly,
Follow these steps that I have discovered almost always work.
1. Reboot phone.
2. Instantly upon reboot, as soon as you gain control, open up some type of monitor/taskkiller
3. "kill all" tasks on startup; about 2 times in quick succession should do the trick.
4. Turn off the screen and leave it for about five minutes.
5. Check the up time v. awake time and see if they are the same.
6. If they are, repeat steps 1-5. If they are different, you are good.
6. Apps and Combinations to watch out for!
-Facebook- Tries to sync live feed all the time, HIGHLY recommend unchecking this box, as it creates a massive draw on data
-Skype- This app reportedly (I've seen it myself) likes to sync random data and open up the network for fun. Sign out of app when not in use to fix
-GTalk- This application keeps you constantly connected to all of our google contacts across of your accounts. I have several accounts that I must maintain, and by default the application had me signed in and maintaining a connection with all of them. Open GTalk, then hit each account and sign out to neutralize this puppy. Unless of course you want to stay signed in.
7. Manage your syncing.
This is a big one, and it differs from person to person. Go to Settings>Accounts and Sync, and take a look at what's going on there. Listed app titles means that there is an account syncing data. I, for example, have four email addresses, facebook, dropbox, box, weather, etc. That is bad. You should go through and turn off syncing for nasty apps you might not have known were accessing the internet, or limit the access of apps and services that you do want to allow.
The problem lies in the way this syncing is handled. Each app/service runs on its own schedule, making it particularly likely that your phone could almost always be establishing a data connection and trying to download data for your various apps. See step 2 regarding the app Juice Defender to handle this problem.
8. Vibrate/Haptic Settings
Vibration and haptic feedback eat up a surprising amount of battery. If you have the haptic feedback enabled, then every time you press anything your phone puts out some juice to make itself dance.
Settings>Sound>Vibrate on touch
Some apps have their own haptic feedback settings, and notifications are their own set entirely.
Tips for Rooted users:
1. Try out custom kernels.
By going to the Sprint HTC One Android Development section of the forums, you can see all of the different kernels being developed. These allow for all kinds of modifications like underclocking the CPU and undervolting, both of which save battery. To see how to use them, read the FAQ's in each thread's OPs.
Here is a great guide to custom kernel's by mroneeyedboh.
2. Use Rom Toolbox Pro, SetCPU, or some CPU clocking app in compliance with whatever your custom kernel allows.
This site will explain the basics of SetCPU: http://www.setcpu.com/
-Profiles from SetCPU should usually involve these for battery life optimization:
-Screen off at the minimum clock speed for both, with the max raised on level if sluggishness is apparent
-A temperature greater than “X”
-General power related profiles that lower cpu speed at lower battery levels
(Note that setcpu has fallen off of the radar, but clocking your cpu to levels that suit your needs is still viable, although many argue that the android system's core management should best be left alone. Read up for yourself and make an educated decision)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTES:
*Some apps or processes begin to run at startup and keep the phone awake. These apps are not detected by things like spare parts or system panel, unless sometimes represented in the "system" process, in which case its usage will be unusually high.
This shouldn't take more than three repeats, and if it does, you need to factory reset, and slowly add apps back to see what's causing the problem.
___----When it comes to people claiming 20 plus hours of moderate/heavy use out of their current setup or other ridiculous absurdities, consider my position: No matter what you do, the cellphone battery is the cellphone battery. You can tweak it and customize it with kernels, ROMs, and settings, but none of that will turn it into a car battery. The main problem (besides a false sense of pride) that leads to these reports is the misunderstanding of what the usage levels are, so here’s my best summary:
* *Light usage – Phone screen actually on for maybe 0-2 hours. Things like a few texts, some emails, 20 minutes web browsing, etc.
* *Moderate usage – You watched a few youtube videos or similar apps, sustained web browsing, hundreds of texts, some games. Hours range from about 2-5 of screen on
* *Heavy usage – LOTS of video watching and games, pictures or video recording, or some high def gaming/movie watching for at least an hour to an hour and a half in total, with lots of emails and texts, browsing, and other app shenanigans. 5+ hours
*I’m sure everyone doesn't agree with all these numbers, but this is most likely a good average of what powerusers think. All specific hourage may vary due to differences in phones, batteries, ROMs, and kernels… Which also means that most battery comparisons are pointless; it’s only what you can improve on that counts!
I’ll update this whenever I see good stuff, people remind me, or I remember/come across things I do.
Hope it helps everybody!
Hit the "THANKS" button if I help you!
Good thread, we need more informational threads like this.
Biofall said:
* *Heavy usage – LOTS of video watching and games, 3D pics or video, or some high def gaming/movie watching for at least an hour to an hour and a half in total, with lots of emails and texts, browsing, and other app shenanigans. 5+ hours
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This isn't the Evo 3d forum Bio . Good to see another 3vo user around these parts haha.
Stickied for the time being
demo27vol1 said:
This isn't the Evo 3d forum Bio . Good to see another 3vo user around these parts haha.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha yep!
Nice catch though, there was a lot there to change.
Hello Biofall,
I was wondering how effective is the Snapdragon BatteryGuru app from qualcomm vs juice defender if you ever tried that app before? I have used juice defender with my EVO 3D but I didn't liked the that the app was turning off Wimax even tough my phone was charging while using it.
Not only are we fighting the screen. We are fighting the quad core processor. It seems to be very aggressive.
Sent from my HTCONE using Xparent Blue Tapatalk 2
Well done.
treIII said:
Not only are we fighting the screen. We are fighting the quad core processor. It seems to be very aggressive.
Sent from my HTCONE using Xparent Blue Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's aggressive when it feels the need to ramp up. When installing several apps, the damn thing actually gets hot to the point where I put it in the freezer. [edit: this is dumb according to the device's thermal protection] I know that the components shouldn't be reaching those temps....
I'm on the lookout for more info on explicit effects of the quad core on battery life and direct ways to combat it.
eXplicit815 said:
Well done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! I've been scouring for empirical info for years and I owe a lot of thanks to other people.
Turn off Juice defender. In fact, uninstall it. You will see your battery life is actually improved.
Leave the quad core component alone. If the cores aren't being used, they're offline. Offline is essentially 0 power consumption. The only case I can see improving battery by disabling cores would be for games. Otherwise, its probably detrimental.
Felnarion said:
Turn off Juice defender. In fact, uninstall it. You will see your battery life is actually improved.
Leave the quad core component alone. If the cores aren't being used, they're offline. Offline is essentially 0 power consumption. The only case I can see improving battery by disabling cores would be for games. Otherwise, its probably detrimental.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Juice defender has a large multitude of components. If some parts use more power for you, then you should post which of them you believe they were, before and after, possibly with battery graph screenshots.
On the last quad-core device that I had used there was a problem where the cores would ramp up unnecessarily for small tasks, so there is certainly a possibility for improvement.
On an unrelated note, there are other things that I want to add to this thread, including screenshots, so if anyone has anything to add, just tell me.
What I don't get is that a lot people seem to believe they know better than HTC's engineers. Doing things like forcing off cores, how do you know that's really saving power? For all you know, the power loss of enabling an extra core for a small task is insignificant to ramping up an already active core to do the same thing.
Sure there are some things you can do to improve power usage (such as avoiding wakelocks) but if you start changing numbers for how internal software power functions work, you should have some damn good reasons why. Even a graph isn't going to be terribly accurate unless you can substantiate the gains across multiple tests. Many of the improvements people mention often have an impact of less than 1% over the course of an entire charge, and that's nearly impossible to even measure. The battery percentage indicator is only an estimation and not only varies between device, but even varies based on the temperature!
Vincent Law said:
What I don't get is that a lot people seem to believe they know better than HTC's engineers. Doing things like forcing off cores, how do you know that's really saving power? For all you know, the power loss of enabling an extra core for a small task is insignificant to ramping up an already active core to do the same thing.
Sure there are some things you can do to improve power usage (such as avoiding wakelocks) but if you start changing numbers for how internal software power functions work, you should have some damn good reasons why. Even a graph isn't going to be terribly accurate unless you can substantiate the gains across multiple tests. Many of the improvements people mention often have an impact of less than 1% over the course of an entire charge, and that's nearly impossible to even measure. The battery percentage indicator is only an estimation and not only varies between device, but even varies based on the temperature!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure man, sure. There are surely negatives associated with turning off, down, or generally altering core performance. However, taking the decisions that HTC engineers coupled with HTC software designers implemented for mass consumption as the best option for all users is foolish. The reason we have a development community revolves around that concept.
Several of the things I talk about have an impact in terms of hours the device can function without being plugged into an outlet, which has little to nothing to do with battery percent levels.
Sent from my HTC ONE using xda premium
Edited
Biofall said:
Sure man, sure. There are surely negatives associated with turning off, down, or generally altering core performance. However, taking the decisions that HTC engineers coupled with HTC software designers implemented for mass consumption as the best option for all users is foolish. The reason we have a development community revolves around that concept.
Several of the things I talk about have an impact in terms of hours the device can function without being plugged into an outlet, which has little to nothing to do with battery percent levels.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Battery percent or how long the device is on is still a hard comparison to make.
You could do the EXACT SAME THING on the phone twice, from full charge to dead, and you'd get a different length of time. Batteries aren't that consistent.
A couple things that bother me:
1. You stick the phone in the freezer because it gets warm. The phone already has thermal protections that keep it from overheating. The CPU can deal with far greater heat than you know (70C isn't even a problem). Anandtech was able to run it through the entire gauntlet of its tests (which are much harder on the device than just installing apps) without it ever triggering thermal protection. Most thermal protections exist solely for the battery's sake, which in itself can deal with 50C while charging, or even higher when not.
2. In almost all cases, it is better to let the CPU drive itself as fast and as hard as possible in order to finish tasks. Let it turn on all the cores and such. Because once it's done, it can go back into deep sleep, where everything is off. This is why almost all phones, not just HTC ones, are designed to do just that.
I agree with Felnarion's sentiment. Juice Defender is probably wasting more power just measuring your battery usage than it is helping you save.
Edited
Originally Posted by Biofall
Sure man, sure. There are surely negatives associated with turning off, down, or generally altering core performance. However, taking the decisions that HTC engineers coupled with HTC software designers implemented for mass consumption as the best option for all users is foolish. The reason we have a development community revolves around that concept.
Several of the things I talk about have an impact in terms of hours the device can function without being plugged into an outlet, which has little to nothing to do with battery percent levels.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Battery percent or how long the device is on is still a hard comparison to make.
You could do the EXACT SAME THING on the phone twice, from full charge to dead, and you'd get a different length of time. Batteries aren't that consistent.
A couple things that bother me:
1. You stick the phone in the freezer because it gets warm. The phone already has thermal protections that keep it from overheating. The CPU can deal with far greater heat than you know (70C isn't even a problem). Anandtech was able to run it through the entire gauntlet of its tests (which are much harder on the device than just installing apps) without it ever triggering thermal protection. Most thermal protections exist solely for the battery's sake, which in itself can deal with 50C while charging, or even higher when not.
2. In almost all cases, it is better to let the CPU drive itself as fast and as hard as possible in order to finish tasks. Let it turn on all the cores and such. Because once it's done, it can go back into deep sleep, where everything is off. This is why almost all phones, not just HTC ones, are designed to do just that.
I agree with Felnarion's sentiment. Juice Defender is probably wasting more power just measuring your battery usage than it is helping you save.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could do the same thing and get different results, but in reality strong trends in usage are reflected in battery life.
As for this the CPU discussion, all that I said was that I'd like to look at more in depth studies or core process handling. So it bothers me too.
In regards to JD, it won't be making it into the next revision of the thread, as I have noticed unnecessary draw. Honestly android implemented most of the vital operations into the OS, so it is mostly useless coupled with the other tips and just general awareness.
Finally, the xda app is acting up, sorry for the clutter.
Sent from my HTCONE using xda premium
Thanks for the write up. I went from being a little unimpressed by battery life to blown away. Biggest saver from stock is dropping all the SYNC stuff. Totally unnecessary IMO. If you aren't consuming the news and updates (you know actually in the app), you probably don't need it refreshing. Still baffles me this is the from-the-factory type setup.
Phone used to eat 5-10% of my charge per hour with light use and barely make it through my "day" (~15hr away from charger). Now, after 6hrs. since it's been off the charger, I'm still at 91%.
Kill LTE and go to CDMA only if you don't have it in your area either, or it's still rolling out. Seemed to help too.
EDIT: And I should note my scores are with never letting the Data Connection completely sleep, so I can still get emails as they come in which I find important.
---------- Post added at 01:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:17 PM ----------
Here's another tip: Go into Google Talk and make sure to sign yourself out if you don't use/care for the service.
Lauski said:
Thanks for the write up. I went from being a little unimpressed by battery life to blown away. Biggest saver from stock is dropping all the SYNC stuff. Totally unnecessary IMO. If you aren't consuming the news and updates (you know actually in the app), you probably don't need it refreshing. Still baffles me this is the from-the-factory type setup.
Phone used to eat 5-10% of my charge per hour with light use and barely make it through my "day" (~15hr away from charger). Now, after 6hrs. since it's been off the charger, I'm still at 91%.
Kill LTE and go to CDMA only if you don't have it in your area either, or it's still rolling out. Seemed to help too.
EDIT: And I should note my scores are with never letting the Data Connection completely sleep, so I can still get emails as they come in which I find important.
---------- Post added at 01:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:17 PM ----------
Here's another tip: Go into Google Talk and make sure to sign yourself out if you don't use/care for the service.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Solid tips man. Will update the OP. I always forget to change my mobile data to CDMA only. Also, I had three accounts signed into gtalk, which was unnecessary.
Biofall,
Nice thread.. Very very nice.
The battery issue --
When it comes to people claiming 20 plus hours of moderate/heavy use out of their current setup or other ridiculous absurdities
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While I actually agree with what you say I do feel a bit different. I base mine on previous usage.
My days really fall into one of three areas. When you get old like me you will see your days are all about the same. :crying: My heavy use is going to be someone else light day.
For me I can judge based on different phones, kernels and roms. The 4g days I needed to have a charger at my desk. There was no way I could get through a whole day regardless of how many calls I made.
Now I am judging verse the LTE I had and and very surprised on how well its holding up even on
my
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
heavy days.
Have you had time to try this yet? http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2230403
Not sure it works, like you said some of these apps just use more than they save. I am going to see what happens over the next few days and see if I can see differences.
Your Facebook and sync statement, man do those hit home! I still have a few phones at work that these guys don't get it.
Gtalk.. beh turns on when you flash a new rom.. People have to remember to go back and shut that sucker off!
Thanks for your post, I am going to show a few people this, maybe it will open their eyes.