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Yo
heres a brutally simple battery monitor software thingy that graphs your usage and battery level - top graph is mAh usage (15000ms refresh (os updates info every 30 secs)) and bottom graph is battery life (60000ms refresh)
i wrote this thing to monitor my batt usage cause my bat life is utter crap, barely lasts 8 hours with my level of use/cellular climate, which sucks its just a straight up .exe, just copy to where-ever and run it
this version here is so pre-alpha-uber-dev-debug-build its not funny but i thought id put it up for you lot anyway as i have found it useful just to glance at from time to time - there are no user controls, i spazzed this out in a hurry but i intend to improve on it and implement any features you lot might think useful.
best i can get out of my raph with screen on with celluar, gprs and bt ad2p connected is -63mAh - whats the best you can get?
just tryin to put smt back into the community <3
p.s. this is a debug build (i kept getting microsoft error reporting crap on the emulator, so i dunno how itll go on other devices)
p.p.s. i take no responsibility if this bricks your device, sleeps with your wife, sets your house on fire or kills your cat etc etc (but it works ok on my raph
***UPDATED 25.03.09***
SEE POST #9 IN THIS THREAD BELOW
going to try this out soon, loving the simple graph
now i can see whats happening when 40% of my battery dies overnight as i sleep >:O
works good, any way of making it show the current time on the x-axis? or able to scroll left and rigth to see what happened earlier?
and whats the bottom graph for?
07accordEX said:
any way of making it show the current time on the x-axis? or able to scroll left and right to see what happened earlier?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
both of these features are on the todo list (which ill put up when i get a moment)
and whats the bottom graph for?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
read the initial post.
the top graph shows the past hour of activity (ish, its actually more like 57.5 mins), the bottom graph shows the past 8 hours (ish, more like 7.7hrs).
no data is collected when the device is asleep - and the graph doesnt get updated during these times, so you only see 'active' use in the graphs - i plan to implement some sort of visual cue system to signify times of sleep and also to keep the temporal coherency of the graph more contiguous (lol, e.g. a graphed minute will be 8 pixels wide no matter what).
i believe its impossible to collect data while the device is asleep as afaik when the processor goes to sleep the only part of it that functions is the bit that listens for interrupts (from i.e. the phone management cpu, etc) (and maybe a timer (for alarms etc?)) - if im wrong on these details please enlighten me.
fusi
Nice app I would love to see it becoming more mature, will probably end up with my standard equipment, thanks 12
12aon said:
Nice app I would love to see it becoming more mature, will probably end up with my standard equipment, thanks 12
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks, watch this space should have something new up by the weekend
This opens up a blank white page on my phone. Did I do something wrong?
behrouz said:
This opens up a blank white page on my phone. Did I do something wrong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the graphs dont refresh as soon as you open the app - youll hve to wait for the first update (15 and 60seconds) before anything is rendered - this will be fixed soon.
ok, a bit later than advertised but here is an updated version - fixed most things, still working on scrolling through the history - will add more features in coming days (colour customisation, toggling graph display, scrolling through history, exporting graphs as images, user customisable update intervals, etc)
btw ive added in support for unattended mode - this keeps the cpu alive when the device is asleep - i dont recommend keeping this on unless you are trying to debug unexplained power drain in standby - unattended mode keeps my raph ticking along at -21mAh, when im pretty sure true idle for this handset is more like -4mAh. so yah, not recommended to leave it on
im pretty sure there arent bugs but if you find one please let me know!
enjoy
fusi
fusi said:
ok, a bit later than advertised but here is an updated version - fixed most things, still working on scrolling through the history - will add more features in coming days (colour customisation, toggling graph display, scrolling through history, exporting graphs as images, user customisable update intervals, etc)
btw ive added in support for unattended mode - this keeps the cpu alive when the device is asleep - i dont recommend keeping this on unless you are trying to debug unexplained power drain in standby - unattended mode keeps my raph ticking along at -21mAh, when im pretty sure true idle for this handset is more like -4mAh. so yah, not recommended to leave it on
im pretty sure there arent bugs but if you find one please let me know!
enjoy
fusi
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm curious to know what you think the power consumption caused by this program is. Like you, I get about 21mA drain with the phone screen off - but I'm getting that with your old version. I use S2U2 with the "but only blank screen" option and turned off standby in Windows power management so I think that's effectively putting the phone in unattended mode. Normally (without your program running) I see pretty modest battery drain with the phone in unattended mode. Just off the top of my head I'd say that 5-15% battery drain per hour would be about what I'm used to with zero usage - phone just sitting in my pocket or on a desk in "unattended mode" but just now while running your older EXE my phone went from 65% to about 40% in under an hour while "unattended" (locked, screen off). Looking at the graph for that time period I see a consistent 21mA drain. If 21mAh=25% capacity, I'm in trouble. I know my battery isn't that far out of whack because I get what I'd consider (based on reading other's experiences) pretty normal life out of it. Maybe the drain characteristics for that "portion" of the battery are a little different - I'm not sure whether the capacity is judged solely on capacity minus drain or it figures voltage levels in as well...?
To be clear, I'm basing my sense of normal battery consumption on nothing more than "took it off the charger in the morning, didn't use it all day at work and have ~50% when I get home 9 or ten hours later" so it's anecdotal at best.
I'll keep playing - I love this tool. Maybe I'll be a little more scientific about my testing and see if I'm imagining things.
Hi thanks for posting
if your just turning the screen off, i dont think thats unattended mode, unattended mode actually powers down non essential parts of the device.
if unattended mode is off in the program and your phone goes into standby, it wont consume any battery as when the phone goes into standby everything is shutdown and the cpu pretty much stops functioning (apart from a very small part) - but this also means the historical data and graphs dont get updated . if unattended mode is on and your phone hits that standby timeout, it wont go into standby but unattended mode instead where it just turns off a lot of the non-essential stuff, like voltage to the sd card, the screen, etc - but it keeps the cpu running and the operating system pumping its messages.
i think a chunk of that 21mAh is going to be the operating system - but not all of it - currently the program registers 2 timers with the os, one has a 15second timeout and the other has a 60 second timeout. timers do drain battery, as the cpu keeps having to go 'is it time yet? is it time yet?' ad infinitum.
btw, when i said 'true idle' in my prev post i meant that that is the current used in true standby.
one way to calculate how much current its drawing is to leave your phone running it for 24hours (airplane mode on etc) and see how much its depleted over that time, then do it again without it running. using that information you can figure out how much current its using - i havent done this yet, i cant put the thing down for 5 minutes let alone 24 hours
im currently working on a system that doesnt use timers, it might work, might not if it does i hope to see that 21mAh reduce, but i dont imagine itll go down by that much. there are however loads of optimisations that can be done, and im investigating them atm.
im no battery scientist but as far as battery capacity, i think li-ion batteries judge their capacity by their voltage, from something like 3v up to 4.2v (0% -> 100% [wiki link below]) - i could be wrong on that though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion_battery <-- this is a good informative read.
i dont think the battery is very capacious tbh - any amount of drain and it seems to go down very fast - i think the saving grace of the device is that is consumes minimal power when in standby - on days where im constantly using it heavily, im practically tethered to a power outlet as the battery just drains far too fast - i think the manufacters banked on the assumption that users would mostly have the phone in standby mode for most of the day. i usually use it for music while im at work and have putty sessions open etc, so its always on - i barely get 8 hours use without a charge .
ive noticed with my battery that even though the drain is constant (i.e. 21mAh or 63mAh) the charge level of the battery does not decrease linearly - e.g. ive noticed my phone suddenly start going down and lose 10% in 5 minutes before, and then the charge level would level out and stay at the same capacity for like 10 minutes before starting to go down again - this to me seems a little funny, as if the circuitry reporting the capacity isnt quite accurate - i think there a many factors, including battery temperature, the drain on the battery in mAh (i think a spike of higher drain may cause the battery do the nose-dive-then-level-out thing) - but i also think that the battery just doesnt deplete linearly, it seems to always have lumps and bumps in the graph, no matter how smooth the drain is.
glad you like the app ill be posting an update to it in a week or so.
peace
fusi
I'm not sure what exactly S2U2's "but only blank screen" does, but it leaves me with a 21 mA draw, so it can't be much different from unattended mode. I haven't tried to monitor it in that mode with (for example) an active Wifi connection or a program accessing the SD card to see if that changes things, but as it is it seems to be running the same things your set is.
The only reason I think the capacity calculation must not run off of only the voltage is that it has a definite "learning" capability. I think it must be doing some more complex things behind the scenes in terms of monitoring consumption and recalibrating periodically based on charge and discharge rates. I know I've seen it sit at 99% charging for a (very) disproportionately long time. The only good explanation for that is that it wasn't perfectly calibrated and the battery is still accepting charge at a higher rate than an almost full battery would. I've seen the same behavior in a lot of charge monitoring systems as they "learn" the characteristics of a battery. I guess it could be basing that purely on voltage, but I doubt it. While connected to a charge, the system will report a substantially higher voltage than it will as soon as the charging voltage is disconnected.
I don't know, I'm just kind of thinking aloud here. It would be great if there were a way to poll the power consumption without affecting the power consumption - sort of a Heisenberg's uncertainty problem... I'd really like to know what the power consumption is in unattended mode as well as true standby. Even if you do the 24 hour test you have to assume a lot of things about the battery's initial condition and the accuracy of the meter to arrive at a consumption number (and, like you, I'll never have a day I don't want to putter around with this phone). I suppose if you were really into it you could stick an ammeter between the battery and phone and control for the added loss
It's definitely true that the discharge isn't linear, even given a constant discharge rate. This has to be an artifact of including battery voltage in the capacity calculation. If it was using purely capacity minus usage the relationship would have to be linear.
Anyways, keep up the good work. I love stuff like this, just from an academic standpoint. Practically speaking I'm pretty much tethered to my chargers, too...
hyachts said:
I'm not sure what exactly S2U2's "but only blank screen" does, but it leaves me with a 21 mA draw, so it can't be much different from unattended mode.
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Click to collapse
That's exactly the case, this setting causes your device to run in unattended mode (backlight off, audio off, wi-fi off, ...)
hyachts said:
I think it must be doing some more complex things behind the scenes in terms of monitoring consumption and recalibrating periodically based on charge and discharge rates. I guess it could be basing that purely on voltage, but I doubt it. While connected to a charge, the system will report a substantially higher voltage than it will as soon as the charging voltage is disconnected.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Microsoft's reference battery driver for PXA270 CPU is calculating battery percentage based on voltage exclusively. HTC's custom driver for Qualcomm cores seems to have some kind of more advanced logic behind it, but it doesn't work well/smooth.
hyachts said:
I don't know, I'm just kind of thinking aloud here. It would be great if there were a way to poll the power consumption without affecting the power consumption - sort of a Heisenberg's uncertainty problem... I'd really like to know what the power consumption is in unattended mode as well as true standby.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not without external tools, it should be possible to hook up an external multimeter to the battery directly to measure the voltage accurately in standby. Using the battery driver information you can only evaluate it and the evaluation is likely to be pretty rough.
Attached are some charts from my Touch HD...
The battery level graph seems to follow consumption graph very closely.
You can barely notice the resemblance with the voltage graph though.
These charts depict my device's utilization over 2 days, assuming 0 mah consumption when in standby. This assumption is apparently not accurate, as the battery capacity is 1350 mah and only about 1000 mah were utilized. Out of these 48 hours the device was in standby for about 40 hours, so my estimated standby utilization is -350mah/40h => -8.75mah. This doesn't sound reasonable, as according to manufacturers specs, the device is capable of 450h of standby, with 1350mah battery standby consumption should be -1350mah/450h => -3.375mah. I would agree with fusi, that taking manufacturer's estimation errors it should be safe to assume standby consupmption is around -4mah.
40*-4mah=160mah, so I have about -190mah remaining unaccounted for. I blame measurement accuracy for this... IMO, with this degree of inaccuracy, standby consumption can not be accurately estimated and has to be assumed based on manufacturers specs only.
I'm running more tests to reconfirm these observations, but I doubt the results will be extremely different.
For your reference, I get -69mah on Touch HD when idling with minimal backlight level and -27mah in suspended mode.
I have been seeing odd periods of heavy cpu use and I am unable to pinpoint the reasons. systempanel is not showing any out of control apps, but sometimes shows prolonged heavy use of the cpu; often at 100% use. (also everytime I charge the device history shows 100% use the whole time, I do have dock mode active though) Often times when I see 100% load, the history shows it starting when I open systempanel, but systempanel is not showing heavy use according to its personal history chart. I contacted the dev and he is looking into it, but does not believe it is the app. The system my lag at these times, but does not become unresponsive. After a fresh reboot, systempanel seems to show normal cpu loads even when active and in the foreground, but after a time it shows 100% every time I open it. (and history shows the high use starts when I open the app, but sometimes the chart does show moderate heavy use around 50% before systempanel is even started, so I can not be sure if systempanel is the cause)
I have also been having odd slow downs and lag that a kill all command from a task manager will not fix, but a reboot does. (I am thinking this lag corresponds to random high cpu use, but because of the above unreliability of systempanel I can not know.
It seems to happen over time, like a memory leak but with cpu and system load.
Anyone else having this problem in FroYo?
Systempanel is the only app that I know of that has that level of detail about what is going on in the phone, so I can not check it against another app.
OK i was just curious and downloaded systempanel and looked at the cpu usage. First i have a uptime of 88 hours exactly. the cpu usage is between 277Mhz and 450Mhz. I'm also using Froyo and everythinds is stock (kernel, Rom).
SO maybe there is a app that isn't showing his cpu usage? i don't use any taskiller so i don't kill anything.
I have a task killer to kill any apps that go haywire. I found another app to check against systempanell it does not have logging but I can check current stats.
Guess I'm the only one?
Ok since installing a second active monitoring app, the weird cpu loads are gone; things seem normal. Both apps seem to show the same results. Though I still feel that the cpu load being at 100% the entire time the phone sits on the charger is unnecessary.
-------------------------------------
Sent via the XDA Tapatalk App
I've had unusual cpu pegging (started a thread about it too). Four forced reboots so far.
britoso said:
I've had unusual cpu pegging (started a thread about it too). Four forced reboots so far.
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You still got it? i think there has to be a faulty app not that people got this problem, you are the only 2 i heard from though.
commodoor said:
You still got it? i think there has to be a faulty app not that people got this problem, you are the only 2 i heard from though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, just today my gtalk froze with 100% cpu when switching to it. Had to force power off after waiting about 3 mins (power+vol down+trackball)
I am having the EXACT same problem, I was actually browsing through here to see if anyone else was getting it as well before i started my own thread...
it started yesterday actually and I am wondering if it is the new .0.4.2 launcher pro beta because i just put that on yesterday and i had no problems with .4.1
that is my speculation, can anyone confirm?
its probably not your launcher, I'm on ADW. Will try Launcher2 and see if it is better...
Im sure we had posts like this before. But Im stuck and need help. I was on cm7 nightly 87 with oc kernel. 5/23 and all was well. The this Saturday after playing pvz before going to sleep I put my nook to sleep with approximately 40-50% on battery and in the AM it was dead. I tought maybe I was wrong with the battery charged it to 100% flashed to 93 updated the kernel to 5-23 and played around with nook a bit, battery recolabration app, screen reco etc... Went to sleep approximately 70-80% woke up in the AM 44% just now typing this on nook went from 44 to 39% battery use shows android os 49%
I do play with new apps and maybe installed something bad but I can't figure it out. Please help
that is called PMD premature battery death.. theres a thread about it in nook android dev forum and is an issue with the current cm7
luciferii said:
that is called PMD premature battery death.. theres a thread about it in nook android dev forum and is an issue with the current cm7
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks have to research that. Why would this just start ? It was working very good before. Thank you very much for the very fast response.
The latest nightlies (91, 93, and 94A) have an experimental fix that seems to improve things.
Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk
xxiworld said:
The latest nightlies (91, 93, and 94A) have an experimental fix that seems to improve things.
Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I installed the latest nightly and left the nook over night. I left it at approximately 11pm with around 75%-80% this morning at 7am it drop down to 57%.
What I dont understand is that I didnt have this issue for a about a week that I had the nook and had the 87 nightly on it. The battery was amazing. It just kind of happen. I will start posting in the PMD thread this is very strange. Just seems that around 30% of battery disappears if nook is a sleep for a while.
No Drain - No Pain
I'm running version 88 and have virtually no drain whatsoever. I use an app killer and shut off the wifi before shutting down each night but can have less than 1-2% drop by morning. I can go a week without recharging.
Log battery stats
CurrentWidget, available in the market, is capable to log battery voltage, percent, current, and running applications list, to a file. It is also a home screen widget. Select widget type=clear text. Edit widget and change presentation to 2 column style. With these two changes all information is shown clearly. Touch displayed data value on home screen widget to cycle display between current, percentage, or voltage. Its useful and well done.
-samovar
mrainess said:
CurrentWidget, available in the market, is capable to log battery voltage, percent, current, and running applications list, to a file. It is also a home screen widget. Select widget type=clear text. Edit widget and change presentation to 2 column style. With these two changes all information is shown clearly. Touch displayed data value on home screen widget to cycle display between current, percentage, or voltage. Its useful and well done.
-samovar
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow thanks have to try this. Also will try shutting off the wifi before sleep. The issues is that I had no problems prior to Saturday, it was working flawless I would get no battery drain I would go to sleep with WiFi on no killing apps and get approximately same battery as when I went to sleep it was great. I dont get what happened.
Also like I said before in about tablet > battery use the "Android OS" now shows 41% when the battery gets drained. So some thing happens. I guess I can wipe /system /data and start over. I flashed the latest nightly this morning while the battery was on 55% (this is drain over night, as before sleep it was 77%). Lets see how it goes. And I was so happy how this thing performed !!!!!!
It was when you flash from n87 to n93 is the reason your battery is showing such different charges. the reason your are battery is draining so fast is because your nook is not deep sleeping. you can check to see if your cpu is deep sleeping or not with a free app named "cpu spy" Im also suffering from SOD and no DS.
There are 3 battery issues right now with the nook.
1) PBD, you can read about it here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1098178
2) SOD and no deep sleep, you can check it out here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1108964
There is a form in the OP to fill out. Please fill it out and help us all squash this bug.
I was still on 87 when the issue first occurred. Now I understand everything you posted and will be more then happy to fill it out and etc.. what I dont understand is how come this worked before with out any issues, with no modifications
boxcar8028 said:
It was when you flash from n87 to n93 is the reason your battery is showing such different charges. the reason your are battery is draining so fast is because your nook is not deep sleeping. you can check to see if your cpu is deep sleeping or not with a free app named "cpu spy" Im also suffering from SOD and no DS.
There are 3 battery issues right now with the nook.
1) PBD, you can read about it here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1098178
2) SOD and no deep sleep, you can check it out here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1108964
There is a form in the OP to fill out. Please fill it out and help us all squash this bug.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also I never got Sleep of Death, I just got home and I`m about down to 21% from this morning 57% which is approximately 10 hours, there was some use today. I installed the cpuspy and current widget.
Cpu spy does show deep sleep 20%. I just put it on the charger and will take it of today. I did put all levers down in Nook Tweaks.
Lets see what happens. Now will report in the AM.
Today I had battery issues as well.
When I look at the battery usage, it showed
Phone Idle used 29%
Display 28%
Cell Standby 22%
Data enabled was turned on in Mobile network Settings. I turned that off and will check again. What would be using that if there is no hardware?
I had those turned off as soon as I installed CM7 few weeks ago
I've heard it explained thusly:
Phone idle = device idle
Cell standby = radio standby
Disabling those functions does nothing to increase battery life, as reported by kernel devs, though many users report otherwise anecdotally.
Sent from my Droid using XDA App
pgrunwald said:
Today I had battery issues as well.
When I look at the battery usage, it showed
Phone Idle used 29%
Display 28%
Cell Standby 22%
Data enabled was turned on in Mobile network Settings. I turned that off and will check again. What would be using that if there is no hardware?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Had you by any chance just rebooted the NC before looking at those stats? The only time I've seen stats that high for those processes is right after powering the NC on. At that point, you're only seeing usage statistics for the last thirty seconds, and like any statistic, the smaller the sample size, the less meaningful the data.
I was in a reboot cycle where the unit would not power on without being on the charger.
I just checked again after installing build 95 and at the top of the screen it says 15 hours 50 minutes on battery. The percentages are still the same as before.
Ok here is my report from this AM. Took it of the charger last night at around 10:45pm with 100%, rebooted in to recovery to clear battery stats, rebooted to CM7 went to wireless enabled the wifi, deleted 1 wifi network (more on that below), made sure it was connected to my home network. Pretty much it. Battery showed 99%. Woke up just now 7am, battery shows 98%. Great.
So here are my thoughts and I think I have to experiment a bit more before conclusions.
1. Nook Tweaks with DAC boost could be causing an issue, maybe a better idea to do on demand rather then set on boot (still have to experiment.)
2. (this is most likely one) I live in Long Island and we have free wifi from Optimum (cablevision) from my house there is a week signal for that SSID and some times Nook did get on it instead of the home SSID. I suspect that it was jumping between SSID and thus draining the battery, this is why I deleted that network before going to sleep.
3. N95 fixed everything that was wrong.
4. I changed wifi to sleep after screen is off, that could of helped as well.
More testing will be done in coming days.
I do have a question regarding the OC kernel and governance. I do remember having 4 options, but now I just have to 2, performance and conservative. First question which one to use ? Second question where are the 4 governance ? Why arent they showing up ?
Thank you guys.
Dalingrin found that the smart-ass and interactive governor were causing issues (don't recall what, exactly) and pulled them out. Conservative is recommended.
Taosaur said:
Dalingrin found that the smart-ass and interactive governor were causing issues (don't recall what, exactly) and pulled them out. Conservative is recommended.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Got it. Thanks.
I'm on n98 with the 5/23 OC kernel (I believe). I always make sure minimal apps are running, I only have the wifi/sound/bluetooth toggle widgets. Screen brightness kept to minimum needed for visibility.
I charged up to 100% at about 6pm. Put it right to sleep (no wifi or anything running) and within 10 minutes it was down to 98%. I read for about 30 minutes using Aldiko before I went to sleep and for 20 minutes on the train to work. I pulled out the Nook on my lunch break to read some more and it was down to 59%, and that is just sleeping and reading (on low brightness) for about an hour.
I always have ample opportunity to charge wherever I am, but I'm just paranoid about battery life not lasting at all even when I'm barely using the thing.
I was set to OC @ 1100Mhz on Conservative but I knocked it down to 800. I don't know if that makes a difference.
Should I go back to an older version? Go to stock ROM? I'm really only going to use the Nook to read and watch Netflix on the train, or browse some websites on my lunch break. Nothing too heavy.
In the last week or so I have picked up my phone three times and it has been dead.
The power button doesn't turn it on again.
I have to take the battery out and then restart it.
I'm running a rooted 2.35 JVT.
I have nothing untoward running ...
Settings
Sense analogue clock
DRM content
Software update
SnsService
Google Play Store
Samsung keypad
Apart from Angry Birds, there's almost nothing else, and nothing new for months except Bad Piggies.
deanbilly said:
In the last week or so I have picked up my phone three times and it has been dead.
The power button doesn't turn it on again.
I have to take the battery out and then restart it.
I'm running a rooted 2.35 JVT.
I have nothing untoward running ...
Settings
Sense analogue clock
DRM content
Software update
SnsService
Google Play Store
Samsung keypad
Apart from Angry Birds, there's almost nothing else, and nothing new for months except Bad Piggies.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could it be a dead battery?
otherwise, tried to wipe and (re)flash a rom?
The battery is fine, and the ROM has been there for well over a year with no problems.
Finding the root cause of battery drain...
deanbilly said:
In the last week or so I have picked up my phone three times and it has been dead.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are a number of standard steps to run through to find the root cause of battery problems, assuming the drain is caused by the OS or apps and not actually due to a physically failing battery.
I have been tracking a few battery issues myself recently and this is what I have learned from doing some reading on XDA:
There are two free apps on the app market that are typically used to diagnose battery problems:
Better Battery Stats
CPU Spy
I would recommend installing both apps. The third place to look is in the battery details in the system settings...sorry I can't remember what they look like on Gingerbread because upgraded to Jelly Bean a couple months ago, though I do remember there was less information in the stock battery info on Gingerbread.
IF you are not, indeed dealing with a physically dead battery, then the root of your battery drain is most likely caused by a background process or app that is keeping the processor in a partially active state even though the screen is turned off and one would assume the phone should not be using any power.
Android OS will automatically change the running speed of the processor in the phone based on the demand of the system. If only a few background tasks are running and updating information the speed might be 200 or 400 Mhz. If the system is running full out servicing a graphic intensive game the processor will likely be running at the full 1000 MHz speed. The speed of the processor will directly effect the battery drain.
The expectation is that when we turn the display off (not power down, just put the phone to sleep) the processor should need fewer resources and slow down, tending towards a state known as "Deep Sleep". At this point the processor us using very minimal amounts of power. Any app or process that is active in the background will prevent the processor from getting to Deep Sleep. The CPU spy app will allow you to check how much time the phone runs at various speeds. Once you install it and run it, then reset the timers in the menu and turn your screen off for about 10 or 15 minutes. Then 'refresh' the timers. Normally, you should see most of the time accumulated in Deep Sleep. There are standard background tasks such as syncing with the cell tower, updating time, mail, checking alarms etc. That will engage the processor momentarily but they should be relatively short compared to the deep sleep time. In my case, an errand process was keeping my phone at 100Mhz constantly preventing deep sleep.
Once you know that something is keeping the phone awake in the background, you can use Better Battery Stats to narrow down which process or app it is the cause. This app allows you to track the individual processes that are consuming the most time and preventing 'wakelocks'. Wakelocks are essentially an app preventing the sleep state and are very well explained in this post: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1827676
The battery info in the system settings can also be used to give clues though again, I can't remember how much detail was included in Gingerbread..
If your problem only started happening recently, then it could be a new app that you installed recently, a feature or setting you changed recently or possibly a recent update to an app that was already installed. Try to think back at any recent events that could have triggered a change in the system.
Common problem apps I have read about are:
- Facebook - seems to be bad at using lots of background processor time. (Don't run this app but reading several posts shows its a processor hog)
- Google Apps that sync - Gmail, Chrome (syncs browser history, tabs etc.), Google location stats.
The wakelocks link goes into a great deal of detail and is hugely valuable in nailing your issue down.
Good Luck, let use know via a post if you find the root cause...
Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear about it being 'dead'.
The battery is 100% or thereabouts, no problems ever with the battery.
The phone looked as though it was turned off, but wouldn't turn on again with the power button.
I have to take the battery out and put it back again, then it starts on the button.
I've cleaned the contacts, and it still happened.
User error.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app
To me, it sounds more like a rogue process messing up power managing or response, but it's hard to tell what it could actually be.
For instance, you might come a cross a game that leaves your phone locked in max cpu frequency, draining the battery without explanation.
If it was me, I'd re-flash the rom from Odin, perhaps with an sd card wipe too.
Sent from horseback.
So over the course of time I have used many different ROMs and also have had 5 batteries for my Note so far.
All ROMs gave me terrible battery life, except the stock android for around the first year, eventually it started giving me terrible battery life too.
So that got me wondering, is it possible that some kind of faulty hardware on my Note's motherboard is causing those battery drains?
[email protected] said:
So over the course of time I have used many different ROMs and also have had 5 batteries for my Note so far.
All ROMs gave me terrible battery life, except the stock android for around the first year, eventually it started giving me terrible battery life too.
So that got me wondering, is it possible that some kind of faulty hardware on my Note's motherboard is causing those battery drains?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm pretty sure that would be possible, but I'd make sure to rule out any other cause you can rule out first.
First thing to do is check on who or what is consuming the battery, so installing something like CPU Spy will let you know if the phone just keeps running at top speeds.
Because there simply isn't enough juice in these batteries to allow all parts of the phone to run full throttle for hours.
Smart phones are really at their best, when their just sitting idle and then they really shouldn't consume any power. That's what you need to check: Does it really slow down and sleep, when you're not actively using it?
And CPU Spy (or similar tools) will give you that info by telling you how much time the CPU has spent at each speed setting. If it doesn't drop to deep sleep when the phone if off the charger, screen switched off at the home screen but stays running at 100-500MHz, then you have found the reason for the miserable battery life. Now you'd just have to find what's causing it.
And that could be a long story journey...
However you could start with an empty ROM fully wiped, nothing but the ROM and the minimum set of GAPPS installed (and CPU Spy or similar for checking) empty internal SDcard, expecially no media files. If you have an external SD card, best remove that initially so you don't have to delete any data you keep on there.
If then the Note isn't guzzling battery and sleeping deeply when not used, your hardware is fine.
Then it's just a matter of adding item after item, always checking of that is causing any change to CPU states and energy consumption.
You should also try to find out of any of your five batteries has issues and use a known good one for the testing.
abufrejoval said:
I'm pretty sure that would be possible, but I'd make sure to rule out any other cause you can rule out first.
First thing to do is check on who or what is consuming the battery, so installing something like CPU Spy will let you know if the phone just keeps running at top speeds.
Because there simply isn't enough juice in these batteries to allow all parts of the phone to run full throttle for hours.
Smart phones are really at their best, when their just sitting idle and then they really shouldn't consume any power. That's what you need to check: Does it really slow down and sleep, when you're not actively using it?
And CPU Spy (or similar tools) will give you that info by telling you how much time the CPU has spent at each speed setting. If it doesn't drop to deep sleep when the phone if off the charger, screen switched off at the home screen but stays running at 100-500MHz, then you have found the reason for the miserable battery life. Now you'd just have to find what's causing it.
And that could be a long story journey...
However you could start with an empty ROM fully wiped, nothing but the ROM and the minimum set of GAPPS installed (and CPU Spy or similar for checking) empty internal SDcard, expecially no media files. If you have an external SD card, best remove that initially so you don't have to delete any data you keep on there.
If then the Note isn't guzzling battery and sleeping deeply when not used, your hardware is fine.
Then it's just a matter of adding item after item, always checking of that is causing any change to CPU states and energy consumption.
You should also try to find out of any of your five batteries has issues and use a known good one for the testing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay to begin, the phone never drains battery when idle, never. If I charge to 100% at night around 23:00 , in the morning it would be around 90%. So that seems fair enough. Because I keep my EDGE / 2G activated at all times.
The real problem is when the screen is turned on (doesn't matter what I do).
I tried to keep the screen on for one hour, idle, doing nothing. Battery drained by a whooping 25%. So basically it's my screen which is consuming my battery. I didn't try this when I made this thread, so there's no mention of this in the first post.
So I don't think any other apps are consuming anything. Besides I hardly have any apps installed.
I got the gapps from the following link and installed the 'mini' package.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/par...apps-official-to-date-pa-google-apps-t2943900
Apart from I only have WhatsApp, Notepad, Perfect AppLock, AdAway and Chrome installed. Only a few apps since I did a full wipe yesterday night. Even flashed a stock ROM first and began from scratch.
So I don't really think it's any apps consuming any CPU, only screen is eating a ****load. Could it be the damaged screen?
Holy ****! I just recalled while writing this post, I did get this screen of this phone replace once, like one and half year ago. Could that be it? I did get it replaced from a official Samsung store though.
[email protected] said:
Okay to begin, the phone never drains battery when idle, never. If I charge to 100% at night around 23:00 , in the morning it would be around 90%. So that seems fair enough. Because I keep my EDGE / 2G activated at all times.
The real problem is when the screen is turned on (doesn't matter what I do).
I tried to keep the screen on for one hour, idle, doing nothing. Battery drained by a whooping 25%. So basically it's my screen which is consuming my battery. I didn't try this when I made this thread, so there's no mention of this in the first post.
So I don't think any other apps are consuming anything. Besides I hardly have any apps installed.
I got the gapps from the following link and installed the 'mini' package.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/par...apps-official-to-date-pa-google-apps-t2943900
Apart from I only have WhatsApp, Notepad, Perfect AppLock, AdAway and Chrome installed. Only a few apps since I did a full wipe yesterday night. Even flashed a stock ROM first and began from scratch.
So I don't really think it's any apps consuming any CPU, only screen is eating a ****load. Could it be the damaged screen?
Holy ****! I just recalled while writing this post, I did get this screen of this phone replace once, like one and half year ago. Could that be it? I did get it replaced from a official Samsung store though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd consider playing with the brightness, just to see of something a little lower is good enough for daily use but I'd say that isn't impossible...
While Samsung liked to hype the fact that OLED would only use power on illuminated pixels, mine are mostly white because reading is what I do most on my Notes.
And then this screen on the Note 1 didn't use particularly less energy than a good LCD backlight screen according to the reviews I remember.
I also remember an article which said that the energy consumption on OLED wasn't linear and that the last 20% of brightness might cost 50% more power (the numbers are most likely bogus but the main point was that brightness/energy consumption wasn't linear).
And yes, there is most likely variation between individual screens on OLED and moreover OLED displays decay with use and over time. I haven't noticed it that much with my Note 1 yet, but my older Samsung Galaxy S I-9000 that I passed on to one of my sons developed a brightness issue: Everything below the first 100 lines or so is significantly darker than the top. I don't know wether that's a consequence of his usage pattern (Whatsapp) or some other reason, but I do know that he typically kept the display at top brightness and also kept it lit far longer than I ever did.
I've always been somewhat disappointed by the endurance of the Note 1 but I haven't really noticed any significant change with the different ROM versions. And since I was also somewhat disappointed by the performance of the device I couldn't resist replacing it with the Note 3 when that came out.
That device was better in pretty much every regard, except screen ratio: I really, really liked the 16:10 of the Note 1 a lot better than the 16:9 of the Note 3.
abufrejoval said:
I'd consider playing with the brightness, just to see of something a little lower is good enough for daily use but I'd say that isn't impossible...
While Samsung liked to hype the fact that OLED would only use power on illuminated pixels, mine are mostly white because reading is what I do most on my Notes.
And then this screen on the Note 1 didn't use particularly less energy than a good LCD backlight screen according to the reviews I remember.
I also remember an article which said that the energy consumption on OLED wasn't linear and that the last 20% of brightness might cost 50% more power (the numbers are most likely bogus but the main point was that brightness/energy consumption wasn't linear).
And yes, there is most likely variation between individual screens on OLED and moreover OLED displays decay with use and over time. I haven't noticed it that much with my Note 1 yet, but my older Samsung Galaxy S I-9000 that I passed on to one of my sons developed a brightness issue: Everything below the first 100 lines or so is significantly darker than the top. I don't know wether that's a consequence of his usage pattern (Whatsapp) or some other reason, but I do know that he typically kept the display at top brightness and also kept it lit far longer than I ever did.
I've always been somewhat disappointed by the endurance of the Note 1 but I haven't really noticed any significant change with the different ROM versions. And since I was also somewhat disappointed by the performance of the device I couldn't resist replacing it with the Note 3 when that came out.
That device was better in pretty much every regard, except screen ratio: I really, really liked the 16:10 of the Note 1 a lot better than the 16:9 of the Note 3.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see. Thank you for the time you took to write this reply.
I always have my brightness to the lowest possible and yet I am facing battery drains.
Anyways, it seems this problem is beyond repair. I have literally tried every solution possible and nothing seems to have worked. So I guess it's time to move on.
Thank you for your time and information.
It's probably my screen that's consuming the battery. It can easily last up to 20 hours with 2G turned on the entire day. But as soon as I turn the screen on and start doing something, battery drains at like 1% every 60 seconds.
How old is your battery?.. I´d say get a new one if it´s older than 1 year..