Why does Xcpuscalar eat ~40% cpu at idle? - JASJAR, XDA Exec, MDA Pro General

Hi All,
I've seen a similar post regarding this issue but no answer as to why Xcpuscalar eats approx 40% constantly when the device is left idle. When first starting Xcpuscalar all appears to be ok. Then after about 30-60 seconds the cpu usage of Xcpuscalar shoots up to about 40% and stays there. You can see this either using the health meters page, the task bar CPU meter or any other tool such as task manager/Supertasks.
Never saw this issue on my Xda II. Does anyone else see this? Is it normal? I don't want to use this application if it is going to constantly eat my battery because of cpu usage it uses.
Cheers,
Richard.

What version of Xcpu are you using?
Try out the latest!

Underclock to improve battery life
This is purely in theory, but I was wondering if underclocking the cpu would allow for a little more battery time, like say setting it to 416mhz. Any thoughts anyone?

Try task manager and you will know which process eats cpu usage while you running xcpuscalar, may be xcpuscalar itself consumes cpu usage.
Then when you find which process uses more usage kill that process if it is not necessary or you can find why it eats lot of usage.

Related

Does CPUScaler underclocker save battery life?

I have Battery Status 1.04 beta on my 8125..I set the CPU Scaler to underclock to 112mhz when idle (original is 195mhz). It seems to be doing that, but idle battery life so far doesn't look any better, in fact maybe worse. Is CPUScaler not meant to be used like that?
Comit said:
I have Battery Status 1.04 beta on my 8125..I set the CPU Scaler to underclock to 112mhz when idle (original is 195mhz). It seems to be doing that, but idle battery life so far doesn't look any better, in fact maybe worse. Is CPUScaler not meant to be used like that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it does / will / or is supposed to help by slowing down your processor when it isn't actively being used. But 112 seems really low to me. I've heard that some people find their phones won't wake back up when it drops too low (I think 123Mhz is what I've read people use but lower than that caused problems). Personally I set mine to 143 for the min.
If you are running WM6, there just seems to be more power drain. Also depends on what radio you are running (some are better than others) and if you leave WiFI and/or bluetooth turned on all the time.
Also I've read that some apps will cause more power draw due to them running. With BatteryStatus when your phone is idle, does the CPU % go down to 1 - 3%? If so, you should be ok. But if it stays higher, then something is running and that adds to more power draw.
There is also a thread in the Wizard WM6 forum on people finding that playing with the extended rom seems to impact on power draw if you've done a hard reset or similar (they are finding that by going back to an official rom like TMo 2.26 and then reinstalling the custom rom that doesn't have an extended rom the power draw seems to go away).
Hope some of that helps...
Haven't had any missed calls AFAIK, been running it like this for a couple days now. My ROM is Faria's AKU 3.3, which is pretty good might I add.
Idle CPU utilization stays at 1%
The extended ROM theory is interesting, maybe thats whats doing it. My last ROM didn't have anything like that and seemd to have better idle battery life.
If the phone is at idle, what does it matter where it's clocked? When the phone is active, the battery will be drained regardless of clock speed. I have my 8125 set at 192MHz, nd have no problem re-charging the battery.

Average battery life?

So I've had my Touch "enhanced" for a bit over a week and I'm having some annoying issues regarding battery life. I'm charging this thing once at least once a day, twice a day when I'm using it a bunch. I've messed with the power settings, and the phone goes into standby after 2min. The only 3rd party software I have is touchpal, everything else is factory. I was just trying to gauge some input from other users. I did call HTC, and was greeted by an ass of a warranty tech, who, after getting my problem explained to him proceeds to ask me what I want him to do. Wow. Then he tells me that a new battery won't be instock for two weeks! How frustrating!
Thanks in advance.
You should get at least a day even with medium-heavy use. Up to two days on average.
If you install the excellent Chi-Dai Battery status plug-in then that will monitor the power drain on your battery. It will tell you if the problem is software or the battery itself.
Doctor Mick said:
You should get at least a day even with medium-heavy use. Up to two days on average.
If you install the excellent Chi-Dai Battery status plug-in then that will monitor the power drain on your battery. It will tell you if the problem is software or the battery itself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I was about to download something to moniter the consumption. I'll give it a shot when I get home from school
I have the same issue with my battery. I use it for med-heavy. By the end of the day Im at like 15%. That sux.
I've installed S2U2...does this application drain the battery also?
monitoring your battery life won't do anything when you want to increase it
if you want to save battery life
it's likely that you have your wireless radio's turned on while they don't have to be,
go to your comm manager
WI-Fi drains A LOT of power and should be on only when you plan on using the internet
your GSM phone radio can also be turned off, useful when you're not in an area covered by your carrier when this happens your device panics and sends out signals to connect to the antenna tower this extra cell phone activity is bad for your battery life... and your sperm count
bluetooth takes an insignificant amount of energy to power
lastly pressing the lock button on the device is useful because it turns off the screen but keeps the device on using these features allows me to have my device unplugged for 2 days
the cheshire cat said:
monitoring your battery life won't do anything when you want to increase it
if you want to save battery life
it's likely that you have your wireless radio's turned on while they don't have to be,
go to your comm manager
WI-Fi drains A LOT of power and should be on only when you plan on using the internet
your GSM phone radio can also be turned off, useful when you're not in an area covered by your carrier when this happens your device panics and sends out signals to connect to the antenna tower this extra cell phone activity is bad for your battery life... and your sperm count
bluetooth takes an insignificant amount of energy to power
lastly pressing the lock button on the device is useful because it turns off the screen but keeps the device on using these features allows me to have my device unplugged for 2 days
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
2 DAYS UNPLUGGED? Are you kidding me. On standby or using it. Im thinking this battery is horrible. If I dont plug in every night, im in trouble.
If you want to increase the lifetime, use Battery Status software and activate CPU Scaler, it's great!
Before: I used only 201Mhz freq, my battery had a lifetime of 1 day using it normally.
Now: I've overclocked it to 260Mhz with CPU Scaler activated (low: 99Mhz, average: 201, max: 260) and my touch can stay 3 days without charge need.
I still use these settings but I have a unlimited data contract with my operator, so my touch is connected all the time to Edge (push mail and weather updates), and with these settings I have to charge it every day. Don't care about this since I work with a PC all the time.
I think if I used all the time the original freq, I'd have to charge it more often...
CPU scaler
I have Battery Status ver. 0.5 but don't see CPU scaler, is it only available in the Beta version?
1 to 2 days of life with normal-full use. Up to 4-6 days in standby with almost no use
Bingoig11 said:
If you want to increase the lifetime, use Battery Status software and activate CPU Scaler, it's great!
Before: I used only 201Mhz freq, my battery had a lifetime of 1 day using it normally.
Now: I've overclocked it to 260Mhz with CPU Scaler activated (low: 99Mhz, average: 201, max: 260) and my touch can stay 3 days without charge need.
I still use these settings but I have a unlimited data contract with my operator, so my touch is connected all the time to Edge (push mail and weather updates), and with these settings I have to charge it every day. Don't care about this since I work with a PC all the time.
I think if I used all the time the original freq, I'd have to charge it more often...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you please give me more info on the battery status software and cpu scaler?
Do you have an Elf or Elfin?
I've an Elfin.
Battery Status is a today plugin you can configure and use to overclock and set CPU Scaler.
Here is in attachment the version I use
Overclock and CPU Scaler are only available for OMAP processors, so for Elf/Elfin it will work.
Bingoig11 said:
I've an Elfin.
Battery Status is a today plugin you can configure and use to overclock and set CPU Scaler.
Here is in attachment the version I use
Overclock and CPU Scaler are only available for OMAP processors, so for Elf/Elfin it will work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you give me some more info about how you have it configured. Most people with Elfin are having problems with this software. It seems to not work for CPU scaler. Any feedback from your experience.
PS- I have the HTC Touch enhanced unlocked.
the cheshire cat said:
monitoring your battery life won't do anything when you want to increase it
if you want to save battery life
it's likely that you have your wireless radio's turned on while they don't have to be,
go to your comm manager
WI-Fi drains A LOT of power and should be on only when you plan on using the internet
your GSM phone radio can also be turned off, useful when you're not in an area covered by your carrier when this happens your device panics and sends out signals to connect to the antenna tower this extra cell phone activity is bad for your battery life... and your sperm count
bluetooth takes an insignificant amount of energy to power
lastly pressing the lock button on the device is useful because it turns off the screen but keeps the device on using these features allows me to have my device unplugged for 2 days
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I turn off the wi-fi when I'm not at home. I'm always within service area, so the GSM radio stays. I don't use bluetooth. It's set to go into standby mode after 2mins. On Thursday, I took it off of the charger at 8:30am had a couple classes till 3pm, so light-to-medium use. It was dead by 3:30pm. I did install BatteryStatus later that night, and figured out the scaler, and it helped the next day. But honestly I shouldn't have to underclock it in order for it to last even a day, a bit ridiculous to me.
enaime said:
Can you give me some more info about how you have it configured. Most people with Elfin are having problems with this software. It seems to not work for CPU scaler. Any feedback from your experience.
PS- I have the HTC Touch enhanced unlocked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a Touch enhanced, and am using the CPU scaler just dandy. Just play with the settings a bit, and you'll get the hang of it. Try LOW:100 and HIGH:234, to start out, then go from there.
TIGman said:
So I've had my Touch "enhanced" for a bit over a week and I'm having some annoying issues regarding battery life. I'm charging this thing once at least once a day, twice a day when I'm using it a bunch. I've messed with the power settings, and the phone goes into standby after 2min. The only 3rd party software I have is touchpal, everything else is factory. I was just trying to gauge some input from other users. I did call HTC, and was greeted by an ass of a warranty tech, who, after getting my problem explained to him proceeds to ask me what I want him to do. Wow. Then he tells me that a new battery won't be instock for two weeks! How frustrating!
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Visit the Kaiser forum. We're having the same issue. GPS seems to be the problem with me. As soon as I turned on GPS, it sucked my battery 5% in 5-7 minutes. Then down to 73% from 97% in 3 hours.
enaime said:
Can you give me some more info about how you have it configured. Most people with Elfin are having problems with this software. It seems to not work for CPU scaler. Any feedback from your experience.
PS- I have the HTC Touch enhanced unlocked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't configure anything particular, just installed it and set the overclock and CPU Scaler.
I talk an average of 2 hours daily. Since 6 am until 8 pm. I always get home with 15% or less. Using batt status with omap overclocking to 247. Average use of pda also.
Bingoig11 said:
I've an Elfin.
Battery Status is a today plugin you can configure and use to overclock and set CPU Scaler.
Here is in attachment the version I use
Overclock and CPU Scaler are only available for OMAP processors, so for Elf/Elfin it will work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right on brotha. It worked great! I was wondering whats the lowest low you can use to conserve battery? Im at 98-low 247-high, using CPU scaler.
enaime said:
Right on brotha. It worked great! I was wondering whats the lowest low you can use to conserve battery? Im at 98-low 247-high, using CPU scaler.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Im on 87/201/247 and boost to 260MHz, everything works fine, only some flickering when it runs on 87MHz..
But the battery life is quite good as it lasts for 2 to 3 days (light to medium usage, some texts, some phone calls, seldom Wifi)..
I have to say that the stock battery lasts much less then the one I got from Brando.. although the amperage is the same
I finally use xcpuscalar only for conserving battery, not for overclock. In another threads some people suffering from spotted, patched even broken LCDs and I do not take the risk to overclock Elfin because of possible overheat of the CPU and the CPU is most likely very close to the LCD due to the thinness of the Elfin. If the CPU is hotter overclocked than it is on normal speed it could cause spot, patch or even damage on LCD. This is my opinion.
Xcpuscalar is able to downgrade dynamically the CPU speed against Batterystatus which is only able to set one speed for the CPU, that's why I chosen xcpuscalar.
It seems to work fine even after soft reset... but 87MHz is very slow for me... it speeds up very sluggish. I use 169, 182 and 195MHz settings.
Will see the energy spare on the battery.

Idle CPU Usage High

My HD2 is running at around 20% CPU usage when idle according to BATTClock. This is even after a hard reset with just Batclock installed, no radios on, and HTC Sense shutdown (just on old Windows today screen). Is this normal? No wonder the battery life is so short.
My Touch Pro generally shows 1-2% CPU usage when idle even with phone and push email on.
Task manager doesn't show any processes or application using that amount of CPU. Is it just Battclock that is wrong or is something else going on? I have turned off all location services.
Nick
Interesting fact. Needs more research though...
I've tried everything I can think of, including switching off automatic backlight sensing, location settings, etc. and Battclock still shows around 20% with nothing running. Any ideas for a more sophisticated tool to monitor the CPU? Does anyone else with Battclock installed notice this?
And if battclokck use 20% of cpu ?
dorigny said:
And if battclokck use 20% of cpu ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
BattClock itself does use almost no CPU. But HD2 has the ability to lower the CPU speed. I use a Microsoft API to get the idle percentage. Apparently this Microsoft API does not correct for the CPU frequence change?
You can check with a Task Manager, which process consume how much CPU, like FdcSoft TaskMgr. Then you can also check if BattClock is wrong.
I am planning to add another method for measuring the CPU spent, so for now you can better first check if BattClock is right or not. I have a Touch Diamond and there the CPU percentage is reported the same as the Task Manager.
WEll, mine is 56% atm and i have no idea why.
the only reason i can think of is g-alarm and messenger live
On a device that changes the CPU clock to meet demands, CPU percentage means nothing if you don't have a way to know at the same time what the current clock is.
And yes, Battclock itself might not use a lot of CPU, but it seems its way to draw itself on top of the menu bar is not very efficient. A bit flaky, the redraws are not clean, and I wouldn't be surprised if the system calls it uses do use a lot of CPU.
kilrah said:
On a device that changes the CPU clock to meet demands, CPU percentage means nothing if you don't have a way to know at the same time what the current clock is.
And yes, Battclock itself might not use a lot of CPU, but it seems its way to draw itself on top of the menu bar is not very efficient. A bit flaky, the redraws are not clean, and I wouldn't be surprised if the system calls it uses do use a lot of CPU.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mmmm....I wonder what you're basing your comments on. Are you saying that ZuinigeRijder is lying?
kenkiller said:
Mmmm....I wonder what you're basing your comments on. Are you saying that ZuinigeRijder is lying?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Qualcomm CPU, the one the HD2 has, reduces it's clock speed when it is not needed to run at full capacity to save battery life.
i.e. If the CPU is running at 1Ghz, and a program is using 1%, it will drop the clock speed (due to lack of activity). Say it then drops to 100Mhz, it will then be running at 10% of the CPU clock speed.
A simple way to check wether battclock influences the readings somehow (which I don't really believe) would be to turn it off and check, as zuinigerijder said, with fdcsoft advanced taskmanager.
BTW I also get ~20% usage when idle, in some manila interfaces I get to lowest values of 7%, but then back to ~15% and then again ~20%
No way to know the current clock of the cpu?
rp-x1 said:
The Qualcomm CPU, the one the HD2 has, reduces it's clock speed when it is not needed to run at full capacity to save battery life.
i.e. If the CPU is running at 1Ghz, and a program is using 1%, it will drop the clock speed (due to lack of activity). Say it then drops to 100Mhz, it will then be running at 10% of the CPU clock speed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you've hit the nail on the head. When I start a new program the CPU% drops briefly to 1-2% before climbing again. I guess this is the device ramping the processor back up before launching the program, hence dropping idle usage from 10-20% of say 100Mhzto 1-2% of 1000MHz.
Cheers
Nick
Extract ,power settings, from omnia 2,is it possible?Put it on htc hd2,in cab format,regulate the speed on the CPU and save the battery life?Anyone?

[Q] CPU Usage: irq/182-host_sp

I hope someone can help me out or try to explain why do I have such a high CPU usage of process "irq/182-host_sp"?
If I check in SpareParts --> Battery History --> CPU, this process uses by far the most of my battery, I think it's like over 30 minutes of 100% CPU load.
I'm using stock v1.10 ROM rooted and slightly modded to get the Google experience.
I would be greatly thankfull if you could check your CPU usage in SpareParts when you have less than 30% of your battery left, so I can see if I'm the only one or this occours to everyone.
And please state your ROM type/name.

Deep sleep question.

Just one simple question. When phone is in deep sleep, the cpu's running speed is the min frequency I choose from the cpu settings or a default lower one?
I use smart ass 2 with min at 768 and max at 1516 . So in deep sleep my phone is running at 768?
Thanks in advance...
Sent from my Huawei u8800 using XDA Premium App
spirosbond said:
Just one simple question. When phone is in deep sleep, the cpu's running speed is the min frequency I choose from the cpu settings or a default lower one?
I use smart ass 2 with min at 768 and max at 1516 . So in deep sleep my phone is running at 768?
Thanks in advance...
Sent from my Huawei u8800 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not 100% sure but freq is minimum as it can be. And if cpu is not used no metter is freq 10000MHZ or 300Mhz it uses almost the same power. But when cpu is in use freq is important to power usage. Freq management is good not because it lowers freq but because it lets use lower freq on things that is not require hi freq. so it saves LITTLE LITTLE BIT of power. In idle mode (deep sleep) no meter what freq is.
But i still don't understand the need of governor. It's good only in cases where you overclock cpu but if don't - i don't see why it should be used.
PS Use app called CPU SPY it shows on what freq your cpu is being used and how much of the time.
Thanks! I use CPU SPY and it says tha about 60% or more is in deep sleep, 15%-25% is at 768 and the rest higher, which seems to be a good thing. But my phone still lasts for about 10-15 hours with normal use.
So i thought that maybe my min 768 frequency drain a lot of battery.
To clear things up a bit I use latest oxigen rom+latest franco kernel+zram+Juwe ram script...
Actually deep-sleep state is a special state supported by your phone MCU. In this state, a lot of functionality (therefore a lot of logical gates) are disabled thus MCU consumes very low power compared to normal functioning states. The thing about a CPU/MCU is when it is running even if there are no work to do no code to process, it has to run some command. While idle it must run NOOP (no-operand / no operation) command or do something equally unnecessary like counting a not required number. But in deep sleep mode, MCU actually stops working except for core functions to keep your phone going on.
Think about it this way, in a normal working state, CPUs most basic functionality is to read a command from memory, execute it and proceed to the next command to continue. Thus, in an operating system or a single purpose embedded software, CPU/MCU has to execute a "do nothing" command when you have no job to give it. But even a "do nothing" command need all of the MCU/CPU resources to be kept readily available. If you're sure that you have absolutely no job for your MCU/CPU to do, what you can do is to tell it to go and sleep fr a while until you wake it up again. In sleep, MCU/CPU can shut down a lot of its support systems like math processing, external memory access, graphics related functions (if any), even IO outputs. Depending on your CPU/MCU, this means until an interrupt occurs or a special sub system wakes it up, most of the sub-systems within your MCU/CPU thus may be millions of transistors will not be working so, your CPU/MCU will not consume as much power.
In layman's terms, deep-sleep state is a special state that shut down most of your MCU in your phone, thus while crippling it by removing its ability to function, making sure that it doesn't consumes much power. So OS (Android) (with the help of some additional hardware) controls when your MCU will sleep and under what circumstances it will wake. So it shuts down the engine -so to speak- when you're not using it for long terms and saving fuel rather than leaving your car on idle.
Hope this helps..
Thanks t_d_z. That is also how I imagined things...
But what is wrong with my battery which today, for example, went 33% down in 5 hours with 68% (from cpu spy) in deep sleep, without wi-fi on.
As i said above, I use latest oxigen rom+latest franco kernel+zram+Juwe ram script+smarass2 governor...
I also calibrated my battery by wiping battery stats, like i read in a post.
I have read in an other forum that if you use smartass (I use smartass2) or ondemand (I think...) governors, the governor is learning your habits and after a week you see the difference. Is that true?
Finally, can you guys who have "good" battery life, post your settings? (By settings I mean: rom, kernel, governor with cpu parameters, how you use the phone and everything else you think is important).
Thanks again...
I get about two days of battery life. I use Oxygen without any modifications. CPU is min. 245 (or something like that with 200, I dunno now) and max. is 800. Wifi is always on when I am home.
Try installing Oxygen-r1 and use it with a full battery, do not change anything and do not install too many apps. There will be apps that just won't stop running (like BBC or CNN app), I do not install those. Then you will see how long your battery lasts. If you just write some messages throughout the day and call somebody for 1-3 hours you should get about 2 days.
Then install your apps and test it again - maybe your apps are the problem.
spirosbond said:
Thanks t_d_z. That is also how I imagined things...
But what is wrong with my battery which today, for example, went 33% down in 5 hours with 68% (from cpu spy) in deep sleep, without wi-fi on.
As i said above, I use latest oxigen rom+latest franco kernel+zram+Juwe ram script+smarass2 governor...
I also calibrated my battery by wiping battery stats, like i read in a post.
I have read in an other forum that if you use smartass (I use smartass2) or ondemand (I think...) governors, the governor is learning your habits and after a week you see the difference. Is that true?
Finally, can you guys who have "good" battery life, post your settings? (By settings I mean: rom, kernel, governor with cpu parameters, how you use the phone and everything else you think is important).
Thanks again...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look not at cpu spy but in battery usage to find out what drains your battery. And i can tell All roms are kinda lame in terms of battery, except CM7. In deep sleep it takes about 7% of battery in 10hours. I tried all roms but non of them was so efficient. But latest franco kernel (which i think even more improves cm7 rom) does not support cm7 right now, so i've attached older version if you would like to test cm7+franco kernel.
With normal usage of 50 sms and 30minutes of calls and sometimes wi-fi to download few apps and 20minutes on easy games my battery lats about 18hours. Whan only sms it lasts 30hours. depends how long lcd is on
Well, I'm not an expert on smart phone OSes but I'm an expert on embedded systems and micro controllers. If the designers are not really stupid (which I'm sure they are not) all the peripherals gets suspended when the main CPU goes to deep sleep mode. So, it is almost impossible for the phone to consume much power in deep sleep state. Most likely your phone consumes that power the rest of the time when it is not in sleep mode. I agree with Tommixoft, you should use battery usage info rather than CPU spy to find what drains your battery. Also, here is a quick check list about what consumes power :
1. Screen, especially when it is brightly lit
2. GSM network (Even when you're not talking to phone, GPRS/Edge/3G network communications drains almost as much power)
3. Wireless network
4. GPS
As an additional note, if your phone is not going to sleep mode regularly try to uninstall applications that have "prevent phone from sleeping" security setting.
Hope this helps, and of course there are a lot of more experienced people in the forum that knows about the details of the kernel so they might provide additional info.
Regards,
---------- Post added at 05:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:10 PM ----------
Oh I forgot to tell the MOST important thing, 768MHz is way too high a value to set as minimal frequency. Try to set it 245. I use 122 MHz and it work pretty well. Don't forget, when you need the CPU power, the governor will provide it for you.

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