Database Users

kill tasks n battery saving

hi all,
i m new user for Nexus one, i wonder what is the best task apps to auto kill when the phone in sleep mode in order to save battery. My phone havent ROOT yet, shall i do it? After i have update the Android 2.1 i found it very good compare with iphone.
thank you very much

Killing tasks won't help to save battery... don't buy the hype. Android will manage your apps for you.

No killing tasks can help your battery. There are many apps on the market that are poorly written and drain battery.

McFroger3 said:
No killing tasks can help your battery. There are many apps on the market that are poorly written and drain battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well that makes sense... but I don't run any poorly written apps. And neither should you.
If you absolutely have to have a task killer, just download Astro File Manager. You'll need a file manager on this phone anyway, and Astro has a built in configurable task killer and can also back up apps to SD.

uansari1 said:
Well that makes sense... but I don't run any poorly written apps. And neither should you.
If you absolutely have to have a task killer, just download Astro File Manager. You'll need a file manager on this phone anyway, and Astro has a built in configurable task killer and can also back up apps to SD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I try not to. But sometimes I get curious and download some random apps haha.
I use Advance Task Manager since I bought it when I had a Cliq.
It works good when I need to kill something to restart it or if I need to do a batch uninstall.
Astro is amazing and no one should have an android phone without it.

Thks all,
If so, i shall just leave as it is and not install any of those task killer or auto task etc......
But anyway to min the battery drain since there are so much apps running on RAM when the phone is in sleep mode. My battery can only last for 8 hrs from 9am till 5pm (i am so distracted, i do turn on my BT and talk on phone for at least 100mins-150mins a day.)
Thank you

chocodip said:
Thks all,
If so, i shall just leave as it is and not install any of those task killer or auto task etc......
But anyway to min the battery drain since there are so much apps running on RAM when the phone is in sleep mode. My battery can only last for 8 hrs from 9am till 5pm (i am so distracted, i do turn on my BT and talk on phone for at least 100mins-150mins a day.)
Thank you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Keep the screen brightness as low as you can. Also having a lot of widgets can contribute to battery drain.

uansari1 said:
Killing tasks won't help to save battery... don't buy the hype. Android will manage your apps for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
while this is true, I notice that android's threshold for closing programs is lower than I prefer. It seems to start closing programs at around 25 mb free (on stock kernel and rom) as reported by ES strong's task manager. At this level there is a noticeable amount of sluggishness on my N1. Of course this only lasts for perhaps 10 seconds or so as I am switching apps or whatever until android closes the processes to free up some ram.
I've read comments like yours many times, and I go back to not using one for a while thinking I must just be paranoid. Each time I return to the task manager because I get ticked about sluggishness.
If you manage your ignore list carefully to avoid closing stuff you actually want running in the background you lose nothing. The phone is fast enough that it loads apps quickly even if they're not sitting in the ram, so I prefer to hit the autokill widget once in a while or after using something like the youtube app or other resource hogging apps that I don't use on a regular basis.
I haven't noticed a difference in battery life, but the task manager improves my experience with the phone. It seems that as long as the free memory stays around 40+ I don't see the sluggishness.

Which task killer you use?
rossiscatch said:
while this is true, I notice that android's threshold for closing programs is lower than I prefer. It seems to start closing programs at around 25 mb free (on stock kernel and rom) as reported by ES strong's task manager. At this level there is a noticeable amount of sluggishness on my N1. Of course this only lasts for perhaps 10 seconds or so as I am switching apps or whatever until android closes the processes to free up some ram.
I've read comments like yours many times, and I go back to not using one for a while thinking I must just be paranoid. Each time I return to the task manager because I get ticked about sluggishness.
If you manage your ignore list carefully to avoid closing stuff you actually want running in the background you lose nothing. The phone is fast enough that it loads apps quickly even if they're not sitting in the ram, so I prefer to hit the autokill widget once in a while or after using something like the youtube app or other resource hogging apps that I don't use on a regular basis.
I haven't noticed a difference in battery life, but the task manager improves my experience with the phone. It seems that as long as the free memory stays around 40+ I don't see the sluggishness.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

My screen always in lowest light mode......i will try to install the advance task....hope it deos help abit.
McFroger3 said:
Keep the screen brightness as low as you can. Also having a lot of widgets can contribute to battery drain.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

chocodip said:
My screen always in lowest light mode......i will try to install the advance task....hope it deos help abit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Advance task manager also lets you set a timer for auto closing all open apps except for the ones you have on your exception list.

chocodip said:
hi all,
i m new user for Nexus one, i wonder what is the best task apps to auto kill when the phone in sleep mode in order to save battery. My phone havent ROOT yet, shall i do it? After i have update the Android 2.1 i found it very good compare with iphone.
thank you very much
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try Juice Defender,is free on the market and everytime you turn the screen to sleep it kills the background data to save battery and @ wake-up its normal again.Read the reviews.

rossiscatch said:
while this is true, I notice that android's threshold for closing programs is lower than I prefer. It seems to start closing programs at around 25 mb free (on stock kernel and rom) as reported by ES strong's task manager. At this level there is a noticeable amount of sluggishness on my N1. Of course this only lasts for perhaps 10 seconds or so as I am switching apps or whatever until android closes the processes to free up some ram.
I've read comments like yours many times, and I go back to not using one for a while thinking I must just be paranoid. Each time I return to the task manager because I get ticked about sluggishness.
If you manage your ignore list carefully to avoid closing stuff you actually want running in the background you lose nothing. The phone is fast enough that it loads apps quickly even if they're not sitting in the ram, so I prefer to hit the autokill widget once in a while or after using something like the youtube app or other resource hogging apps that I don't use on a regular basis.
I haven't noticed a difference in battery life, but the task manager improves my experience with the phone. It seems that as long as the free memory stays around 40+ I don't see the sluggishness.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've got over 400 hours of uptime without closing ANY apps with a task killer, and haven't had ANY sluggishness. So if you're really noticing your phone slowing down (and be honest), then I'd exchange it. Frankly, I think a lot of people just "think" their phone is slowing down...

Cyanogen says don't use a Task killer!

Paul22000 said:
Cyanogen says don't use a Task killer!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So if cyanogen says jump of a bridge you would? lol
Just messing with you.

I ve installed the Juicedefender and advance task manger......hope meanwhile there will be sthg better. Battery usage is killing me....

uansari1 said:
I've got over 400 hours of uptime without closing ANY apps with a task killer, and haven't had ANY sluggishness. So if you're really noticing your phone slowing down (and be honest), then I'd exchange it. Frankly, I think a lot of people just "think" their phone is slowing down...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I'm sure you're right.. it's all in my head.

Couple of things OP:
1. Bluetooth is a battery hog!
2. How frequent do you have email update, weather update, et al set to?
3. Did you properly calibrate your battery meter when you got your N1? (Two ways to do it, 1) follow the in box guide and charge the phone before using or 2) run down the battery until the phone shuts itself off, pull battery out, put it back in. Now, without turning it back on, put it on the charger and leave it on for a couple hours past the green light coming on, take off charge, finally turn back on)
4. Do you have WiFi running? GPS? Streaming anything?
Have you downloaded any apps from the market just on a quim? There are some pretty bad apps that will never close until you uninstall and do a soft reset, and sometimes uninstall again.
Killing apps is actually going to hurt your battery. It takes more juice to power up the CPU to open an app then it does to hold it in the RAM, unless it is a crap written app that keeps running, and running, and running... but you shouldn't be using those apps anyways.

rossiscatch said:
Yeah, I'm sure you're right.. it's all in my head.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It most likely is... even when apps sit idle in RAM, the CPU usage for them is 0% in almost every case. Like I said... I don't have those issues at all, so it's either in your head or you have a dud.

uansari1 said:
It most likely is... even when apps sit idle in RAM, the CPU usage for them is 0% in almost every case. Like I said... I don't have those issues at all, so it's either in your head or you have a dud.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think it's a problem with my phone. If you don't notice then good for you. I notice it and it bothers me. Your finger pointing is neither helpful or needed.

Excessive CPU usage on X10

Hi
I've just recently bought an XPERIA X10 and one issue I have found is its apparent heavy CPU usage. I would go so far as saying that the phone is close to unusable when it has just booted. So here goes my findings...
I've installed a program called CPU Usage (quite logically) which monitors CPU usage for various tasks on the phone. Here is what I get when the phone has just been booted:
PID / Name / CPU Usage
954 / Sync Feeds/Checking Service/Setting Storage/Android System / 39-58% (No, I'm not kidding)
1054 / Download Manager/DRM /23-31% (still not kidding)
1171 / Face Recognition Service / 11-12% (not as bad, but still, why is it even there???)
The worst thing is that these services don't stop using the CPU - no, they keep on running and using CPU in the designated ranges, unless I kill them.
So I go and kill them using another program I installed.
I found out that if I kill the Face Recognition Service, the CPU usage of the DRM service disappears as well. So everytime I start the device, I have to go kill this service so I can actually use the phone.
The Sync Feeds/Checking/Android service I can't kill, but even though CPU usage reports it as using between 40 and 60% CPU, it seems that another task manager do not report this CPU usage. I can also live with this, if it's a kind of background service that doesn't actually use half your CPU all the time.
So I guess my biggest problem with this is that the Face Recognition service that is run on startup takes many CPU resources, and I have to manually kill it so the phone is running at an acceptable speed. I can't explain why I get different reports for CPU usage on the Sync Feed/Android service, but maybe others can explain...
regards, Artur

You don't need to kill the background processes every time you start up, there is a program that lets you customize which programs and services start on boot, it name is startup auditor. It alseo lets you kill moxier services and timescape

If you use TaskManager you'll se that Moxier doesn't use much CPU at all. It's probably the system in general that uses it.

Which apps I can kill?

I'm newbe to android. I have problem my x10a ruuning out of juice in 12 hours. I'm using Advance Task Killer to kill the apps when screen is off but not sure which I need to put in Ignore List and which one I can kill safely. Here list of apps currently running and Ignore list
Currently Running Apps
com.Sonyericcson.larningclient
com.qualcomm.wiper
com.sonyericsson.android.contentmanager.service.facerecognition
com.sonyericsson.android.timeescape.pluginmanager.framework.application
com.sonyericsson.android.accountprovider
com.google.android.partnersetup
com.sonyericsson.android.contentmanager.service.timescape
com.sonyericsson.android.fota
com.sonyericsson.android.bootinfo
com.google.android.googleapps
com.sonyericsson.android.mediascape.pluginmanager.framework.application
DocumentToGoFullVersionKey
Maps
Pure Calender widget
com.sonyericsson.android.timescape.pluginmanager.framework.application
com.android.providers.calendar
com.sony.uwlop.launcher
eBay
com.google.android.apps.uploader
com.android.providers.downloads
com.billyfrancisco.photogallerywidget
voice dialer
com.sonyericsson.android.pccompanioninstaller
com.sonyericsson.android.digitalclock
3G Watchdog
Superuser Permissions
Barnacle wifi Tether
com.levelup.beautifulwidgets
settings
Ignore List
setting profiles
Advance task Killer
Timescape
Battery Status Ultimate
Gmail
Smart Keyboard Pro
Moxier Mail
Email
MyBackup Pro
Thanks is advance

I've had started a collection over here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=707878

Have you tried not running Advanced Task Killer??? I'm running on f/w R2BA020 with no task killer and no startup auditor etc... and after a day of average use I down to about 40% after c.15 hours... I tried ATK and various others and in the end ditched them cos they were making the battery slightly worse, and making the phone slower cos it had to keep restarting app/ background processes that it uses..
Your power consumption will very much depend on what your running etc.. do you have any widgets that are updating regularly, or possibly faulty and preventing your phone from sleeping.. try using juice plotter for a while to see what your discharge profile looks like - you should see it going almost flat when you have a period of non use..
PS.. I've had bluetooth on (but not connected), wifi on, and 3G/ GPRS on all day today and after 11 hours I'm now on 52%.. have used the phone a reasonable amount.. maybe 20 texts, email syncing hourly, contacts and calendar on auto sync with google... no widgets on my home screen which sync, and no use of timescape.. used mediascape for about 30 mins, internet for about 20 mins, XDA app for about an hour.. played games for about 30 mins too..

I'm using Task Manager.
It pushed me up to 46hrs Standby, coming from 20hrs, when the battery is fully charged.

Thanks Guys
@McKebapp - It is good thread but need add info like one of the guys sugesting, which are ok to kill and Do NOT Kill
@ im_iceman - The problem is if you don't have ATK or other Task Manager, most application keep running once you clicked on them. I was looking Battery Use, this tell me its and Display and Standby but detail which program was using during standby

Hi - Yes some apps will sit in the background, but they should be sleeping and not actually doing anything, unless they've been badly written.. Android, based on Linux, manages the memory so that it's running on almost full most of the time and therefore is quicker to resume something which you were previously running, or is stored in memory awaiting use.. killing these things will mean that the processor has to work harder reloading them into memory all the time..
@Mckebapp - That may well be because it's killing a dodgy app that you've got running which isn't/ wasn't sleeping properly.. trouble is it may well be killing other stuff you need too..
Each to their own though..

GPdhillon said:
Thanks Guys
@McKebapp - It is good thread but need add info like one of the guys sugesting, which are ok to kill and Do NOT Kill
@ im_iceman - The problem is if you don't have ATK or other Task Manager, most application keep running once you clicked on them. I was looking Battery Use, this tell me its and Display and Standby but detail which program was using during standby
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The absolute "NOT TO KILL" ones are written.
All other ones depend on the individual usage.
To me: I kill each one, that is killable
What about continuing my collection and making it more precise?

McKebapp said:
The absolute "NOT TO KILL" ones are written.
All other ones depend on the individual usage.
To me: I kill each one, that is killable
What about continuing my collection and making it more precise?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure, I'm glad to help but I'm newbe just tell me what to do

Alternatives To Task/App/Ram Killers????

Many people say it's harmful using app killers, especially on android as it may interfere with important system resources or close important system files and can do harmful damage in the longrun such as errors, things not working, etc...
When you open various programs such as file manager, picture gallery, etc you then see a list of all running programs in system/task manager.
Many of these running programs are ones you have recently used and are draining ram/cpu/battery.
Is there not ANY safe app to use that will ONLY close apps that YOU have used?
There must be some app out there that closes/kills open apps, not system or phone apps but only the ones you have installed and used?
This could be a ram killer or maybe a simple app which is not dangerous and will safely close running apps not needed.
Looking forwards to seeing what others recommend.
Thanks in advance guys,,,

kanej2006 said:
There must be some app out there that closes/kills open apps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, there are, but android just restarts them after they have been closed (froyo only)

panyan said:
yes, there are, but android just restarts them after they have been closed (froyo only)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Names please of a good app that kills ONLY programs you open, not system files.
What if I was to install an appkiller, but instead of having it on autokill, I was to manually click apps I opened and kill them?
Surely this way there is no danger as I'm only closing selected apps, not system files?

kanej2006 said:
Names please of a good app that kills ONLY programs you open, not system files.
What if I was to install an appkiller, but instead of having it on autokill, I was to manually click apps I opened and kill them?
Surely this way there is no danger as I'm only closing selected apps, not system files?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The point is, even after killing your own apps, most of the time froyo will restart them
I very much like ES' offerings - ES File Explorer and ES Task Manager. They're both free, give em a birl.

You can install Advanced Task Killer (free) and there you can perfectly select which apps to close and which not... still I rarely use it
for example your homescreen widgets are always unchecked when killing tasks, so unless you check them, they won't be killed...

Hmmm, ok.
What is the BEST way to preserve & save battery/cpu & free up as much ram as possible without harming/interfering with the phone??
When I used to use the task killer app it would consistently give me around 400-424mb free ram.
Without the app killer I would only have around 100mb of free ram since all the programs are running in the backround.
So to all you experts out there, what can I do or what options do I have in which I can safely free up as much ram as possible and safely close running apps not needed when not using the phone?
I just want the best and most effective way to make my battery last longer.
I'm having to charge my phone every day, it struggles to get through the day even when hardly used.
Looking forwards to hearing some expert opinions based on the above.

kanej2006 said:
I'm having to charge my phone every day, it struggles to get through the day even when hardly used.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's definitely a problem there but you're not going to find it chasing free ram. I have approx 20Mb free ram at the moment, the phone hasn't been rebooted for at least a week but I'm easily getting through 2 days with light use. Task killers / app killers are not the answer, (in froyo at least) free ram is wasted ram.
The programs that are 'running' in the background are not actually using CPU resources unless they have a service running (see the eBay app/service for an example). Your best bet is to check the running services (settings/applications/running services) and battery usage to work out what process is hogging the CPU time. Also check your sync settings, though I'd imagine you've already tried that.

christonabike said:
There's definitely a problem there but you're not going to find it chasing free ram. I have approx 20Mb free ram at the moment, the phone hasn't been rebooted for at least a week but I'm easily getting through 2 days with light use. Task killers / app killers are not the answer, (in froyo at least) free ram is wasted ram.
The programs that are 'running' in the background are not actually using CPU resources unless they have a service running (see the eBay app/service for an example). Your best bet is to check the running services (settings/applications/running services) and battery usage to work out what process is hogging the CPU time. Also check your sync settings, though I'd imagine you've already tried that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe it's the anipet fish aquarium live screensaver...

Systempanel is good, I use it to stop a bad app thats using to much memory..you should never kill your apps with froyo, the OS wasn't designed like that, thats the whole point of Android, it looks after the apps perfectly well by itself, systempanel is just there as a....just in case method.
Saving battery power is a common misconception, Task killers actually get in the way of Android handling memory management as intended.....a pointless app to have with 2.2 which actually drains you battery quicker.
The LCD screen is the biggest drain on battery power, turning the brightness down, stop using a live wallpaper, turn off wifi, bluetooth, GPS ect....
With all that said the 1250mah battery is just not powerful enough to run this device period...but then most of us knew this before we bought the phone..we needed a 2000mah battery really, its just a lipo battery and can be easily increased, maybe next year we will see an improvement in the new smartphones.

kanej2006 said:
Maybe it's the anipet fish aquarium live screensaver...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hope you're joking

Black1982 said:
I hope you're joking
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL, well some people do say that live wallpaper kills battery...

[SOLUTION]Increase battery life on CyanogenMod Alpha 8

Guyz, i found a way which helps increase battery life on CyanogenMod by Marcel(THNX to him).
I was wondering whether an app closes when we press back button,so i needed a task manager,but cyanogen doesn't have a task manager so i downloaded one from market and so many apps were open ,almost all apps were open.
So i killed them all and battery life has pretty much increased since then.
Also i set some profiles in setcpu and in the task manager to kill unnecessary active apps every 30mins.
Both these methods combined....i am getting a good battery life.
However the battery drain on internet still doesn't solve.However the overall battery backup has increased.
Also check this out:Install a task manager(i downloaded advanced task manager)then restart your phone then as soon as the phone starts check out the number of active apps on task manager.Almost all are open.Hope Marcel fixes this bug
My battery now is at 70% after 12 hours from 100%...(i browsed facebook for some time and listend to 12-15 songs on headphone) and that too i didn't charge the 100% fully,so we can hope for more battery backup.
If anyone has any other ideas to increase battery life on cyanogenmod plz post here

vivekdumbre said:
Guyz, i found a way which helps increase battery life on CyanogenMod by Marcel(THNX to him).
I was wondering whether an app closes when we press back button,so i needed a task manager,but cyanogen doesn't have a task manager so i downloaded one from market and so many apps were open ,almost all apps were open.
So i killed them all and battery life has pretty much increased since then.
Also i set some profiles in setcpu and in the task manager to kill unnecessary active apps every 30mins.
Both these methods combined....i am getting a good battery life.
However the battery drain on internet still doesn't solve.However the overall battery backup has increased.
Also check this out:Install a task manager(i downloaded advanced task manager)then restart your phone then as soon as the phone starts check out the number of active apps on task manager.Almost all are open.Hope Marcel fixes this bug
My battery now is at 70% after 12 hours from 100%...(i browsed facebook for some time and listend to 12-15 songs on headphone) and that too i didn't charge the 100% fully,so we can hope for more battery backup.
If anyone has any other ideas to increase battery life on cyanogenmod plz post here
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Advanced task manager is not recommended by many devs in various different forums for some reason it's not good for the phone.

may i know why is it harmful to the phones?never heard of this before!!

vivekdumbre said:
may i know why is it harmful to the phones?never heard of this before!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe Google can help. I just know its not recommended
Sent from my GT-I5800 using XDA

Take a look on this page... It's a good explanation
lifehacker[dot]com/5650894/android-task-killers-explained-what-they-do-and-why-you-shouldnt-use-them
sry for this stupid link, but as I'm new here, I'm not able to post third-party-links...

DerpyDerp said:
http://lifehacker.com/5650894/android-task-killers-explained-what-they-do-and-why-you-shouldnt-use-them
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here u go

One basic point is that Android will automatically open certain apps by default. When you kill these apps the task killers claim they will stay killed but because Android opens them by default they will be launched again so this cycle of killing and re-launching apps will just continue which will use up more battery instead of conserving it.

settings --> applications --> Development --> Stop app via long-press.
You can always chek this option, so you know that you close all applications everytime you use them.

I will recomend you Auto Memory Manager. You can modify the values in that android stars to close process.
Y use it on agressive mode, and always have around 80-90 mb free of RAM memory (less apps open == fasther phone == less memory used
Sorry for my english,

i think using task killers is not a good idea.
we can use task manager (default app) it is better than any other app