Database Users

The power consumption is huge

Yesterday, I was using the Google navigation on 3G network with the phone connected to a 500mA car charger. After 1hr, the battery dropped 20%...Anyone knows if a 1000mA car is enough??
Tonight, I was watching a Youtube HD video on 4G network (2/3 bars on 4G) with the phone connected to a 1000mA USB wall charger. After 10min, the battery dropped 2%...Well, even 1000mA cannot compensate the consumption of the battery.
The power consumption of this phone is ridiculous. Something must be wrong with the system/circuit design.
NOTE: I'm not complaining the battery but the power consumption of this phone. The charging cannot compensate the usage of the power. Think about a laptop. It's even more powerful, but you can use it freely without any concern about the battery as long as you plug it in an ac adapter. Why can't Epic 4G do this?

man i been seeing the same problems i was listen to the sprint radio while hooked up to the charge and would see it stay at the same percent for about a hr before it went up 1%. this battery issues is making me hate the phone right now and i cant find any rapid charge programs or settings for this yet. cant wait for some custom rom to come out that hopes to fix some of these issues

yup 4g is a battery hog which is why people are complaining about battery life,I suggest you turn it off, it's just not worth it IMO, which too bad cause we're paying extra afterall.

seven7dust said:
yup 4g is a battery hog which is why people are complaining about battery life,I suggest you turn it off, it's just not worth it IMO, which too bad cause we're paying extra afterall.
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I saw a post this morning. The 3G even consumes more battery on Epic 4G during browsing. so we can expect even worse under 3G.

I'm on my third Epic and they have all had battery drain issues. Battery manufacture dates ranged from July to mid August. Right now actually, I'm streaming some radio over 3g and have an AIM client running in the background and the batter is slowly draining while plugged into the charger included in the box.
I have tried a factory reset just to be sure any apps I installed weren't affecting anything and still no dice. Even with running navigation in the car while plugged into a usb charger the battery will drain about 1% every 5 minutes or so. I'm probably returning the phone for good in a few days

This is with 4G disabled, using SwitchPro widget to enable 3G. I also have background updates disabled(under accounts/sync), I manually do them periodically.

fookxixi said:
Yesterday, I was using the Google navigation on 3G network with the phone connected to a 500mA car charger. After 1hr, the battery dropped 20%...Anyone knows if a 1000mA car is enough.
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That shoul be more than enough. I use a Motorola-branded 850mA microUSB car charger (quite cheap on Amazon). On a recent day-long driving trip, it was sufficient to maintain the battery level while streaming audio over 3G and simultaneously running GPS tracking. I don't think a 500mA unit would have handled the load, however.

I'm really starting to think this phone is an epic fail. I get from 1.5 hours to 2 hours of use from a full charge! Thats with everything off, 4G, wifi, bluetooth, GPS. The sprint store manager wouldn't exchange my phone because he said their is nothing wrong with it. If it takes 6 hours to charge and then I get 2 hours of use, this phone is worthless to me!

syntax_erorr said:
I'm really starting to think this phone is an epic fail. I get from 1.5 hours to 2 hours of use from a full charge! Thats with everything off, 4G, wifi, bluetooth, GPS. The sprint store manager wouldn't exchange my phone because he said their is nothing wrong with it. If it takes 6 hours to charge and then I get 2 hours of use, this phone is worthless to me!
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Yeah that doesn't sound right. I think most people would have a hard time making it last only 2 hours. Maybe gaming while running WiFi tether.
Keep in mind with CDMA, the lower the signal to the tower, the more power it takes to keep the connection active. For GSM this is less of an issue. How is the signal where you live?
An interesting side note. I plugged in my charger for my Bluetooth which is only 180ma and it went from 70% to "Fully Charged" in 10 seconds. When I unplugged the charger it went back to 70%. It really didn't like that low power feed.

Sorry if it came out orange. I used screenshot the app and that's what i got. Anywho, its a perfect combo what I've done. See the up time, nearly 15 hours up time. I only lost 35% of life during the time too as you can see how full the batt is.
Remedies: Autokiller set to extreme. ATK: Set to aggressive, with auto kill set to when screen is off. Interval every hour. Cachemate: all settings lit up, so it clears about 12-14 MB every hour or 1-2 every manual clear. Set CPU: Conservative 1000/100 with set to boot. Notice, set CPU resets itself every reboot for now, just make sure your good.
Then you should be good as I have for TWO days on one charge nearly 24 hrs ago.
Sent From The Moon

My battery has increased five fold with that evo fix after an hour and a half I've only used 6 percent of my battery

PlankLongBeard said:
Sorry if it came out orange. I used screenshot the app and that's what i got. Anywho, its a perfect combo what I've done. See the up time, nearly 15 hours up time. I only lost 35% of life during the time too as you can see how full the batt is.
Remedies: Autokiller set to extreme. ATK: Set to aggressive, with auto kill set to when screen is off. Interval every hour. Cachemate: all settings lit up, so it clears about 12-14 MB every hour or 1-2 every manual clear. Set CPU: Conservative 1000/100 with set to boot. Notice, set CPU resets itself every reboot for now, just make sure your good.
Then you should be good as I have for TWO days on one charge nearly 24 hrs ago.
Sent From The Moon
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I would love to see more info/screenshots on this. The one SS you included somehow ended up thumbnail sized only. 2 days is nuts, anything over 24h would be.

hey guys
I've been really happy with the battery life on my epic - I get about 12-14 hours with on-off use, 4G off. My battery is sitting at about 35% after playing a bunch of games for about 3 hours in between classes and it has been running off battery for about 8 hours, browsing the web, sending texts and downloading apps on both 3g and wifi.
I'm using Advanced Task Killer and its set to kill aggressively every half hour - it kills all apps except Juice Defender, itself and LauncherPro.
I'm running LauncherPro - if that matters - doubtful, but I didn't like touchwiz. And I'm running JuiceDefender on default settings. Basically it kills the 3G radio when screen is off unless its transferring > then 15kbs of data. The normal radio remains on for calls/texts.

lv2bll said:
My battery has increased five fold with that evo fix after an hour and a half I've only used 6 percent of my battery
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What is the EVO fix? I'd love to try some extra tips.
My two cents - a typical day puts me at home and at work for the majority of the day and night, which both have wi-fi. I've turned off "look for open networks", "never allow wi-fi to sleep" and I leave wi-fi on. After a full night of charge I took the phone off of the charger at 11am on Saturnday and it finally turned off Sunday at 8pm - 33 hours is pretty darn good, almost two days. However yesterday I took the phone off the charger after leaving work at 6:30pm (so no wi-fi, just 3G) and in just an hour with watching a 15 minute long normal quality YouTube video, a few texts and a short phone call I was down TWENTY PERCENT. What the heck.
Over wi-fi, like I said, I'm good - great battery life since I'm not waking up the 3G radio to do anything. But when I get out of those wi-fi areas that's when my battery starts to drop. Anandtech is getting similar results with awful 3G battery:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3891/samsung-epic-4g-review-the-fastest-android-phone/8
Something is wrong with the 3G radio, and I hope Sprint & Samsung seriously do something about it.

You guys are all failing to look at "Cell standby" details.
Time without signal on this phone - no matter WHAT coverage area you're in - is ALWAYS > 50%. This is bull**** and a Samsung software issue. Take a look for yourself.

oxeneers said:
You guys are all failing to look at "Cell standby" details.
Time without signal on this phone - no matter WHAT coverage area you're in - is ALWAYS > 50%. This is bull**** and a Samsung software issue. Take a look for yourself.
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I never had a problem with but I've been reading many having a problem with "Cel Standby" going out of control. Mine it at 17%. Highest I have saw it was in the upper 30's range after a full day (14hr)

Just an update on my usage from Pg.1:

oxeneers said:
You guys are all failing to look at "Cell standby" details.
Time without signal on this phone - no matter WHAT coverage area you're in - is ALWAYS > 50%. This is bull**** and a Samsung software issue. Take a look for yourself.
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I am not seeing this issue. Never seen it above 3%. Besides most of the battery is going to the screen it seems. I am actually wondering if it reporting the usage correctly. If the screen was really take that much of the power, it should be lasting a lot longer.
People getting great battery life are reporting they are using task killers and data connection blockers. That isn't even where they majority of the power goes. The system tells us it is going to the screen. Not the tasks or data connections. It seems counter-intuitive.

oxeneers said:
You guys are all failing to look at "Cell standby" details.
Time without signal on this phone - no matter WHAT coverage area you're in - is ALWAYS > 50%. This is bull**** and a Samsung software issue. Take a look for yourself.
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Click to collapse
Turn airplane mode on then off. (settings -> Wireless & Networks)
This will solve the problem until the next time you reboot. You must do this after every reboot.

I'm working on a more scientific breakdown of power consumption. But here are some brief findings.
The highest power consumer is the display. Even on the lowest brightness setting it consumes more power than a normal LCD (I'm comparing it to my Evo). If the display is only showing a black background it is lower power, but then again if all it is showing is noting, it may as well not be on at all. If you actually want to display something on the screen, it consumes power like it's going out of style. So much for Super AMOLED being a power saver (total and completely false.)
The next highest power consumer is the 3G radio. Under similar circumstances (similar signal strength) the 3G radio is consuming more power than the 4G and Wifi radios combined. Wifi seems to consume the least, followed by 4G then 3G. This is crazy and if not fixed might be unacceptable.
Next is background apps, most specifically anything that uses the network (email syncing, social networking and location reporting services like latitude) being the worst. The sync settings on the Epic are not as robust as the Evo and I've struggled to gain control of gmail without just setting it to manual only. Do not use latitude and although some will speak out against task killers, having one to keep "maps" at bay is worth it alone.
Then there are more obvious things like live wallpaper. Or specifically anything using the CPU / GPU and GPS.
More to come, but right now, something must be done about the 3G radio and GPS or this phone could live up to the moniker of Epic fail. I really hope Sprint and Samsung are doing something because otherwise if the phone worked as it could, it would be awesome.

Definitive Battery Thread how people are getting amazing battery life

Ok guys here is the deal. Some people claim they are getting amazing battery life and I want to know what they are running.
If you are getting great battery life like some claim. Post up this info about your phone. Let me know if i left out anything.
1. ROM
2. Kernel
3. Radio version
4. WiMax radio version
3. Are you using set cpu if so how are your profiles set up
4. Are you using juice defender/ultimate juice if so how are your profiles set up
5.Sync Settings
6.Radios always on or do you turn them on and off
7.Display settings
8.Categorize usage (light,moderate,heavy)
9.How do you charge your battery(through the phone, through the phone with an odd technique, wall charger, car charger, usb, etc..)
10.Anything else that would affect battery life/miscellaneous comments
11.Post up some screen shots of battery life unplugged and device up and awake time(be sure to reboot before your battery run as awake and up time do not reset every time you unplug)
I will be testing out my phone today and ill post my results later. Thanks guys I think this should help users get better battery life.

SantaClause88 said:
1. ROM
2. Kernel
3. Radio version
4. WiMax radio version
3. Are you using set cpu if so how are your profiles set up
4. Are you using juice defender/ultimate juice if so how are your profiles set up
5.Sync Settings
6.Radios always on or do you turn them on and off
7.Display settings
8.Categorize usage (light,moderate,heavy)
9.How do you charge your battery(through the phone, through the phone with an odd technique, wall charger, car charger, usb, etc..)
10.Anything else that would affect battery life/miscellaneous comments
11.Post up some screen shots of battery life unplugged and device up and awake time(be sure to reboot before your battery run as awake and up time do not reset every time you unplug)
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good luck on trying to start a "definitive" thread. I think you may be asking for a bit much of people though. 11 items? screenshots?
How do you define "amazing"? I generally get about 17-21 hours with moderate usage on baked snack 1.7 with default kernel. I have latest radio, and the 2nd latest wimax radio. I'm not running cetcpu, any of the juices, or anytype of task killer, although I do have systempanel set up to monitor all the time. I have echange and gmail set up to sync as items arrive (with no off peak times). I uninstalled FB (cuz it would try and sync even when I told it not to - even the one for sense), uninstalled news, stocks and all of the other bloatware. data always on, rarely use wifi (cuz my router sucks), and keep radios always on - i never turn them off. Moderate daily usage - maybe 20 minutes worth of calls, read and reply to 15-20 emails, 40-60 minutes of pandora, 30 minutes of internet browsing with stock browser, and my biggest battery drain is the xda app, which as some of you might have guessed, I'm slightly addicted to. I generally charge for an hour or 2 at night with the stock wall charger, then top off in the car on the way to work if I'm below 75% or so (30 minute drive will charge about 25% battery with an aftermarket palm pre car charger). Keep my brightness at auto until I get home, when I change it to 19% (because I can't seem to get the slider to hit exactly 20% on the dazzle widget lol)
occationally, I'll charge at my desk or on the way home, but those are the exceptions, on days when I'm using the phone heavily
biggest thing Ive found to help my battery is system panel - helped me identify a number of rogue apps using cpu and sucking my battery dry.
no screenshots.
and just so you know, you can probably find all of this info by searching and going through the threads. There are a ton of battery threads already.
edit - heyhey this is my 600th post!

Answers on battery life.

I've been seeing a lot of posts on crap battery life around here, and I was chasing my tail about some of them as well, following a lot of misinformation even by senior members. I think I have a good handle on it now, and picked up most of these tips from these forums, so I'm not taking credit for these ideas, just collecting them in one place. Some of my suggestions assume you have root and Rom Manager (see the Tips and Tricks sticky thread on how to get them).
1. If your battery drains in less than a day on standby, you probably have a bad flash of the JI6 modem (either from the OTA update or from a ROM). Flash the JI2 modem from here "www dot teamwhiskey dot com/home/downloads". If the flash fixes it, you may try going back to JI6 if you want, and it may stay fixed. I went back to JI2 and didn't bother going back to JI6, but it has worked for others. With JI2 and 3G on I get just over 24 hours in normal usage.
2. The #2 battery drain on standby is 3G. I turned it off (Settings/Wireless/Mobile networks/Network mode/GSM only) and my phone lasted for 40 hours on Edge with light usage (few phone calls, messaging, quite a lot of web surfing, 2 hours of podcasts). Didn't even feel too slow (I get 140kbps on edge). Can anybody suggest a really good widget for turning 3G on/off? I use the 2G-3G OnOff widget by Curvefish. It's not one-click, it's just a shortcut to Mobile Network Settings, but it works. Note that sometimes it takes a while for the data connection to re-establish after you see the 3G or E icon.
2.5. WiFi always on is a huge battery saver! It keeps 3g off. I can easily get 3+ days with light usage on my home wifi. Settings/Wireless and Network/Wifi Settings/Menu/Advanced/Wifi Sleep Policy/Never.
3. Don't need a task killer. I wasted all my time killing tasks trying to chase down my crappy battery usage, but since I fixed my modem and turned off 3G I know that the 3-5% CPU usage at idle does not hurt my battery. Taskiller for me was actually hitting the CPU constantly, lightly but for no reason, so I got pissed and uninstalled it.
4. Install a CPU usage monitor like Usage Timelines. It sits in the notification bar, very easy on the battery, but tells you if you have a rogue app pegging your CPU and draining your battery. These are the only apps you should be worried about killing. Astro File Manager has a task manager that shows CPU usage for each app, so you can kill the rogue one. I shoot for about 5% cpu usage at idle (at 200mhz - at 100mhz it would be a bit higher).
5. The app Autostarts lets you disable any app from starting on boot or other events like connectivity changes. This is not strictly necessary unless you have a lot of crap apps installed on your phone and they like to start themselves and waste CPU time behind your back.
6. If your battery reads less than 100% as soon as you unplug it from the charger fully charged, or your battery meter sits at 100% for a long time after you unplug it, you can recalibrate your battery meter. To recalibrate: 1) charge your battery to full, 2) unplug, 3) reboot into Clockwork Recovery and 4) Wipe battery stats.
7. There is No Such Thing as "battery reconditioning" (for all intents and purposes). The above procedure only RECALIBRATES you battery METER to read on a more linear scale between full and empty. It DOES NOT make your battery last longer, period. Whoever tells you that is a moron. If your battery is dying in 6 hours, doing any amount of calibration will not make it last longer (I've tried).
8. I wouldn't be too worried about undervolting, overclocking, kernel tricks and superawesomefast ROMS. The CPU drain at idle is so minuscule (as long as you don't have rogue apps) that those things make precious little difference. Like I said, the biggest drain is 3G and other radios. Having said that, I run Bionix 1.9 with the JAC kernel. It drained my battery in half a day at idle until I flashed the JI2 modem. With JI2 it suddenly started lasting over 24 hours, and once I turned off 3G, over 40 hours. I like this ROM and see no need to switch, it's very smooth. But you should be able to get similar battery life on a stock Vibrant.
9. I have GPS on, WiFi never sleep, auto-brightness, and a few widgets on like Weather and friend updates. I have no fancy settings, literally just turning off 3G (or wifi on, which is the same) got me 2-3 days. So I wouldn't waste time fooling around with magic settings (other than wifi never sleep), battery saver apps, etc.
10. If your screen is on all the time and you're playing games nonstop, you're draining your battery quicker than any of the things I mentioned above, so you probably don't care. In that case an optimized ROM/kernel is probably your best bet, especially JIT in Froyo. You can probably save on screen brightness as well.
If you guys have any other tips I'd be glad to add them to the list, but I hope this gives you an understanding of where your battery life is going. Basically: bad modem, 3G, or rogue apps.
Also, I hope this will put an end to trolls calling people whiners for complaining about battery life and saying unproductive **** like "you're a whiner" or "the Galaxy S is just a battery hog, live with it". It's not, you don't have to live with it, nobody should have to, here are your solutions.
Good luck.

A few things I do to help with battery life is:
Disable Audible touch tones
Disable Audible selection
Disable Haptic feedback
Disable SD card notifications
Set animations to NO animations
Uninstall media hub if you dont use it
Disable auto brightness adjustment
Disable power saving mode
I disable the last 2 and just swipe the notification bar to adjust brightness. Granted these items really only work when using the phone but I can go about 2 days of normal use without a charge believe it or not.

yeah disabling 3g has always been the best option for people really, really concerned with battery life.
But it's kinda hard to tell people not to use 3g on their brand new 3g capable devices.

You may want to add how to test if you battery is bad. If you use you phone repeatedly while it its plugged in you risk overheating and damaging your battery. Signs that unitas is the case are very quick drain and long (7 hours) charge times. You can easily test and see if your battery its damaged. Remove it from your phone and place on flat surface (e.g. Counter top) try spinning the battery. If it rotates easily and quickly you battery is bulging, this is a sign of damage. Time for a new battery.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Answer to #2-
Use APNDroid. Comes with a widget.

Thanks to the OP and other contributors in this thread.
I flashed a ROM with the ji6 modem and battery life has been noticeably ****ty since. Example - this morning I unplugged my phone at 7:30 am. 100% charged. It's 10:21 am and my phone is at 75%
In the last 3 hours I browsed the web for 10 minutes while having my coffee and a smoke before heading out to work. Blue tooth was on for my drive, and I've sent 2 text messages. Aside from that my phone has been on stand-by since I unplugged it 3 hours ago.
I'm going to try to flash back to ji2 tonight as the battery usage was definitely better. Will also look into the 3G thing.
Thanks again.

You forgot to mention the two DRM and one downloader services that run resident on JI6.
These were the cause of my reduced battery life after I upgraded. Killing & removing these processes restored my battery life back to normal

blink55184 said:
Answer to #2-
Use APNDroid. Comes with a widget.
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I just tried this - switching 3G off works fine, but switching 3G back on didn't work for me. I had to re-boot to get 3G back so this is a no-go in my case.

I know how to kill the processes for the DRM and downloader but how do I remove them?

OP thank you for putting together the list. But I've never seen the point of doing all this. Its like getting a lamborghini and only driving 40mph because it you don't want to waste gas, whats the point? Either get a second wall charger to charge at work or a car charger. Heck even get a second battery if you are out for a long period of time.

speoples20 said:
Its like getting a lamborghini and only driving 40mph because it you don't want to waste gas, whats the point?
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You don't need to disable 3g.
The point of my post is to avoid people wasting their time with tweaks that have little to no effect on battery life. I'm telling people that they're wasting time killing apps and optimizing cpu usage and twiddling their settings when the radio drains most of their battery on standby anyway.
Meaning no matter what changes you make, you can only hope to improve your battery life by a tiny amount, because any other effect is overshadowed by 3G.
Put another way, you will NEVER get battery life much longer than a day if you're on 3g, so you're wasting your energy trying all kinds of tricks.

blink55184 said:
Answer to #2-
Use APNDroid. Comes with a widget.
smutek said:
I just tried this - switching 3G off works fine, but switching 3G back on didn't work for me. I had to re-boot to get 3G back so this is a no-go in my case.
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For me the widget did nothing. But it seems like it's not even supposed to turn the 3G radio off, but ALL APN network traffic. Did I miss something? It won't save battery power as long as the 3G radio is on.
I went back to the 2G-3G OnOff widget by Curvefish. It's not one-click, it's just a shortcut to Mobile Network Settings, but it works. Note that sometimes it takes a while for the data connection to re-establish after you see the 3G or E icon.

Back to my Moto Startac
While i understand the idea behind this thread, your conclusion is simple.
If you use the phone as a smartphone, it will eat up your battery no matter what.
I personally go through two batteries and some a day. (they cost about 12 bucks in ebay, and they work just fine)
The price for saving battery is not using the phone, and having a 400 bucks phone just for show off is just silly at least.
If you have a phone like this is to use it. At least you can change the battery not like some other devices......

I understand that task killer is useless, but do any of you use Autokiller (memory manager) ?

That's kind of a redundant question because even if you do not use the app, your phone is still performing the functions. The app just adjusts the settings. But to answer your question, using a memory optimization tool such as AutoKiller is 1000% more efficient than using a Task Killer. I don't think it effects battery much, but works wonders on performance.

There's no 3g-off widget because apparently in Android there's no way to do that through a direct command. I also use the Curvefish widget, and you are absolutely right about turning off 3g to save battery. I normally do so when I'm asleep or if I'm sitting at my desk next to a computer (why do I need fast data on my phone when I have my computer right here?).
The other thing I would recommend is AutoStarts. There are way too many apps that open themselves up at bizarre and inappropriate times. Autostarts is an easy and painless way to see which apps do this and keep them from opening.

gagb1967 said:
While i understand the idea behind this thread, your conclusion is simple.
If you use the phone as a smartphone, it will eat up your battery no matter what.
I personally go through two batteries and some a day. (they cost about 12 bucks in ebay, and they work just fine)
The price for saving battery is not using the phone, and having a 400 bucks phone just for show off is just silly at least.
If you have a phone like this is to use it. At least you can change the battery not like some other devices......
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+1000
Great battery life comes to people who hardly use their phones. Guess I need to get a netbook. Will prolly get a netbook or 3g laptop + skype and ETF my phone soon. These battery woes are show-stopping.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Losing 4% an hour on standby when you're not using the phone is unacceptable. Samsung screwed something up with the JI6 update. Most people think it's because of the stupid Media Hub. I think they are right.
People are not complaining about the poor battery life from using the phone. They are complaining about the slow battery drain even when they are not using it. ~4% an hour adds up fast. Vibrant is supposed to have 450 hour (18 days) stand-by time. That's what is rated. But people are getting 24 hour (1 day) stand-by time after JI6.

Yellow C6 said:
Losing 4% an hour on standby when you're not using the phone is unacceptable. Samsung screwed something up with the JI6 update. Most people think it's because of the stupid Media Hub. I think they are right.
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I'm not ready to sign off on this idea. For me simply flashing JI2 over JI6 fixed it. For some people flashing JI6 back over still left the problem fixed. I still have those processes running on JI2 and my battery life is fine.
The other reason I'm not ready to recommend wiping out those DRM processes is that apparently it stops the bundled Avatar movie from playing, and might affect other things that users may get pissed about. I've read that killing the downloader process people are talking about kills the market. So I really wish those people advocating that solution would figure their **** out and provide exact steps for the fix (right now their posts are really vague like "kill the processes that are named something like this" and not well tested; in all my research I didn't find the exact name of the "downloader" process).

Is it possible to flash the ji2 modem without root? Wishful thinking, I suppose..

[Q] Battery life makes me cry

(I'll preface this by saying that I am well aware there have been a million threads about this, I'm sure, and I'm even more sure that there will be a million more. And I have searched, and searched, and searched some more, and I still feel the need to post this question. Flame me if you want. I'll use the flames to heat up some tea, or something.)
I bought my phone last Thursday, it got lit with service Friday. I went over the weekend and into Sunday with stock ROM/kernel, and decided to mix things up by rooting my phone and using the MixUp kernel to see if I could get better battery life.. and it didn't work too well. I mean, life went up a bit, but not noticeably so (maybe twenty or thirty minutes?)
After that, I flashed Syndicate, which had Xtreme Kernel. I calibrated the battery as instructed inside of Clockwork and went with it for Tuesday.. took it off the charger at 8:00 and it died around 4:00. Kept the same kernel and flashed Epic Experience and the attached JuicePlotter shot is where I am at right now.
My usage today has been light browsing and that's basically it. I've got the processor underclocked to 600 with SetCPU, and JuiceDefender and Superpower have been preventing any data from going on when my screen is off, and for the last two hours I've been listening to MP3s using the in-built music player.
This makes me cry considering there are people on here saying they're able to get much more life out of their battery, even with BT and WiFi etc. I'm aware that each phone is different and all that, but still.
All that said, is there a problem with my phone/battery, is this par for the course with the Epic, or should I just stop whining?
Thanks in advance for any help/insight.

A couple of things...get a task killer app so that you can kill the drm process which eats up a ton of battery, calibraing your battery takes 2 or 3 times going from full charge to zero and also, since its a new phone it takes charging to full and letting it get down to complete zero a few times before you will see better battery life no matter what else you do
Edit: oh and also definitely do the airplane mode toggle as well
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

storytobetold said:
(I'll preface this by saying that I am well aware there have been a million threads about this, I'm sure, and I'm even more sure that there will be a million more. And I have searched, and searched, and searched some more, and I still feel the need to post this question. Flame me if you want. I'll use the flames to heat up some tea, or something.)
I bought my phone last Thursday, it got lit with service Friday. I went over the weekend and into Sunday with stock ROM/kernel, and decided to mix things up by rooting my phone and using the MixUp kernel to see if I could get better battery life.. and it didn't work too well. I mean, life went up a bit, but not noticeably so (maybe twenty or thirty minutes?)
After that, I flashed Syndicate, which had Xtreme Kernel. I calibrated the battery as instructed inside of Clockwork and went with it for Tuesday.. took it off the charger at 8:00 and it died around 4:00. Kept the same kernel and flashed Epic Experience and the attached JuicePlotter shot is where I am at right now.
My usage today has been light browsing and that's basically it. I've got the processor underclocked to 600 with SetCPU, and JuiceDefender and Superpower have been preventing any data from going on when my screen is off, and for the last two hours I've been listening to MP3s using the in-built music player.
This makes me cry considering there are people on here saying they're able to get much more life out of their battery, even with BT and WiFi etc. I'm aware that each phone is different and all that, but still.
All that said, is there a problem with my phone/battery, is this par for the course with the Epic, or should I just stop whining?
Thanks in advance for any help/insight.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also, for each new Kernel you flash, you have to calibrate the battery.
Charge it to full, boot off, boot up in Clockwork, go to Advanced and Clear Battery stats. Reboot the phone, use it until it runs dead and shuts off, than plug it back in and charge it to full with the phone on.
Every time you flash a new kernel, you have to do that process so the battery calibrates to that certain kernel.
Also, try Baked Snack, it gets the best battery life for 2.1 ROMs.
http://www.bakedsnackshack.com/source/
Download Bakedsnack1.6 and Step 2.
Make a backup.
Wipe data/cache
Install 1.6
Boot the phone up
Reboot into clockwork
Install Step 2
Boot the phone up.

I have to have a car charger if I go anywhere. This phone dies so fast with normal usage. Do anything crazy like turn features on, surf the web, or increase brightness, and I am lucky to get 2 hours. I have multiple batteries, both have the same result.

Muckrak3r said:
I have to have a car charger if I go anywhere. This phone dies so fast with normal usage. Do anything crazy like turn features on, surf the web, or increase brightness, and I am lucky to get 2 hours. I have multiple batteries, both have the same result.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
2 Hours..? Whaaaaa? Lol.
When I calibrate my battery, I turn EVERYTHING on, screen brightness all the way up, Pandora running, every widget I can fit on my screens set to update at their quickest setting, screen set to 30min (Though I never let it shut off). Bluetooth, GPS, 4G running (I don't have 4G here, so it just keeps searching, which drains it more than if it was connected). And running the Maps Live wall paper to use GPS.
When I do all that, I can't get it to even die under 4 hours.
Hopefully you were exaggerating with saying 2 hours lol.

Thank you guys for replying!
Sh0wNuF: I killed the DRM service today and used ATK to kill errant processes throughout the day today to no avail. I also used the airplane mode toggle to try to limit my time without a signal.
SemiGamer: Thank you! I did do the clockwork step as I said in my first post, but I will try to install BakedSnack and get back to you guys as to the battery life.

From the looks of that juiceplotter graph, your data is constantly on and destroying your battery. What is the point of having juicedefender if the data is constantly on?
If you set up the phone properly, and there are a MILLION threads on this which state a MILLION times to disable DRM and toggle airplane mode as a mere baseline beginning, you should lose at most 1% an hour when the phone is idle without a data connection and the screen off.
Now it looks like you probably have the data on constantly with emails rolling in, facebook auto updating every 5 minutes, weather checking every half hour and other things that are just destroying your battery life. If you need your phone to do all that nonsense, then you will be crying for the rest of the time you have it.

muyoso said:
From the looks of that juiceplotter graph, your data is constantly on and destroying your battery. What is the point of having juicedefender if the data is constantly on?
If you set up the phone properly, and there are a MILLION threads on this which state a MILLION times to disable DRM and toggle airplane mode as a mere baseline beginning, you should lose at most 1% an hour when the phone is idle without a data connection and the screen off.
Now it looks like you probably have the data on constantly with emails rolling in, facebook auto updating every 5 minutes, weather checking every half hour and other things that are just destroying your battery life. If you need your phone to do all that nonsense, then you will be crying for the rest of the time you have it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your reply, but as I said in my first post, I was using both JuiceDefender and Superpower to make sure data was off in the background, and as I said in my most recent post, I did disable the OmaDrm service as well as enable/disable Airplane Mode to lower my TWS.

storytobetold said:
Thank you for your reply, but as I said in my first post, I was using both JuiceDefender and Superpower to make sure data was off in the background, and as I said in my most recent post, I did disable the OmaDrm service as well as enable/disable Airplane Mode to lower my TWS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats fine, but your data aint off. Look at that graph you posted. Every little blip is either data being accessed or the screen turning on. The line should be smooth if there is no data and no screen on.
So there are two options, either you are constantly using the phone and its the screen killing the battery, or you have juicedefender set up all wrong and its the data killing the battery.
If I remember correctly, any spike below the line is data, either wifi or 3g and any spike above the line is the screen turned on. So from the looks of it your data is literally never turning off and you are checking the phone and turning the screen on and off pretty frequently.
What are your settings in juicedefender?

muyoso said:
Thats fine, but your data aint off. Look at that graph you posted. Every little blip is either data being accessed or the screen turning on. The line should be smooth if there is no data and no screen on.
So there are two options, either you are constantly using the phone and its the screen killing the battery, or you have juicedefender set up all wrong and its the data killing the battery.
If I remember correctly, any spike below the line is data, either wifi or 3g and any spike above the line is the screen turned on. So from the looks of it your data is literally never turning off and you are checking the phone and turning the screen on and off pretty frequently.
What are your settings in juicedefender?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Timeout: Do nothing
Schedule: Enable Data for 1m every 15m
Night: Keep Data/Wifi disabled 2am>5am
Battery: Keep Data/WiFi disabled while below 15%
Traffic: Leave Data/Wifi enabled while >50KB/15s
Peak: Do nothing
Apps: Do nothing
Screen: Leave Data enabled while screen unlocked
Location: Do nothing

I have almost identical batter results as you. I do use the phone fairly often to send messages but the screen brightness is all the way down and I use set cpu on the froyo beta leak. I reset battery stats and also (perhaps you could look into this too) checked spare parts for any rogue programs. Does yours say the screen takes up most of your battery even if you barely use it?
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk

storytobetold said:
Timeout: Do nothing
Schedule: Enable Data for 1m every 15m
Night: Keep Data/Wifi disabled 2am>5am
Battery: Keep Data/WiFi disabled while below 15%
Traffic: Leave Data/Wifi enabled while >50KB/15s
Peak: Do nothing
Apps: Do nothing
Screen: Leave Data enabled while screen unlocked
Location: Do nothing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would up the Schedule to less often and turn off the traffic toggle. Also, I wouldn't doubt that your phone is never going to sleep. If you have spare parts check the Battery History. If you listen to music with the phone, the service started by the music player, CorePlayerService, keeps the phone awake constantly for me. I ended up making a simple kill music widget using tasker to fix this issue.

I bought a wildly overpriced Samsung stand/battery charger from Amazon. My wife & I each start the day with a charged Epic and a spare battery. No worries
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk

Used BS 1.6 w/ step2 kernel today. MUCH better battery life but my phone was acting just a bit wacky (locked up and required batt. pull twice or three times)
Not the biggest fan of the aesthetics of the ROM.. but I'll live.

storytobetold said:
Used BS 1.6 w/ step2 kernel today. MUCH better battery life but my phone was acting just a bit wacky (locked up and required batt. pull twice or three times)
Not the biggest fan of the aesthetics of the ROM.. but I'll live.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you say much better battery life exactly how much? My battery dropped 20% today while not being used and Display was still at 60% (I turned the alarm off twice). I'm running the Quantum ROM which could have something to do with it but the battery is horrible for me. I can't get more than 8 hours and that's if i barely use it. I have spare parts and no apps are partially waking it. Just Wifi and sync. No GPS, brightness all the way down. The main thing that bothers me is that display is always #1 even if i don't use the phone at all. Any thoughts?

I've ran both Quantum and Viper Froyo roms and aside from making my phone hot enough to fry eggs, the battery life was not good.
As far as battery life goes, I'll start with the obvious stuff.
1. Turn off GPS, Bluetooth and 4G. 4G is a complete power whore.
2. As for wifi, turn it off unless you are in a bad coverage area for cell data. If you are connect to wifi and set Spare Parts to never let wifi sleep.
3. For DRM there are 3 files you need to remove that will prevent it from running / reinstalling and they are DrmProvider.apk, DrmUA.apk, and SisoDrmProvider.apk.
4. Toggle airplane mode every single time you reboot without fail.
For a true test of whether your phone simply needs to be returned as "defective" you should wipe the device, dont setup a google account and let it run for a day after executing steps 1-4 above. It would be best to an apk for Spare Parts and SDX Stock App Remover on your microSD that could be installed using My Files. If you still have problems take the phone back to sprint (after restoring it to factory of course) and tell them it is defective.

storytobetold said:
This makes me cry considering there are people on here saying they're able to get much more life out of their battery,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Camera on the EVO made me cry, so bad i switched to the Epic, I deal with the battery buy purchasing 2 batteries and a charger on ebay for $9. now I have three batteries. I had like 4 batteries for the EVO

MLHickey said:
When you say much better battery life exactly how much? My battery dropped 20% today while not being used and Display was still at 60% (I turned the alarm off twice). I'm running the Quantum ROM which could have something to do with it but the battery is horrible for me. I can't get more than 8 hours and that's if i barely use it. I have spare parts and no apps are partially waking it. Just Wifi and sync. No GPS, brightness all the way down. The main thing that bothers me is that display is always #1 even if i don't use the phone at all. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's a JuicePlotter graph from today for comparison from my original one yesterday.
I still wonder if it wasn't going to sleep because of PowerAMP and I didn't underclock today like I did yesterday.
There are a few other physical issues with my phone (slider seems a bit loose compared to my other phones: if I swipe with slider closed with a bit more pressure than usual, I can feel the screen move up and down; screen seems to slightly come up a bit when phone's tilted a bit, taps make you feel the screen go back down) that also made me want to consider exchanging it on top of the battery issue but if I'm getting good battery life I don't think I'll mess with what works, unless anything gets worse.

Terrible atrix battery

I've unlocked and am running Ken's Alien ROM and so far I really like this. Im an international user on orange uk, so I use faux123's kernel for Oc and ram fix. But there is one caveat. I have really rubbish battery life. I did all the stuff (charge to 100% from 0% wipe stats, calibrate). The fact is, I left it on, for ten hours. The display was on for about 2. No usage. When I returned the battery was 30%, with phone idle consuming 30%. Newer radio needed? What can I do? My baseband is N_01.95.00R .
I've heard good things about the newest AT&T radio for battery. How can I flash this to an international ATRIX?
Help appreciated

Edit : phone idle consumed 40% :O

I have the exact same issue. Unfortunately, all that I can say is that changing neither kernel, radio or rom did fix this issue. I had some improvements when I followed this topic and flashed back my stock kernel (with no OC), but still very far from what I would consider a decent battery lifetime (10h with 3g + email and twitter sync and screen off)
Some users have tried and it worked well from them. I'm on the team that didn't work ): But you could give it a shot

Calibrate your battery. Charge to 100% wipe battery stats. Then discharge to shut off. Then charge to 100% again.
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk

_Dennis_ said:
Calibrate your battery. Charge to 100% wipe battery stats. Then discharge to shut off. Then charge to 100% again.
OP stated he tried calibration without success... I too am having subpar battery performance - interested to see what others have done to achieve better battery performance besides the previously mentioned methods.
Sent via Motorola Olympus using XDA Premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

_Dennis_ said:
Calibrate your battery. Charge to 100% wipe battery stats. Then discharge to shut off. Then charge to 100% again.
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've done all that stuff, but it doesn't help IMHO. (at least it didn't do anything for me)
Only 2 real fixes that have worked for me are these:
1. Freeze unnecessarily apps with Titanium Backup (use "System panel" from the Market to find out what keeps constantly running/popping up in the background that you don't need)
AND
2. Turn off Automatic Sync, and get in the habit of doing that stuff manually all at once.
@2. I use to sync in the worst signal areas, and that drained the **** out of my battery. Sync/get your updates manually in strong signal areas whenever possible...

New radio from the fruitcakes thread and the latest faux123 kernel seemed to kill that bug.
I sold my atrix to my less then nerdy friend and I just fixed that bug for him yesterday. Same deal tho...
Sent from my Samsung Seine

I noticed from X2 battery (I think) every minute or two the phone constantly checks for either cell or data signal. I can let my iphone 4 sit on the counter all day and it might use 1-2% but my atrix drops 5% in an hour without touching it. No calibration or battery fix will help. Even CM7 uses it fairly quickly. Im running Alien 4 with max battery saver and gps and auto sync disabled...it should last for a full day with heavy usage.

Alien 4 w/theme, faux123 kernel, everything at stock settings for this rom, nothing frozen, and I am sitting at 1 day and 13 hours with 28% left, mostly idle, but an hour long call and bit of game playing.
If you are getting something on the order of just a few hours then your phone or battery must be bad. I am doing nothing to extend the battery life other then using the default settings.

The phone should get 2 days sitting on the counter..LOL Of all the phones I've had and iPhones I've jailbroken, there is definately something wrong with the Motorola or Android software running on this phone. I've never had to worry about calibrating or battery fixes. This is just my honest opinion. I've had 2 ROMs in all the ones I've flashed that had good battery life and I think it was a coincedence that maybe something didn't load right or got deleted by accident.

Phoneguy589 said:
The phone should get 2 days sitting on the counter..LOL Of all the phones I've had and iPhones I've jailbroken, there is definately something wrong with the Motorola or Android software running on this phone. I've never had to worry about calibrating or battery fixes. This is just my honest opinion. I've had 2 ROMs in all the ones I've flashed that had good battery life and I think it was a coincedence that maybe something didn't load right or got deleted by accident.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most iphone users need to charge at LEAST once a day. A lot of them charge more than once. I can sometimes get 2 days usage from my Atrix, with heavy texting, some calls, and some games - which is pretty damn good.
Maybe your battery is the issue. not all Atrix are created equal and not all batteries function the same

When you go into settings>running apps, does your free and used ram add up to over 800? Mine used to and now it doesn't. It adds up to like 750....I always thought it would add up to mid to upper 800's. It also could be the battery but I was pointing out that I have left my wife's Iphone 4 and my atrix on the counter all day (neither one got used) and my atrix was down in the 70% range and her phone was at 96%. I'm just thinking something is running or consuming the battery. I've used fastboot to do all wipes and still seem to be having an issue.... I also flash ROMs every few days so maybe the battery calibration doesn't have time to really calibrate. I'll pick a combo I like and keeep it for a few days and see if I notice a better battery life.

How long has it been since you've flashed a ROM? It usually takes a few days for it to settle back in and provide decent battery life (at least from my experience). My phone right now has been on for a little over 7 hours and is at about 55% with Display using up 60% of the battery (3hrs on). This is with the Alien v4 and Faux's latest kernel. The first few days after flashing a ROM my phone would usually only last about 7 hours.

i get 2-3 days on stand by. and about 6-8 hours of straight use. 3-5 if i'm using mobile broadband.
1: keep gps and data off (background data is almost irrelevant.)
2: use green power
3: use a task manager to close applications that you are not using. (be sure you can add "ignore" exceptions otherwise get a different manager. anyone who says not to use a task manager is a ****ing punk hipster ***** fag who's irreparable damage to the geeks good name will not go unpunished)
4: do the "wipe battery stats" bit after every flash (100% charge, wipe stats, full discharge)
5: is to install a custom kernel and use SetCPU to underclock to 312 while the screen is off..
most importantly: use your head. if you stream 1080p using mobile broadband for 2 hours your battery is dead.

I flash ROMs every few days but I call BS on the whole "Battery Calibration" thing. If my battery is showing 4200mv...it's full. It will die faster the more processes the phone does so my point it....whether I flash a rom every day it shouldn't matter, if the phone (After I set up and install whetever apps) gets unplugged, something drains the battery. Maybe the infra red sensor is always on, or a process is always starting and ending, who knows but the battery cannot be calibrated, the phone might need to be calibrated to read the correct voltage but batteries don't hold memory unlike the old NiCD rechargables from years ago.

When you flash a rom the battery stats get messed up. Based on what I know the way the battery drains depends on previous battery usage data hence the reason why it last longer after a few days of use after a rom is flashed. It needs to build up new data to correctly report battery use. Maybe I'm wrong but my experience supports this.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App

I am running Alien v4 with the stock kernel and I am getting well over a day with pretty heavy usage (phone calls, texts, emails, FB, twitter, XDA, Games). My setup:
Battery Mode= Maximum Battery Savings
Auto Brightness off, usually on 30%
Unused blur apps frozen
Reinstalled performancemanager.apk (blur task manager), set to kill unnecessary apps after 2 minutes of inactivity
No overclock, I don't see the need to overclock outside of high benchmark scores. Without overclock I still play every game smoothly without any hickups or slow downs. The phone still feels super fast without it.
I turn off all unused services (gps, bluetooth, wifi)

After you charge your phone and take it off the charger, reboot it.
It seems that a process kills the phones battery after you take it off the charger. You have to reboot after taking it off. It works wonders. Currently on 16 hours of use @ 45% battery on alien rom with stock kernel.
Cheers.

lilhaiti said:
I am running Alien v4 with the stock kernel and I am getting well over a day with pretty heavy usage (phone calls, texts, emails, FB, twitter, XDA, Games). My setup:
Battery Mode= Maximum Battery Savings
Auto Brightness off, usually on 30%
Unused blur apps frozen
Reinstalled performancemanager.apk (blur task manager), set to kill unnecessary apps after 2 minutes of inactivity
No overclock, I don't see the need to overclock outside of high benchmark scores. Without overclock I still play every game smoothly without any hickups or slow downs. The phone still feels super fast without it.
I turn off all unused services (gps, bluetooth, wifi)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use the same battery settings recently. I turn off GPS and Sync unless I'm using navigation. Which blur apps do you freeze? I just noticed (read on the Alien thread) On the unlock screen, hold the home button and it unlocks. I wonder if something like in pocket detection keeps the IR eye on all the time.

Phoneguy589 said:
I use the same battery settings recently. I turn off GPS and Sync unless I'm using navigation. Which blur apps do you freeze? I just noticed (read on the Alien thread) On the unlock screen, hold the home button and it unlocks. I wonder if something like in pocket detection keeps the IR eye on all the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have frozen:
All of the authenticators
Weather
Tasks,
Home,(I use launcher pro)
Music (I use Poweramp)
Toggle Widgets,
News,
GingerBlur,
Gallery, (I use QuicPic)