Worse battery life after root - EVO 4G General

My battery life has been terrible since rooting my phone. I never saw Android OS show up in battery usage before and it consumed most of my battery while I slept last night. Why is this happening?
Sent from my HTC Evo

It's probably not sleeping.

Elaborate, if you don't mind. Like I said, Android OS didn't show up under battery usage before and now it drains most of my battery.
Sent from my HTC Evo

after rooting your phone.. u essentially wiped out all your settings.. so you will have to re-do them to save on battery life. there are lots of articles floating around on how to make the most of the battery without turning off everything on the evo. check them out.
also, check the up time and awake time on the evo. if they are equal, then something is constantly running on it.. hence not letting the device to go to sleep.. draining your battery.

Install Spare Parts. Look at partial wake use and see if there are any applications that are keeping your phone from properly sleeping when not in use.
edit: Just to clarify, this is not an issue that comes from having root access. It is an issue with your particular configuration. When you flashed a rooted ROM you basically reinstalled your OS and some programs so some things may have been changed or may need to be tweaked. The same can happen just as easily with stock. I had an issue when I first got my phone where syncing with Flickr kept my phone from sleeping. Deleting Flickr account fixed it. Likewise, maybe some other app is running wrong or not set up properly and is doing the same thing. The main thing to do is see what it is that is using the battery so you can troubleshoot the offending app or process.

I'll have to charge my battery again and let it discharge to see what's going on. I don't think this started happening until I installed AndAppStore. It was that or JuiceDefender.

Thanks for the Spare Parts suggestion. Handcent isn't letting my phone sleep and I'm not sure why. I'll have to fiddle around with the settings.

Can someone clue me in on what the icons mean when configuring apps in JuiceDefender? I can't find that information on latedroid's site.
Sent from my HTC Evo

Related

Horrible battery life on EVO after rooting

Hi all,
I folowed both part 1 and part 2 to root and unlock nand on my evo. I loaded the freshevo 0.3 ROM and applied the 4g fix from flipz. Now, my Evo lasts about 5 hours in standby before the battery is dead.
My Evo used to last most of the day before I rooted it. Has anyone experienced similar issues?
Thanks,
Rayden1000
Did you flash the new radio?
Did you leave 4g on?
Gps?
Bluetooth?
What are your sync settings for social network, weather, news?
We need more info than my battery sucks.
Flashed the new radio.
4G is on - as before rooting.
Bluetooth, WiFi is off.
GPS is on - as before rooting.
Syncing is at 4 hour intervals.
Exchange is "as items arrive" - as before rooting.
I know that everyone complains about the battery on the EVO, but my phone is dead after just a few hours of non-usage.
My Up time and Awake time are almost the same, so I think something is preventing the phone from sleeping. An hour ago I went to some setting that listed which app is using what percentage of the battery. I can't remember where I went to check that now, and it wasn't the stock battery settings app. It said that HTC Sense is using 97%.
Thanks,
Rayden1000
Try this
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=700601&highlight=100%+time
Also you might have a bug with 4g where it is constantly connecting or trying to connect. See if the fix above works. If not try damagecontrols rom and see if its any better. Or you can try disabling 4g and see if there us a huge huge huge gain.
I do know that right now some of the custom roms have had 4g issues. I'm not in a 4g area so its hard for me to test.
Thanks Aridon,
I already checked out that thread, my phone is set to CDMA auto.
And yes, I did have the 4g bug when I unlocked NAND through method 2. I found the fix that flipz posted and that has fixed the 4g issue. I also flashed the freshevo 0.3 rom that has the 4g fix built in.
I will try flashing the 4g fix again right now, but does anyone have any other suggestions? It seems that battery performance decrease is a common issue after flashing custom ROM's.
Rayden1000
You should consider doing the steps in that thread regardless if what it shows. The hero had a display bug in that regard for some and perhaps so do some evo. Seems odd but there are differences because when you start playing with kernels it will boot on 002 devices but not others so there are differences.
I'd do it, set it and reboot. Don't go back in to see if it changed just start a new battery test And check for improvement
turn off 4g, my evo has everything yours does! but end of the day i get home and still have over 50% battery life left! if you have 4g on it drains the crap out of battery. only turn it on when your going to use it!
chamelieon said:
turn off 4g, my evo has everything yours does! but end of the day i get home and still have over 50% battery life left! if you have 4g on it drains the crap out of battery. only turn it on when your going to use it!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do understand that 4g decreases the battery life significantly. What I am trying to say in this thread is that after I rooted and unlocked nand on my evo, the battery life is MUCH MUCH worse then before rooting. My phone's battery now goes from 100 to 0 in about 4 hours - while I am not using it at all.
I am just trying to figure out what process is running all the time and prevents the phone from going to sleep.
Rayden1000
Dude download Overclock Widget. Do a google search for: Overclock Widget HTC Evo.
I swear on everything I love that after I installed it and went through the settings my battery lasted 11 hours today. I still had 23 percent left and I streamed some videos on the web, listened to music, played around all day with my phone. It really works and some people claim 30 plus hours of battery life.
It works and I will post a screenie tomorrow of the proof.
Whatever it was, installing Damagecontrol 3.1.2 ROM "appears" to have fixed the issue. My phone has been in standby for about an hour and I have 93% battery left. I will leave it alone for the night and will post the battery status tomorrow morning.
Thanks to everyone for trying to help.
Rayden1000
rayden1000 said:
Whatever it was, installing Damagecontrol 3.1.2 ROM "appears" to have fixed the issue. My phone has been in standby for about an hour and I have 93% battery left. I will leave it alone for the night and will post the battery status tomorrow morning.
Thanks to everyone for trying to help.
Rayden1000
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Baked snack ROM in my observation gets THE BEST battery life of all the roms out thus far.
rayden1000 said:
Whatever it was, installing Damagecontrol 3.1.2 ROM "appears" to have fixed the issue. My phone has been in standby for about an hour and I have 93% battery left. I will leave it alone for the night and will post the battery status tomorrow morning.
Thanks to everyone for trying to help.
Rayden1000
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I may have spoken prematurelly, this morning the battery is dead again. I have tried numerous ROMs with the same result. I also tried old radio ROM ans new radio ROM.
Has anyone been successful at following both part 1 and 2 of rooting and maintaining decent battery performance?
Rayden1000
Not to sound noobish, but did you already disable GTalk auto sign in and then sign out?
Diesektor said:
Not to sound noobish, but did you already disable GTalk auto sign in and then sign out?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's off. I don't use it.
Rayden1000
rayden1000 said:
I may have spoken prematurelly, this morning the battery is dead again. I have tried numerous ROMs with the same result. I also tried old radio ROM ans new radio ROM.
Has anyone been successful at following both part 1 and 2 of rooting and maintaining decent battery performance?
Rayden1000
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you NOT just read my above post. I clearly gave you a fix SMH. Here's proof of what I'm talking about:
I took a screenshot with the ShootMe app. I'm currently running Fresh's latest ROM. The screenshot indicates that I had it off the charger for over 14 hours. I used my phone today to send a lot of text, skyfire, streaming flash websites, etc. By the way I have about 40-50% battery left.
Installed overclock widget, set it to run at around 247 mhz at all times - same result. Evo battery is dead after about 4-5 hours. Does anyone have the original ROM for the Evo? I tried running the RUUxxxxx.exe files, but they all fail - probably due to me rooting and unlocking nand, therefore modifying the file system.
Rayden1000
I've been running Fresh 0.3 for a few days now and haven't seen a problem. Have you tried getting a task manager and making sure there isn't a program running in the background causing all this? Also, is your phone hot... if it is, it means you go something taking up some major cpu time.
I had a similar issue with my Hero, the cause was it was trying to sync the calendar over and over non-stop. You should look at your account syncing also, there could be a problem there.
Sounds as if you have something running in the background that is killing your battery. When you are flashing your roms, are you doing a wipe first or just flashing over whatever you had before?
I don't see how you're running overclock widget and getting bad battery life. Download Advanced Task Killer and kill those tasks.
I also had an issue like that after installing some ROM (I forget now what one, since it was a while ago) and my battery died over night while I was sleeping. I don't really know how (if I did) fix it, but I wiped everything, factory/data/dalvik/battery stats (whatever that is) all those options, then installed a new ROM and it seemed to work fine.
As for the overclock widget, I downloaded that and tried to use it, but it didn't seem like it worked. It just didn't seem to stick and I didn't really see any increase (maybe even a decrease) in battery life. Probably the best thing that you could do is get a task killer and see if there is something running that needs to be killed. The awake time shouldn't be anywhere near the uptime

Sigh. My Evo's Battery Life is Rediculous (not typical)

Fully charged my phone night before last and went to work in the morning (9am). I didn't touch it all day, didn't even turn it on. On my drive home at 5pm it was dead, off.
I plugged it in with the phone off when I got home and saw that it was fully charged a few hours later around 10pm and I booted it up and left it alone. This morning it was dead, off.
Looking at the apps that take up my battery doesn't work because it doesn't retain information what happened to the phone prior to the last reboot. Not sure what to do. My awake time matches my standby time exactly. It's obviously a 100% awake time problem but what's triggering this?
I'm on Fresh .3 with absolutely no other mods. I don't think I have any apps that ping outside servers. So what the ****!?
EDIT:
lulz, I just realized I haven't been even able to use the phone in 3 days due to this issue
Something is eating your battery obviously.
Restore to stock and see if you have the same issues.
Bielinsk said:
Something is eating your battery obviously.
Restore to stock and see if you have the same issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a PITA. This is a clean fresh .3 rom install with only logmein, dropbox and couple non-online games installed. Why is this phone such ****ing fail right now.
Have you removed the Favorites widget? Doing that stopped all battery drain problems for me. Just delete the widget.
First thing to check is if you have a sufficient cellular signal. If you are getting a weak signal it will cause poor battery life. If cell signal strength is not your problem then it is definitely something you have installed on it eating away at your battery. That said check/do the following:
1) Check how frequently you have your accounts syncing
2) Before the phone dies look in your battery use to see what's eating your battery
3) Install a task manager/killer (I use Advanced Task Killer)
4) You don't have to do this one but it does help. I use a program called Startup Auditor to disable startup on apps I don't need to run when the phone first boots (you'd be surprised how many are in there).
cbuc1125 said:
Have you removed the Favorites widget? Doing that stopped all battery drain problems for me. Just delete the widget.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
delete it completely or remove it from one of the home panels?
the "time without signal" workarounds seem to prove the most effective for me. in addition, reduce background usage and automatic update frequencies as best as you can.
according to this thread [http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=709768] (and link within), HTC has acknowledged some issues and is preparing to deploy a few fixes.
You are running someone else's ROM, there could be a problem with the radio, or a problem with the way it was loaded.
If you are in an area where you don't get signal, you are going to drain the battery, and FAST.
Do you have 4g on but not in a 4g area?
I am...
fully rooted and have fresh .3 as well. I am getting over 30hrs with moderate use and the last hour of that I had everything on to purposely run it down to dead. (was doing a toastch recommeded battery meter calibration).
Took my phone off the charger last night at 7:30 pm. It's 2:23pm and I have 31% left. I have Wifi, BT, and Background apps with auto sync turned on.
I would say you might be experiencing the Motorola cell tower problem. HTC has confirmed that the EVO is not playing well with cell towers that have motorola transmitters. It is causing the phone to use more energy to dial in the tower.
To be sure...
1. Set all apps and widgets to manual update or update once a day.
2. Get rid of the people app or widget from any home screen.
3. Go into Gtalk and uncheck auto sign in. Then sign out when you exit the program.
4. charge the phone until the green light comes on. Don't use a battery meter. The second the green light comes on, go into recovery and wipe the battery stats. Reboot the phone and run it until the battery dies and will not longer power the phone. This does nothing for the battery but does recalibrate the internal battery meter.
5. For maximum life...turn off: background data, WiFi, BT, and Mobile networks when not using. keep screen at 1/2 brightness.
If I do the above and manually update mail, weather, social apps, etc... and only turn radios on when I need them, I can get 40 hrs. out of my EVO and this is under moderate to high moderate use.
One other thing....plug your phone in for 10 minutes. Then unplug it and go into immediate stand by for like 30 minutes. Go to settings>about phone>battery>battery use>cell standby. Time without signal should be very low....anything over 10-15% and I'd suspect that if you did everything in 1-5, you have a towers issue robbing your battery.
I was having awake time issues with Fresh .3, so I switched to DamageControl, and everything has been great. Unplugged this morning at 7, and I still have 75% battery remaining. Better battery life than the Hero or BlackBerry Tour!
scirio said:
That's a PITA. This is a clean fresh .3 rom install with only logmein, dropbox and couple non-online games installed. Why is this phone such ****ing fail right now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have any of those problems at all. You probably have a bad battery/phone.
sherman901 said:
I don't have any of those problems at all. You probably have a bad battery/phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i would agree with you but i am having a similar issue and sometimes i get great battery life and other times its just unacceptable. Check out my thread here :http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=709704
scirio said:
Fully charged my phone night before last and went to work in the morning (9am). I didn't touch it all day, didn't even turn it on. On my drive home at 5pm it was dead, off.
I plugged it in with the phone off when I got home and saw that it was fully charged a few hours later around 10pm and I booted it up and left it alone. This morning it was dead, off.
Looking at the apps that take up my battery doesn't work because it doesn't retain information what happened to the phone prior to the last reboot. Not sure what to do. My awake time matches my standby time exactly. It's obviously a 100% awake time problem but what's triggering this?
I'm on Fresh .3 with absolutely no other mods. I don't think I have any apps that ping outside servers. So what the ****!?
EDIT:
lulz, I just realized I haven't been even able to use the phone in 3 days due to this issue
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I seem to be having the same problem as you and it is quite frustrating. I get a steady 10% battery drain every hour even when its idle. I tried juice defender and setcpu and it is still the same. I turned off all my sync accounts and nothing. I also have systempanel and it doesn't seem like theres a rogue app eating my batteries.I'm going to truth to stock tonight to see if something is wrong with my phone. Did you ever figure out what was wrong with your phone?
AVA9 i get 20 hours a charge
but YES something is eating your battery install system pan have and let it run a bit and check the info id bet its
1 your evo spend a lot of tWOS
2 you have a rogue app eating your battery
Way to bump an ancient thread.
DOH dear god i did not look at that lol
I do apologize for bumping such an old thread, but I feel like this thread has already asked much of what I also wanted to ask but have not reached a conclusion. Therefore I would like to try and solve the problem or provide as much info as I can to solve the problem.
I indeed have installed systempanel and here are the screenshots for the day.
imgur.com/mzAE3.png
imgur.com/zA2Vi.png
imgur.com/OLDtt.png
(sorry my account is not allowed to post links)
As you can see besides the internet, there is nothing else thats taking up the battery. Also I took this pic after I put the phone on the charger for a bit, it was at ~ 13% before. The battery usage information says a majority of the battery was used by #1 android system and #2 cell standby, it was neck and neck almost, with #3 being phone idle. My weather app polls every 3 hours, my facebook syncs every 30 mins, my htc sense facebook syncs once a day, and I have not configured any other emails except for two gmail acconts, which received probably 3 emails throughout the whole day.
I just used setcpu today, it made absolutely no difference. Same results as yesterday when I did not have setcpu. Thanks in advance for the help!
dude you need to try my setup: superevo and setcpu
i got 7 days of battery using the evo as a simple phone.
http://edsandroid.blogspot.com/2010/10/7-days-battery-potential.html
proloss said:
dude you need to try my setup: superevo and setcpu
i got 7 days of battery using the evo as a simple phone.
http://edsandroid.blogspot.com/2010/10/7-days-battery-potential.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why would anyone use an EVO as a simple phone.
I am beginning to think peoples opinions on moderate use vary tooooo much. The EVO is similar to an unplugged laptop. The more you make the cpu work the faster your battery is going to drain.
It seems some people just dont get that.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
scirio said:
That's a PITA. This is a clean fresh .3 rom install with only logmein, dropbox and couple non-online games installed. Why is this phone such ****ing fail right now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like Operator error.

I hate Froyo!

Thought the title would get your attention.
After upgrading to Froyo, I have many issues, two of which I'll cover here in hope that someone can resolve them.
First issue is battery life. Absolutely horrible after upgrading. Thought it would be the opposite. Can someone please provide some resolution to this issue? I've disabled a number of things said to resolve this problem but none have worked.
The second issue is the accelerometer after upgrading. Most screens end up in landscape view and switching back to portrait is difficult. I have tried to calibrate it but that didn't work. Don't like the huge delay or failed attempt to switch between both on this version. Calibration does not work.
Any help is appreciated...
pookieguy said:
Thought the title would get your attention.
After upgrading to Froyo, I have many issues, two of which I'll cover here in hope that someone can resolve them.
First issue is battery life. Absolutely horrible after upgrading. Thought it would be the opposite. Can someone please provide some resolution to this issue? I've disabled a number of things said to resolve this problem but none have worked.
The second issue is the accelerometer after upgrading. Most screens end up in landscape view and switching back to portrait is difficult. I have tried to calibrate it but that didn't work. Don't like the huge delay or failed attempt to switch between both on this version. Calibration does not work.
Any help is appreciated...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
buy a new battery and a good charger
menu>settings> display> uncheck Auto-rotate screen
screen
Why would I want to uncheck that option? I want it to auto rotate but want it to happen quicker than it has after upgrading.
battery..
In addition, the battery is obviously not the problem here. This started after upgrading to Froyo.
Were you using a custom ROM with 2.1?
Are you using a custom ROM with 2.2?
As far as I know, the stock ROM with 2.1 didn't have great battery life either (thought I'm not sure, I rooted my phone the day I got it ). So if you're using a stock ROM with 2.2, you could have the same issue.
Also, if you are rooted, try using SetCPU. Even with the default kernel you can use it to underclock your phone when the screen's off and save a lot of battery.
pookieguy said:
Thought the title would get your attention.
After upgrading to Froyo, I have many issues, two of which I'll cover here in hope that someone can resolve them.
First issue is battery life. Absolutely horrible after upgrading. Thought it would be the opposite. Can someone please provide some resolution to this issue? I've disabled a number of things said to resolve this problem but none have worked.
The second issue is the accelerometer after upgrading. Most screens end up in landscape view and switching back to portrait is difficult. I have tried to calibrate it but that didn't work. Don't like the huge delay or failed attempt to switch between both on this version. Calibration does not work.
Any help is appreciated...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You hate Froyo then please return your EVO to sprint
are you running a task killer? try removing it. Have you tried any of the MANY battery life tricks? Try flashing the update.zip, could have been a messy install. you also could be suffering from useritis.
root
Thanks for the reply. No, phone has not been rooted. I simply waited for the 2.2 upgrade and can confirm both issues are a result of upgrading. You are right...the stock ROM did not have good battery life. However, after upgrading, it is much worse in comparison.
The g-sensor issue is also a huge problem. With that said, I'm looking for a fix to these two issues.
Thanks,
task killer..
tonyh703,
Yes, I'm running Advanced Task Killer which did not have a problem before. Is this an app that can cause this problem? I'll remove it if so...
You really need to do a little detective work to find out why your battery is not lasting. My battery is actually lasting noticeably longer on froyo. I was using Fresh 1.0.1 before with Netarchy's kernel and would just barely make it through the day of moderate use. Now that I have updated to Fresh 3.1.0.1, I am easily making it through the day with about the same use. Yesterday, I went 14 hours and still had 26% left when I plugged it in for the night. My usage was about 2 hours streaming last.fm, about a half hour of phone calls, about 1 1/2 hours of internet and twitter, about 45 minutes watching video's, and an hour and a half of reading with my kindle ap. To me that is pretty darn good. I have gps on, twitter syncing every half hour, and google sync on, most of my other stuff like email and such is set to manually sync. The only thing I did notice is that the first day after going to Froyo, my battery went down pretty quick, but after a day or two it settled down to the way it is now on it's own. Today I have had about the same use as yesterday so far, and have been off of the charger for 11 hours and have 76% remaining.
As to your other problem, can't say, mine is working fine.
If youve got an led flashlight type of app installed uninstall it they conflict with the HTC LED flashlight. That seems to be the most common problem with people upgrading to Froyo.
Agree on your second point. I wish there was a way to at least lock the screen to an orientation when need. The delay though is ridiculous.
I have also noticed that the delay to type sometimes is severely long causing me to retype the words a second time before they appear in the screen.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
FWIW - I found a little trick on a forum somewhere that allegedly came from HTC techs...
It goes like this - first, charge your phone as normal (phone on, 8 hours)
Then, after 8 hours and the phone reporting fully charged status, take the phone off the charger for about 3 minutes (just enough to slightly discharge it) and then turn it off (power down) and put it back on the charger for an hour or so.
Then, take it off the charger and turn it back on.
That's it! It sounds a bit ridiculous, but I think the cited reason was that whenever you install a new ROM, the "system" needs to understand when the battery is truly full and this trick helps to recalibrate and ensure that it is.
I really don't have any way (nor the desire) to verify the science behind this, but I did it myself after the horrible battery life I got with FroYo.
About a week out now and my battery is behaving completely normally, and possibly better than with 2.1, though only marginally if that...
Give it a shot - if it works, there you go, if not... Well it's not like you've lost anything.
Good luck, though YMMV.
Sent from my EVO 4G (Froyo - Stock HTC Rom)
have any of yall had a long delay when putting in a name for the reciver in sms? I kid you not it takes almost 3 to 5 sec for it to pull up a name and phone number from my phone book.
Its sad that you need to do "tricks" to get decent battery life, because most people expect it out of the box. Yes you can apply a custom rom with a undervolted cpu, but that shouldnt be necessary. I personally love doing all that stuff, but the majority of people are completely ignorant to these methods and might return their phones because of battery life, but for you people on here...BAKEDSNACK 1.2.5 with the latest of his kernel..amazing battery life.
Get rid of that task killer!! Froyo does not need it... Not to mention none of the task killers support Froyo correctly. Uninstall it, try using Froyo without it.
I recommend getting rid of the task killer and go without system panel lite. It works with froyo without any problems. I also recommend letting your battery completely die out before charging it again.
My Evo worked without any issues after the update to froyo. Also, if you are a widget fanatic, I recommend limiting the amount yo u use . The reason being that everytime you unlock your phone and scroll from one page to through next, you are loading said widgets into memory which help to eating up the battery quicker.
Also if you have a lot of things updating in the background, that can kill your battery quicker. I'm always on my phone and get anywhere from ten to fourteen hours of use. I also use a cpu manager to extend the life of my battery when not in use.
Sent from my HTC Evo
DO NOT DEPLETE YOUR BATTERY COMPLETELY!! These are Li-ion batteries. Depleting the battery too much can damage the cells. Discharging the batteries 100% before charging to avoid memory effect is a phenomena unique to Ni-Cad batteries. If a Li-ion is discharged too severely, it causes an irreversible reaction inside the cell that prevents the battery from holding any charge at all. This common in laptop batteries.
To the OPs issue, do you have the latest Facebook update (1.3.1)? Version 1.3.0 had an issue that was keeping the phone awake eating up battery life.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
sombdy said:
DO NOT DEPLETE YOUR BATTERY COMPLETELY!! These are Li-ion batteries. Depleting the battery too much can damage the cells. Discharging the batteries 100% before charging to avoid memory effect is a phenomena unique to Ni-Cad batteries. If a Li-ion is discharged too severely, it causes an irreversible reaction inside the cell that prevents the battery from holding any charge at all. This common in laptop batteries.
To the OPs issue, do you have the latest Facebook update (1.3.1)? Version 1.3.0 had an issue that was keeping the phone awake eating up battery life.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I could see how this could be bad if you discharged it completely every single time, but every phone ive had including the iphone, it has been specificly stated many times to COMPLETELY DISCHARGE THE BATTERY ATLEAST ONCE A MONTH
Still no luck...
Guys,
I have removed the task killer and have removed the other LED Light utility. Still having battery issues. Any other suggestions please??
Also,
What about the accelerometer? Having many issues with it. First off, when a text msg comes in, it automatically shows in landscape. Phone switches to landscape fine but it is very difficult to switch back to portrait.
Any other help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,

FIX and INVESTIGATION: Android OS (battery drain) problem on Gingerbread

CASE CLOSED!!! Please read bottom part or flash stock GB 2.3.4!
I have posted this already on another thread (almost word for word) but I just really want you guys know and not panic about this problem and avoid going through difficult fixes like deleting system apps, recalibrating battery or even resetting your phone.
Since JVK was released, many observed that Android OS sometimes get hungry and devours battery. For some reason it is triggered to go berserk. Others say that the main culprit is the Auto update app. But other apps like Google Maps, Latitude and even just in a place where there is very low network signal or Wifi reception could also trigger this problem.
Now, I have a very simple solution: Turn off device, remove battery for a minute, put it back then turn it ON. Yes it is just that simple, REBOOT YOUR DEVICE.
Yeah after you turn on your device Android OS is still on the top of the list with high percentage but I believe it is just as it is because it previously consumed a lot of battery. All you have to do is observe again for an hour if your battery is dropping again, look into the graph and see if it is still steeping to the bottom. If it is dropping like Mt Everest, do the procedure above again.
If not, you will observe that after a couple of hours Android OS's percentage is getting low. Problem is fixed, (temporarily though).
Why go through deleting apps, recalibrate battery etc when you could just turn off your device for a minute?
I have experienced it a lot of times already (one of the first users who upgraded to JVK) but it doesn't bother me anymore. Turning off then on your device is very simple ain't it?
I highly advise that you do not touch anything on the sensitive part of your phone as there is no known single root of this problem. Just like I told you, many situations or apps could trigger Android OS to go berserk. Until there is no definite solution to this problem, I suggest you do the above procedure and save yourself from going through the pain of removing system apps, battery calibration or even hard reset.
By the way my battery usually lasts 3-4 days unless I made Android OS angry again.
INVESTIGATION
INVESTIGATION CLOSED!!! The culprit is caught. But the fix is not so simple. Only Samsung and genius devs (apparently the fix requires closed source modification) could fix this. If the problem occurs on your device, just do the temporary fix above. Please do not try to mess with your device for now.It is now fixed in XXJVP 2.3.4!
Click HERE and read the bottom part for more details.
All this is due to Tatsuya who pointed us to the right direction. A big thanks to him for helping us in this investigation. CASE CLOSED
Tatsuya79 said:
Ok thanks for the credits.
This previous link I gave explains how you can use watchdog to alert you when this bug triggers, so you know when to reboot your phone to stop this leakage (if you really want to stay on gingerbread until a fix is made by Samsung).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Guys if you want to help out please please please dial this *#*#4636#*#* and check "Usage Statistics" and let us know the top 3 items on the list! (highly suggested by {Angel}).
Below are some of the possible culprits currently pointed out by some users (I will update the list based from your feedback):
1. Software Update service
2. Google Maps
3. Latitude
4. Low network signal
5. Very low WIFI reception
6. Auto updates in Market
If this helps, a simple thanks is enough
This is a post coming from Angel:
{Angel} said:
Those of you with high drain, you can also check battery history through *#*#4636#*#* and see what you have under other usage 'running' and see if your phone as not been sleeping lately. I get this occasionaly with froyo and I suspect many people do also. A reboot fixes it for me, after that my battery usage is superb, but it's annoying as hell.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And this is my post somewhere:
jbdroid said:
Yes just like I said in the first post, this is just a temporary fix. But I think users should just do this rather than touch anything on their phone unless they really know the source of the problem.
That is why I suggested that they report what could be the possible triggers, like apps or situations, that make Android OS to awake and gobble up the battery. If we could just pinpoint those triggers maybe we can now figure out the root of the problem. Your fix of removing a system app, the auto update app, is not even the single source of the problem. We just do not know if that app is an essential app or not. Sooner or later you will have that problem again.
I am not saying we should just sit and wait. All I am saying is if you are a plain user and you do not know the exact root of the problem, then just do what I suggested. But if you are a dev and is exploring the root of the problem, then do as you like and we will be most thankful if you find out the answer.
People are mislead about what works and what is not. I just want to help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Rebooting works, and it seems to be working until you start some apps again. I have the same apps installed as I had on JPY, but JVB drains my battery dead in half a day.
luci.pacurar said:
Rebooting works, and it seems to be working until you start some apps again. I have the same apps installed as I had on JPY, but JVB drains my battery dead in half a day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you pinpoint some apps? I will update the OP to keep track of possible culprits so that others will avoid triggering this problem. Thanks!
I once saw that the battery drain from 95% to 9% after one night, and the android os used most of it. I rebooted my phone, and the problem has gone away, since. Happy with Gingerbread!
I'll give it a go! thnx
Active Widgets: WeatherBug Elite, 3G Watchdog, BatStat and Calendar.
Apps: All from above plus Twitter, Titanium Backup, Facebook, Twitter, Tapatalk, Camera360 Ultimate, Root Explorer, Foursquare.
Mostly I use the Twitter client and the browser. Location services are disabled.
It is hard to figure out from the above apps or which is the most probable suspect. Just incase the problem recurs on your phone, dial this: *#*#4636#*#*, Go to Usage statistics and Battery Information and please report back (include also information on the Battery Use in Settings).
I hope we can help others avoid having this problem until there is a fixed solution.
Thanks!
Did what you suggested and pulled the battery at 30% waited 5 minutes and put it back in.... 1hr later it was at 35% (WTF!) and 30min later it was at 38% (WTF!)
im assuming its recalibrating?
Not necessarily. Maybe the battery meter is anticipating the fast consumption rate of Android OS that is why when it got fixed, the meter is able to readjust the readings based from the current consumption rate of your phone. Good to know it helped
Maybe use the 'forbidden' task killer? Works for me... Maybe im imagening it but works.
Btw my battery goes quickly down after getting below 25%. My battery not calibrated? Should i.calibrate it? I have this program to do it but am afraid that calibration goes wrong. (example what if my battery is 95% and will calibrate to 100. What if.i charge my battery higher than this.. Will it show 104%? Or will android stop working for it cannot be displayed in the notificationbar.
Using cm7.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
You do not have to recalibrate. Cm7 has a known issue about battery. I think you cannot charge past 94 or 95 percent and battery usage is a bit terrible. Please refer to cm7 thread for possible fixes, (the last time I checked their thread, they say it is probably kernel related).
Just turning off, pulling the battery and turning on does do a lot for me! i went from 10% per hour to only 1%! great thnx!
Hi,
About battery drain in gb, once fixed the wifi sleep policy issue ( by setting it to "never") u shouldn't have batt drain, but i've installed green power ( juice defender do the work too i think) to get some wifi management possibility back and it improuved my batt life.
But never the less, my battery won't last more than one day of hard usage ( being hanged on xda all day long, for instance ;-)
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Guys, just turn off the task killer, it helped in my case. looks like its not working well on ginger
Rebooting works just temporarily.
It will come back the next day or so.
This is not a solution at all tbh.
Yes just like I said in the first post, this is just a temporary fix. But I think users should just do this rather than touch anything on their phone unless they really know the source of the problem.
That is why I suggested that they report what could be the possible triggers, like apps or situations, that make Android OS to awake and gobble up the battery. If we could just pinpoint those triggers maybe we can now figure out the root of the problem. Your fix of removing a system app, the auto update app, is not even the single source of the problem. We just do not know if that app is an essential app or not. Sooner or later you will have that problem again.
I am not saying we should just sit and wait. All I am saying is if you are a plain user and you do not know the exact root of the problem, then just do what I suggested. But if you are a dev and is exploring the root of the problem, then do as you like and we will be most thankful if you find out the answer.
People are mislead about what works and what is not. I just want to help
Guys, on Gingerbread I've had battery drain two times:
1. Had about 14% drain in 3 hours all of a sudden, without doing anything at all. Just started going down for some reason.
2. This morning, saw about 40% drain in 7 hours..
And, both time I solved it by Clearing Memory from the Task Manager.. Went back to normal 2-3% drain per 6-7 hours after that..
So this might also be a solution. Go to Task Manager, RAM tab, and Clear Memory..
i'm on ginger also and my battery acts weird. 2 days ago i charged my phone over night while it was closed. the battery holds for 15 hours with massive use.
last night i did it again, but today it went from 98% to 80% in about an hour !
this is really weird.
addicted2088 said:
Guys, on Gingerbread I've had battery drain two times:
1. Had about 14% drain in 3 hours all of a sudden, without doing anything at all. Just started going down for some reason.
2. This morning, saw about 40% drain in 7 hours..
And, both time I solved it by Clearing Memory from the Task Manager.. Went back to normal 2-3% drain per 6-7 hours after that..
So this might also be a solution. Go to Task Manager, RAM tab, and Clear Memory..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you manage to check first what is running on your device by looking into Battery Usage settings? I think you have a case of rogue application running in the background.
If you have not rebooted yet could you please attach a screenshot of the battery usage list and graph? In that way we might possibly identify the app running prior to the clearing of memory. Thanks!

Exhausted every effort trying to fix this problem.. ATRIX 4G: new battery time?

I'll post everything I've tried and everything that's gone wrong here.
So initially I purchased this phone off of a friend nearly brand new, the screen had broken and had been replaced. Otherwise the phone is in perfect factory condition.
I unlocked the phone, and am using it on Rogers. APN settings working perfectly.
I installed GOLauncherEX on the phone as Motoblur wasn't doing it for me.
Battery life was crap (lasting hardly 3 hours and dying while I sleep). I found that Motoblur HOME had been running alongside GOLauncherEX. At first I simply uninstalled the third-party launcher, but then opted to grab LauncherPro+ and HomeSwitcher. This dramatically improved battery life.
Lately, I've been having issues once in awhile again. Mostly if I leave the phone unplugged while I'm sleeping (fully charged when unplugged) and we'll use the timeline 3am - 11am. It would either die completely or drop to around 15%.
As long as I could have enough charge to last me through work, I was fine with this as it was way better than what had been happening before.
This morning something extreme and unexplainable happened.. and it's the first time I took a look at the battery usage meter to see what had happened. Picture is below.
If someone could offer some tips or help that would benefit me even the slightest, it would be very much appreciated.
My bad for sneaking a link in, but it was the only way to show the issue.
a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s720x720/390662_10150380313609839_506884838_8126371_1297964124_n.jpg
(Remove the space between 1297964 and 124 at the end)
Oh and also, phone is rooted, bloatware is frozen via Titanium Backup Pro.
Have you recalibrated?
WiredPirate said:
Have you recalibrated?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have any suggestions as to what to use to calibrate?
I'm not keen on flashing any new roms if that makes a difference.
SL1VR said:
Do you have any suggestions as to what to use to calibrate?
I'm not keen on flashing any new roms if that makes a difference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Calibrating is something you may need to do after flashing a ROM, you can search and find a guide or you can use this app.
I have not flashed any new roms and I don't intend on doing so, but I'll check out the app you posted.
Thanks for your help,
any new ideas are still welcome.
The benefits of battery calibration are not limited to only if you flash a new ROM. Battery calibration should be the first thing you try if you are experiencing battery troubles imo, and there is allot more in depth information in the guides you could search for.
There is one more thing I can think of you can try, download Watchdog and see if there are any malicious or poorly written apps burning up your cpu/battery.
WiredPirate said:
The benefits of battery calibration are not limited to only if you flash a new ROM. Battery calibration should be the first thing you try if you are experiencing battery troubles imo, and there is allot more in depth information in the guides you could search for.
There is one more thing I can think of you can try, download Watchdog and see if there are any malicious or poorly written apps burning up your cpu/battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your help, grabbing Watchdog now.
Maybe unlock the bootloader and flash a custom rom?
Go into account and sync and shut off background data. I was getting. 10-12 hours battery life and now over 30 by just doing that. Worked for a buddy at work too.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
Radio is key. After I flashed radio 1.77.30p, my phone can easily using 3 days without freeze anything.
Do not use 1.97 radio and don't use task killers. 2.3.4 gingerbread does a much better job of killing tasks than Froyo did and it's unnecessary. Also, turning off background data is not necessary.
Phalanx7621 said:
Do not use 1.97 radio and don't use task killers. 2.3.4 gingerbread does a much better job of killing tasks than Froyo did and it's unnecessary. Also, turning off background data is not necessary.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would say it is. Apps including google will try and update and locate your phone via 3g and gps when its sitting there idle. Its not necessary if you only install apps that dont use background data, or disable them individually but some dont allow it.
I still was able to get 15 hours with data enabled and over 30 with it disabled. There is a huge difference there. I just have to open my yahoo now to update it which I dont mind.
While I appreciate everyone's replies and help, has anyone actually looked at the picture I posted?
As much as I am most definitely interested in prolonging my battery life, that picture is showing a sudden drop from 70% to completely dead, idling, screen off, while I'm asleep.
SL1VR said:
While I appreciate everyone's replies and help, has anyone actually looked at the picture I posted?
As much as I am most definitely interested in prolonging my battery life, that picture is showing a sudden drop from 70% to completely dead, idling, screen off, while I'm asleep.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would purchase a new battery from Motorola, It looks like your battery has one or more bad cells in it. Only thing that really explains it. Even with everything turned ON as far as data - the battery should not drop that far that fast.
i'm not entirely sure whats going on with the charge level dropping so sharply. Either something is draining your battery big time or the readout when it says 100% is incorrect.
I had issues with the battery up time as well. In my case, the battery wouldnt last more than 8-9 hours. I had to charge it two times a day. Once overnight so its 100% when i go to work and again as soon as i get home. If i charged to 100%, unplugged and went to bed, it would be at 15-20% when i woke up.
The last time i went abroad, i left the radio turned off completely. I noticed that the battery held its charge for about a day and a half.
Now i did root, unlock the BL and install CM7 on my phone. It seemed better but not that much. After i setup the phone to NOT use my 3G data connection while my wifi was on, i noticed that i was getting great battery life when i was at home but still rubbish at work.
I'm doing a test right now to see if this makes a difference or not. I have turned off data on my phone all together this morning. I charged it to 100%. Normally after 6 hours at work, my phone is at about 30-35%
Right now its sitting at 75%
the 3g is whats killing the battery, on my phone anyway. I will see how long the battery lasts without turning on my data at all. Then i will compare that with how its like with background data turned off.
I would suggest you try re-calibrating your phone's battery, i use battery calibration from the market. Then either turn data off altogether like i have or just turn background data off as the others have suggested and see what kind of a difference it makes.
While i realize you dont want to, it may help further to have a ROM like CM7 installed as it wont have all the bloatware that can further reduce the performance of your phone. You should definitely give turning the data off a go to see its the culprit before you go spend money on a new battery which may or may not fix the problem.
Best to isolate the root cause before you spend money on fixing it. If turning off the data doesnt do it, then you very well may have a battery problem.
Routaran said:
i'm not entirely sure whats going on with the charge level dropping so sharply. Either something is draining your battery big time or the readout when it says 100% is incorrect.
I had issues with the battery up time as well. In my case, the battery wouldnt last more than 8-9 hours. I had to charge it two times a day. Once overnight so its 100% when i go to work and again as soon as i get home. If i charged to 100%, unplugged and went to bed, it would be at 15-20% when i woke up.
The last time i went abroad, i left the radio turned off completely. I noticed that the battery held its charge for about a day and a half.
Now i did root, unlock the BL and install CM7 on my phone. It seemed better but not that much. After i setup the phone to NOT use my 3G data connection while my wifi was on, i noticed that i was getting great battery life when i was at home but still rubbish at work.
I'm doing a test right now to see if this makes a difference or not. I have turned off data on my phone all together this morning. I charged it to 100%. Normally after 6 hours at work, my phone is at about 30-35%
Right now its sitting at 75%
the 3g is whats killing the battery, on my phone anyway. I will see how long the battery lasts without turning on my data at all. Then i will compare that with how its like with background data turned off.
I would suggest you try re-calibrating your phone's battery, i use battery calibration from the market. Then either turn data off altogether like i have or just turn background data off as the others have suggested and see what kind of a difference it makes.
While i realize you dont want to, it may help further to have a ROM like CM7 installed as it wont have all the bloatware that can further reduce the performance of your phone. You should definitely give turning the data off a go to see its the culprit before you go spend money on a new battery which may or may not fix the problem.
Best to isolate the root cause before you spend money on fixing it. If turning off the data doesnt do it, then you very well may have a battery problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll definitely try everything you've mentioned, I did calibrate my battery since I first started this topic. I'm not sure if there's a difference, if there is, it isn't noticeable. My phone died last night, and I charged it overnight again so I haven't had a chance to see if what happened the other night will happen again. Soon enough, I'll post details if I notice anything peculiar.
Since you said you bought the phone off a friend I would like to make sure you have the right battery.
The battery "must" be of the following to show the right charge level, otherwise it might appear the battery discharging very quickly.
The part/model no.: SNN5893A
Manufacturing Date: ??/April/2011 or onwards
In regards to the poster above who mentioned shutting off background data, my phone lasts 17-19 hours running CM7 with nothing frozen, background data on, and I record quite a bit of video + pictures every day. I don't use task killers either. So I'm thinking that maybe the background data thing is either actually covering up a radio problem, a carrier issue, previous ROM information leaking through, or a faulty battery as stated above that could possibly need replaced.

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