Database Users

Batteries and Battery Life

I've had my Hero since October. I've been reading these forums ever since I bought it. I keep reading about people switching from one rom to another, discussing battery life changes. Some people are stating they only have to charge their battery every two days, or get 16+ hours of heavy use on a charge. I'm on my 3rd rom, having tried Modaco, Fresh 1.0, and Fresh 1.1. I am now runnning Fresh 1.1 + Gumbo + SetCPU.
I work for Sprint. Advanced Tech Support. I work 13 hour days. I get to work, I turn off the mobile internet connection on my phone. I disable background data. In my SetCPU, I set it to powersave mode Min 245 Max 485. (Those might not be the exact numbers, at work can't check, but you get the idea.) After 13 1/2 hours, I go out and my battery is giving me the >15% remaining warning. I've maybe missed two calls and recieved 8 txts. On my off days, I wake up, take the phone off charge, and do a moderate amount of txting. I play a little music while im playing Xbox, maybe open the browser to check a game FAQ or walkthrough. Within about 3 hours of waking up I'm below 50%. If I'm planning on going to the bar to shoot pool I have to make sure my battery is fully charged, or if anyone is trying to get in touch with my I won't know cause I'm at the bar for 5+ hours txting and talking, and my phone will have died if not 100% charged. So...
I read that running Fresh 1.1+ Gumbo + SetCPU would greatly increase my battery life. Tried it. haven't noticed a change. I don't use task killers, I don't run apps, I think I've downloaded 9 apps from the market in 5 months. I use Shortcovers (Ebook reader). Dolphin browser, Handcent sms. Thats about it.
Is there a viable solution here? Does anyone have any troubleshooting steps to recommend, apps that might help, do a complete wipe and re-install Fresh and Gumbo? Change settings in CPU? I've been reading about Mugen and other batteries, any recommendations on which one would be best to try out? I love my phone, and I don't do anything to it without reading up on these forums first, just looking for any advice to not have to stay tethered to an AC outlet all day. Thanks.

fresh 1.1 + the less aggressive gumbo kernel will help alot. you don't need setcpu at all. i also recommend looking into a bigger extended battery, one that doesn't require the use of another back cover.

sirstanley said:
I've had my Hero since October.
I work for Sprint. Advanced Tech Support. I work 13 hour days. I get to work, I turn off the mobile internet connection on my phone. I disable background data. In my SetCPU,
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It really sounds like you have a background task that is running and not letting your phone sleep. I turn off mobile internet at night (so I don't get bugged with Tweets and other alerts) and my battery drops 3-4% overnight (7-8 hours while sleeping). What is your awake time?
On a full charge, I can go all day (7am - 10pm) and still have more than 30% left. I have 2 email accounts, each set to sync every 30 minutes, a twitter app set to sync every 15 minutes, and I don't use weather or location services. I think a lot of people experience poor battery life due to signal quality. I get really good signals at home and a fairly decent signal at work as long as I say out of the lower (basement) floors.
-Daryel

Here's my experience with my HTC Hero from H3G (Three) UK:
Had the phone for about 2 weeks now, battery lasts me easily 1 day with quite heavy use (30-60 min GPS, 2-3 hours browsing, installing programs, 30 min music, some texting and talking. I know that for some of you guys out there this might be 'light' usage, but I believe for all of this, battery life is quite good, better than my friends' Iphones. With moderate use i get through 2 days of usage. I am just experimenting with turning off Mobile Internet, have had the phone running for 60 hrs + and my battery is at 65%, I've been turning wifi on for a few minutes a couple of times and have been talking and moderate texting during this time. I intend to leave Mobile internet off until the battery runs out of power to see how much time I get out of it. I never turn the phone off at night. I am amazed what a big difference turning off Mobile Internet does.

The OP clearly states that he downloads / runs minimal apps, and asking a Sprint advanced tech if his phone is sleeping, while a nice gesture, isn't terribly practical. I hope.
I think that there are certain phones that don't scale with GCK or a change in the CPU governor very well. I have bounced around to every ROM available, flashed and reflashed, cleared boot and dalvik caches and played with about every governor / frequency setting imaginable. With all that, all I can conclude is that my personal phone does significantly worse when the governor isn't MSM7K and drains downright terrible under GCK's stripped governors on anything other than MSM7K. Even Powersave (which OP referenced) drains my phone significantly faster than MSM7K.
I'd recommend you keep your current GCK install and adjust SetCPU to MSM7K to min 245 max 480. Then enable Profiles > Sleep > min 160 max 245. For a bit more performance when your phone is awake slide your normal max to 528; add significant performance by sliding normal min to 480. See if that helps any.

mkeyslehman said:
The OP clearly states that he downloads / runs minimal apps, and asking a Sprint advanced tech if his phone is sleeping, while a nice gesture, isn't terribly practical. I hope.
I think that there are certain phones that don't scale with GCK or a change in the CPU governor very well. I have bounced around to every ROM available, flashed and reflashed, cleared boot and dalvik caches and played with about every governor / frequency setting imaginable. With all that, all I can conclude is that my personal phone does significantly worse when the governor isn't MSM7K and drains downright terrible under GCK's stripped governors on anything other than MSM7K. Even Powersave (which OP referenced) drains my phone significantly faster than MSM7K.
I'd recommend you keep your current GCK install and adjust SetCPU to MSM7K to min 245 max 480. Then enable Profiles > Sleep > min 160 max 245. For a bit more performance when your phone is awake slide your normal max to 528; add significant performance by sliding normal min to 480. See if that helps any.
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Could just be the different experiences folks receive with the Hero but when I used SetCPU to create profiles, I saw much higher battery drain. Once again, may have just been my experience but battery runs much better without profiles on my device.

Thanks for the response. And yes, my phone does sleep. I checked Spare Parts, and my most used app is Lightning Bug (use it when I sleep at night. I live in the hood and it covers up the radios and dogs barking.) After that it's Shortcovers (my ebook reader.) and then Handcent. So no abnormal program activity. Lightning bug only runs while I sleep, shortcovers just when Im reading. So nothing keeping my phone awake or anything. I do have one of the first Heros, I pre-ordered and recieved it like October 10th, so it's not Google branded, if that makes a difference. I'm considering just getting another one, but after 5 months of flashing and moifying and tweaking I'm kinda attactched to my phone. I'd feel like I was trading in my wife. So I guess I'll just go for an after market battery. Any more advice would be great. Thanks again.

kbizzle said:
Could just be the different experiences folks receive with the Hero but when I used SetCPU to create profiles, I saw much higher battery drain. Once again, may have just been my experience but battery runs much better without profiles on my device.
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Personally I'm on Modaco 2.2. Pulled mocaco.sh and changed the governor from "performance" to "msm7k" and pushed it back to the phone. No compcache, but I did include the internal task killer call in compcache.sh. Read thru either the Modaco 2.2 thread or GCK if you need help.

I'm having the same results as you. I have a non-"with google" Hero200, and my battery life absolutely sucks.
Today, took it off the charger at about 10:30, now at 3:30 it was down to 20% battery.
this was leaving mobile data on and a few text messages.
How exactly do you choose how often you want email to sync? I tried finding that in the settings menu of the Gmail app, but there's nothing there about that, just signatures and such.
I am running gumbo 1.5c bare, so it's quick (no sense UI) but battery is just as bad as with sense.
I'm not running setCPU or anything, just gbhil's kernel (i think?)
I'm about ready to spring for an 1800 mAh battery
dangit

Hate to say it, but I'm glad im nota lone on this one. Misery loves company.
I'm gettin tired of reading about people claiming they get 2 days of moderate use out a hero without charging, with a stock battery. "Oh, with this new rom I just tried, after 12 hours I was below 50%, this is unacceptable, I can normally go 2 days without charging." WTF? Did they just build a choice few heros with super batteries? Just wondering.

sirstanley said:
Hate to say it, but I'm glad im nota lone on this one. Misery loves company.
I'm gettin tired of reading about people claiming they get 2 days of moderate use out a hero without charging, with a stock battery. "Oh, with this new rom I just tried, after 12 hours I was below 50%, this is unacceptable, I can normally go 2 days without charging." WTF? Did they just build a choice few heros with super batteries? Just wondering.
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Lol, sorry man (I'm guessing you read my post at one point, 12 hours to 50%, it really did annoy me lol). I CAN get 2 days using Fresh 1.1, gumbo kernel, and SetCPU. Granted, I don't use my phone nearly as much as a lot of the people on here, but I also sit in areas with little to no service for most of my time, which can have a drastic effect on battery life.

rt1oo said:
I'm having the same results as you. I have a non-"with google" Hero200, and my battery life absolutely sucks.
Today, took it off the charger at about 10:30, now at 3:30 it was down to 20% battery.
this was leaving mobile data on and a few text messages.
How exactly do you choose how often you want email to sync? I tried finding that in the settings menu of the Gmail app, but there's nothing there about that, just signatures and such.
I am running gumbo 1.5c bare, so it's quick (no sense UI) but battery is just as bad as with sense.
I'm not running setCPU or anything, just gbhil's kernel (i think?)
I'm about ready to spring for an 1800 mAh battery
dangit
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OUCH. I unplugged mine at 9am, it's now nearly 4, and I'm only down to 80%. Had WiFi on all morning, and mobile on from noon on. Sent a dozen texts, and read a half dozen emails (syncs every 15 min). Mobile data SHOULD sleep when your phone goes to sleep, and I think it'll turn on when your accounts/email sync. Same thing with WiFi.
I'm amazed at the massive variation in battery life people have. I wonder if there were a few different manufacturers of batteries, and that's causing the problem.

But I cant even bring my phone into the building so it sits in my glovebox with all data services off and no apps running for 13 hours and its at ten percent when I get off work. I just don't get it. I think I'm gonna wipe, reflash Fresh 1.1, reflash Gumbo, and start over.

sirstanley said:
But I cant even bring my phone into the building so it sits in my glovebox with all data services off and no apps running for 13 hours and its at ten percent when I get off work. I just don't get it. I think I'm gonna wipe, reflash Fresh 1.1, reflash Gumbo, and start over.
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Wow, it sounds more like something might be wrong with your battery.
I could turn everything off on mine, and leave it sit in an area with decent service, and probably get over 2 days out of it...so that just seems odd. Are you running SetCPU? That'll help. Set it at either 160 or 245 min, and 528 max. "On Demand" seems to be working the best for me. It'll basically drop your processor speed when the phone's asleep, and bring it back up when you need it.

daryelv said:
It really sounds like you have a background task that is running and not letting your phone sleep. I turn off mobile internet at night (so I don't get bugged with Tweets and other alerts) and my battery drops 3-4% overnight (7-8 hours while sleeping). What is your awake time?
On a full charge, I can go all day (7am - 10pm) and still have more than 30% left. I have 2 email accounts, each set to sync every 30 minutes, a twitter app set to sync every 15 minutes, and I don't use weather or location services. I think a lot of people experience poor battery life due to signal quality. I get really good signals at home and a fairly decent signal at work as long as I say out of the lower (basement) floors.
-Daryel
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+1 on this. While I understand you're a Sprint tech, it's still good to check the awake time, as it's a good indicator that something's awry. You said you run minimal apps, do you run any weather apps at all? Had some bad luck with those. Also, do you roam? I know setting it to Sprint Only helped me at home, and this is what you suggest to ppl everyday, so I'm not telling you anything, but some of the things we KNOW to be absolutely true can be wrong under our noses sometimes because we're so sure. Double check everything again.
I know it's painful to think of this as a viable solution, but there absolutely IS a way to determine if it's apps or not. I've had great luck with Fresh 1.1 AND Gumbo 1.5b. SetCPU and Gumbo Kernel made it even better.
Try this: Install either Gumbo or Fresh 1.1, the Gumbo Kernel, and setCPU (that one is optional for you I suppose, but I'd recommend it)
Don't install a single app or widget for the first day. Not a single one. Leave it for 24 hours, and see the battery life. (exceptions for apps that don't run in the background or connect for data or updates)
Then install them one by one until you find your culprit. This is how I found the weather widget was sucking the life out of my hero.
I too, have a non "with google" hero 200, and I have GREAT battery life, and even had great battery life on Fresh 1.1 when I had near 80 apps installed.
I'd bet money it's something in the background. I can speak a lot for Fresh 1.1 as I've used it the most. Great ROM, great battery life.
Btw, I also have two email accounts, one Exchange, one Gmail, BOTH set to "as items arrive" and I still can go from morning to bed on a charge with no probs.
**EDIT**
To echo Tatonka_hero, I also recommend doing the ondemand 528/245 as it worked really well for me. I got even better battery life when going that route than before, although I was never complaining about battery life in the first place.

my opinion.. it has to be something due to the signal strength.
I wonder if there is a way.. to check and monitor how often the phone looses tower contact? Then it has to try to find the next tower available, then has to bounce back to the closer one when it pops up? Is it constantly, jumping from one week signal to the next?
Which would keep the radio up and running... while the phone itself looks asleep.
Just me guessing.. with no Knowledge to base this off of.

I don't use any weather apps. A list of every app I have that didnt come with the phone:
Handcent
Shortcovers
Lightning Bug
Gensoid
GBCoid
Spare Parts
Terminal
ES File Explorer
SetCPU
I know you guys are really stuck on the idea that I'm running some intresting app, but I'm sorry to dissapoint. I wiped the phone, flashed Modaco, wiped, flashed Fresh 1.0, wiped, flashed Fresh 1.1, wiped, flashed gumbo. And then I re-downloaded the apps above. I work 7 days a week, I like to read Ebooks before I go to bed, I use lightning bug when I sleep, and if I'm riding with someone I play my emulators. Thats the story of my phone use. Also listen to music if I take a day off and im playing xbox. Theres nothing running in the background. I always have at lest 3-4 bars of signal strength. I turn off mobile network (data) when not using it. I keep my GPS off. I check Spare Parts, and everything in there is pretty much correct. My phones awake time is about 20%, if that. haven't checked in a couple days. So, tonight I'm gonna wipe, re-install Fresh 1.1, re-install Gumbo, and see if that helps at all. Is there any kind of consensus on the best settings for setCPU to save my battery?

sirstanley said:
I don't use any weather apps. A list of every app I have that didnt come with the phone:
Handcent
Shortcovers
Lightning Bug
Gensoid
GBCoid
Spare Parts
Terminal
ES File Explorer
SetCPU
I know you guys are really stuck on the idea that I'm running some intresting app, but I'm sorry to dissapoint. I wiped the phone, flashed Modaco, wiped, flashed Fresh 1.0, wiped, flashed Fresh 1.1, wiped, flashed gumbo. And then I re-downloaded the apps above. I work 7 days a week, I like to read Ebooks before I go to bed, I use lightning bug when I sleep, and if I'm riding with someone I play my emulators. Thats the story of my phone use. Also listen to music if I take a day off and im playing xbox. Theres nothing running in the background. I always have at lest 3-4 bars of signal strength. I turn off mobile network (data) when not using it. I keep my GPS off. I check Spare Parts, and everything in there is pretty much correct. My phones awake time is about 20%, if that. haven't checked in a couple days. So, tonight I'm gonna wipe, re-install Fresh 1.1, re-install Gumbo, and see if that helps at all. Is there any kind of consensus on the best settings for setCPU to save my battery?
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Thanks for the detailed reply...it helps us get a better picture of your habits.
That being said, use the ondemand 528/245 and you should be just fine. Make sure to set it to save those settings on reboot too, because setCPU used to (not sure if it still does) set itself to performance mode on reboot otherwise which would definitely drain your battery.

alright this is probably a stupid question but how do i check awake time with spare parts? is it under battery history? then is it partial wake usage option?
And is Locale.apk known to be a battery hog...I feel like it might be...ouch.

rt1oo said:
alright this is probably a stupid question but how do i check awake time with spare parts? is it under battery history? then is it partial wake usage option?
And is Locale.apk known to be a battery hog...I feel like it might be...ouch.
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It's just under Settings > About Phone > Status then all the way down

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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Click to collapse
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..

[SOLVED] Battery drain with data usage on vs. off

Hello peeps,
During the last couple of days I've read up a lot on the topic of battery drain. The reason is that a few weeks ago I could go for days without charging my phone with minimum usage with data traffic and gps turned on, display set to auto adjust the brightness etc. I basically didn't take any extreme ways to save my battery, as I simply didn't need to. But then I flashed Doc's and Stefunel's latest rom, with hardcore's kernel and all that. You know, pretty standard, nothing special. DTJP3 modem, the standard one for Australia. Was great for a start.
But then the horror began, after about a week. I've noticed that the up/download arrows are pretty much constantly glowing up there, and the battery drains in hours! I can't notice that my data usage have gone up a lot though. So I've tried that battery settings wipe thingy and some other stuff. Changed modem to JPY, which is also supposed to work in Australia (Even better from what I've heard). And sure, feels like I might have a bar or two better in reception. But the upload/download is still constantly on.
This is when I tried turning that of. I turned of data usage, gps, bluetooth, wifi, set brightness to lowest and downloaded Battery Snap. So with everything turned off, my battery dropped an average of ~0.5%/hour without usage. SWEET! Then I turned on data usage, and nothing more. It dropped 23% for the first hour, and 13 for the next half hour. Didn't think about actually checking the temp, but it was warm. Like when you use it.
This turned out to be an awful lot of text for just this question, but what could be the problem? Is there any way to check what's leaking? I've got SGS email on push only, no task killer, WiFi turned of, so those can't possibly be leaking, could it?

about 5% per hr here with data on, may be you got something in behind hog the cpu an keep sendibg data
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Sounds like an app keeping data connection on. Try kill all apps, look on the services and kill the ones which are not nessesary.
I get ~ 1.5% per hour drain with mail sync every 30min with 3g on ...
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Yes, 1-5% per hr is pretty much what I'm looking for, and had before. It's definitely not CPU, as I've got OSmonitor, and nothing shows up there as hogging it.
I'll try killing app after app through OSmonitor, thanks for that tip.
Oh, and btw, I turned data usage off during night. It has dropped 1% in 9 hours now

That was easy
com.seven.Z7.service is the villain here. Isn't that the SGS email client? Even though I have push? Thought that wouldn't be a problem then...

com.seven.Z7.service kept starting again, but the I went into "Settings -> Apps -> Manage Apps" and killed Social Hub. Voila! It worked. Even though I started Social Hub up again after, it worked. Weird... Or, not 100% sure yet, but so far it works. will check the battery drainage first in a few hours

Good have you have probably found it! One sidenote i have stopped using the sgs email client since i had the problem that new emails werent showing up ... i switched to k9 - you can try this if the problem stays ...
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Oh, that might be an option. But, ye, we'll see if it works. If not, I'll consider K9
Thanks for helping me find the problem.

jaansson said:
Oh, that might be an option. But, ye, we'll see if it works. If not, I'll consider K9
Thanks for helping me find the problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Had the same problem with my SGH-959d (Telus Fascinate). Tracked down the culprit with Droidwall and then found your post. Killed the process through manage apps like you did and same results. Pulling battery didn't work, changing sync settings either so thanks a million for this!

I had a similar problem with my battery graph nose diving. I only realised my data was going through the roof when I started getting 'your are using to much data' text from my operator.
What I found helped was going into Settings->Privacy and turn off 'Back up my data'
Now I get I can go a day without charge. Instead of and hour and a bit... would be interesting to know if it helps you?
(On XXJVO no mods)

good tip about back up... but what do we loose?

A nice tip could be turn 2g/3g on/off when need it. Its a good way of saving battery.

I too am curious as to what id lost if we turn off back up data
Sent from my GT-I9000M using XDA App

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)

[Q] Battery life terrible, despite trying all the supposed "fixes", hardware problem?

[Q] Battery life terrible, despite trying all the supposed "fixes", hardware problem?
I got my N4 a bit less than a month ago by this point. I've rooted and tried most ROMS from stock to CM10.1 to PA, etc. However, my battery life is consistently not so good. Coming from a One XL on CM10, I was used to bad battery life, but I expected the N4 to be better.
I don't have any screenshots, but here are my averages:
Time on Battery: 10-14 hours
Screen on: ~1.5 hours (usually, never have gotten over 2.5)
Android OS kept awake: ~1-1.5 hours
I know I'm among the group of people with the problem of Android OS keeping the phone awake, and I see all of these kernels attempting to fix the msm_hsic_wakelock issue, but I'm still having that as well.
I'm always on auto-brightness, Google sync on (calendar, chrome, gmail), Google Now enabled, etc. I'm also always on data, usually 2 bars + (the signal never gets worse than yellow on the battery graph.
Lastly, on wifi, all of these issues are gone. My idle battery drain is also phenomanol on wifi compared to data or even no wifi + no data. In about 8 hours I drained ~8% even with the data off.
Any ideas? I'm getting really frustrated. I see people claiming 2+ hours screen time or 20+ hours on battery on stock phones! I'm nowhere near the average battery times.

I know I'm among the group of people with the problem of Android OS keeping the phone awake, and I see all of these kernels attempting to fix the msm_hsic_wakelock issue, but I'm still having that as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android OS is not keeping your phone awake. It's one of those crappy apps you have installed that are causing a wakelock causing the phone not to deep sleep.
Download: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1179809
Use it to debug partial and kernel wakelocks (primarily partial wakelocks). Check CPU states using that app or download CPU Spy from play store.
It needs to be deep sleeping.
Google Now: Disable cards that you dont use.
Turn off auto brightness and adjust it to your liking (CM10.1 has a feature if you long press on status bar it will adjust its brightness so you can do it like that).
Use Franco Kernel r23 (it's the most stable one, if you want to experiment you can try r26).
Google Maps: turn off Google Maps Latitude and its automatic reporting of your location and uncheck auto reporting in your location.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...xLDEsImNvbS5iaWdleWVzMHgwLnRyaWNrc3Rlcm1vZCJd use that app with Franco Kernel (or buy his app) to adjust its kernel settings.
http://zephik.com/upload/Screenshot_2012-12-14-19-05-58.png is a screenshot from last month. Pretty good battery overall for me.
Press the thanks if I helped. Will reply back if you have any questions or follow ups.

I've been on CM10.1 nightly 1231 for 3 days now and I can happily say that my battery is much better than before.
I've averaging 24-28 hours with 3 hours screen on with data only and usually charging at around 10%.
Always Enabled:
All Location Services
Google Sync
Always Disabled (except when needed):
Google Maps/Latitude location settings
Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS
Google Now cards that I don't normally use
Some things I've noticed:
- When I flash a new ROM and restore my TiBu (flashable zip or regular restore) I find that my battery life is average at best.
- When I flash a new ROM and fresh install my apps from the Play Store my battery life is good to great.
- Third party kernels can sometimes be wonky on this phone. I haven't tried Faux or Franco kernel since flashing 1231 because I've been getting great performance on CM kernel.
- When my kernel CPU is set to "ondemand" the performance is average at best. Changing it to "interactive" has helped improve my battery life... with no other kernel tweaks involved.
Apps like Facebook and Facebook Messenger seem to cause issues with my battery life also. When I was on CM10.1 nightly 1223 I had Facebook Messenger installed and my averages were 12-14 hours off battery. So by eliminating a few apps on fresh ROM installs I've been able to see the different effects they've had on my battery life. Basically any app that uses GPS can potentially be a battery hog even when the phone is not in use.
So from my points above are also some of my takeaways. Try a fresh install and watch what apps you install. Try a few different kernel governors (esp if you're on a custom ROM). You can improve performance by trial and error!
Good luck.
EDIT: zephiK's points above are also valid and I can confirm they've helped my battery life also.

asawoszc said:
I've been on CM10.1 nightly 1231 for 3 days now and I can happily say that my battery is much better than before.
I've averaging 24-28 hours with 3 hours screen on with data only (WiFi disabled) and usually charging at around 10%. All Location Services (with exception of Google Maps/Latitude) are enabled and as well as Google Sync.
Some things I've noticed:
- When I flash a new ROM and restore my TiBu (flashable zip or regular restore) I find that my battery life is average at best.
- When I flash a new ROM and fresh install my apps from the Play Store my battery life is good to great.
- Third party kernels can sometimes be wonky on this phone. I haven't tried Faux or Franco kernel since flashing 1231 because I've been getting great performance on CM kernel.
- When my kernel CPU is set to "ondemand" the performance is average at best. Changing it to "interactive" has helped improve my battery life... with no other kernel tweaks involved.
Apps like Facebook Messenger seem to cause issues with my battery life also. When I was on CM10.1 nightly 1223 I had FB Msgr installed and my averages were 12-14 hours off battery. So by eliminating a few apps on fresh ROM installs I've been able to see the different effects they've had on my battery life.
So from my points above are also some of my takeaways. Try a fresh install and watch what apps you install. Try a few different kernel governors (esp if you're on a custom ROM). You can improve performance by trial and error!
Good luck.
EDIT: zephiK's points above are also valid and I can confirm they've helped my battery life also.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree 100% with Facebook. The facebook app sucks your battery life HARD, especially if you plan to have it refreshing intervals. The app continues to request GPS location, so therefore because of that I disable the GPS on my phone completely (its that bug where if u have GPS globally on your phone you see it on the top left of your screen, and it doesnt go away). I leave FB all notifications off and manually sync it by pulling up on news feed. It's either that or check FB via mobile webpage.
Another thing I forgot is your refresh intervals. Make sure your apps don't have it on like syncing every 5/10/15/30/45/60 minutes. Set it to a couple hours more. using a twitter app? instead of having it sync in the background, just manually do it so you get all the missing tweets all at once. No reason to have it sync in the background randomly.
+1 on interactive. on Franco kernel it uses Interactive as it's default governor and it includes a lot of the latest interactive patches that really help out. It also includes qualcomm fixes with msic (not 100% but its better than stock), and newer drivers that will most likely be included in the next OTA.

Thank you for the replies everyone. In regards to all of the fixes you've suggested, I've tried all of them in the past week or two based on hours and hours of reading. This problem even exists on a freshly installed ROM with the bare minimum apps.
Now that I think about it, I wonder if there may be a problem with the radio in my phone. I live on a farm with an AT&T tower, yet I'm only getting "ok" signal, when I should be getting perfect signal. Called Google and just ordered my RMA, seeing as this battery problem has persisted from the day I first loaded up stock 4.2.1 on the phone upon receiving it.

If you constantly have a low signal, that will drain your battery a lot, because it has to boost the signal and that needs a lot more power.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium

nosenuggets45 said:
Now that I think about it, I wonder if there may be a problem with the radio in my phone. I live on a farm with an AT&T tower, yet I'm only getting "ok" signal, when I should be getting perfect signal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This would have been useful in your original post. Obviously "worse" signal is going to cause more drain on your battery. Hopefully it's just a flaky radio for you but if the replacement has the same issues then it's something else and you should keep at it until you figure it out! That's half the fun with these phones.

My only concern was that he said android os was up there, so that means he has a app preventing his phone from sleeping.
personally i wouldnt take a RMA on poor battery life but as a result due to signal.... but yeah signal does play a huge factor in your battery life