Database Users

About battery drain issues on A500

There is a big debate about the issue of the telephony system draining the battery life on the Iconia A500.
One way to solve the problem is renaming the .apk causing it, but it can brick your device if you do a factory reset. The other aproach is to edit a single file and set the cell conection to GSM (so no constant polling).
But, IMHO, a process doesn't, consume power. The power is consumed by the hardware of the device. The mW consumed by a process should be the sum of display + system + wifi + other hardware during the period of time the process has been active.
However, the device suffering from a "Cell Standby" issue is a wifi only version, and it drains nearly a third of energy compared to the display comssuotion (a purely hardware part).
So, my question is, if something is consuming so much energy, could it be a hardware device?. Maybe the only part missing on the A500 is a less than 2$ sim socket.
Anybody brave enough to do a tear down of his device? (And do a lot of pictures, a la ifixit)
Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App

Hmm, I like your thinking. I might have a go. Mine arrives tomorrow.

I'd be very interested in this also.
I've noticed that on the status screen from the about screen on my wife's A500 it lists the sku as 3G and one of the version numbers is listed as A501. (Though the firmware is A500)

I am on my second A500 (first one appeared to have wifi issues) and neither has had a battery drain issue while using or in sleep mode. I do use Advanced Task Manager to exit any non-system tasks, but that should not make much of a difference.
I lose no more than 5% after ten hours in sleep mode and a full charged tablet lasts me a little over eight hours with (for me) heavy use. I have yet to have it die on me and if I do less Flash streaming, it lasts ten hours.
Of course, "use" is very subjective, which a a reason battery threads kind of tend to spin in circles.

rushless said:
I am on my second A500 (first one appeared to have wifi issues) and neither has had a battery drain issue while using or in sleep mode. I do use Advanced Task Manager to exit any non-system tasks, but that should not make much of a difference.
I lose no more than 5% after ten hours in sleep mode and a full charged tablet lasts me a little over eight hours with (for me) heavy use. I have yet to have it die on me and if I do less Flash streaming, it lasts ten hours.
Of course, "use" is very subjective, which a a reason battery threads kind of tend to spin in circles.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I see the same thing, about 5-6% when sleeping overnight, and I think the chatter about battery drain is meaningless. Sure, it says "cell standby" is 30% but,
a) That is 30% of a small number , i.e., 30% of 6% = <2% loss
b) I tried some of the proposed solutions in the Battery Drain thread in the dev section - there was little difference before and after
I think the whole thing is a waste of effortg - the battery drain is no more than I had using CM7 on a rooted Nook Color - less than 1% per hour and I think all the related threads are solutions looking for a problem!

Inside the A500
http://www.androidtablets.net/forum...77-whats-under-hood-acer-iconia-tab-a500.html

rosentorp said:
http://www.androidtablets.net/forum...77-whats-under-hood-acer-iconia-tab-a500.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
according to his post, there is no mobile broadband module. so if there is any battery drain from "cell signal" it would be because the system isn't able to sleep.
android simply thinks there is no service and isn't designed to ignore the cellular state when the hardware isn't present.

It's very clear from the pictures that there is no cellular module inside the wifi version
But, it 's also clear, the telephony system is polling for data, and waking up constantly the device (even when there's no hardware attached!!).
It's an Acer-centric problem, let's hope they fix it in the next update.
Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App

I thought the a500 does have a sim slot next to the sd card slot? You can see the cover over it
Sent from my Samsung Vibrant using XDA Premium App

Ok. I can't post a picture because I haven't made enough posts but if you look at:
Immortal.homedns.org/android/a500devinfo.jpg
You will see an image of the device information screen on my a500. Does everyone else see the same? I'm just curious as to whether all a500s are created equal.

immortal99 said:
Ok. I can't post a picture because I haven't made enough posts but if you look at:
Immortal.homedns.org/a500devinfo.jpg
You will see an image of the device information screen on my a500. Does everyone else see the same? I'm just curious as to whether all a500s are created equal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm getting a page not found error at that url.
Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App

hurrpancakes said:
I'm getting a page not found error at that url.
Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oops!. I've updated the url. Now working.

No battery usage statistics?

When I open the battery usage option, I get usage information unavailable. Any ideas? Unrooted 3.1 so no mods.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

skyfox99 said:
When I open the battery usage option, I get usage information unavailable. Any ideas? Unrooted 3.1 so no mods.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think all transformers are like that. My UK one has been with 3.0 and 3.1 anyway.

Not mine on 3.0. I remember because it would say cell service usage and wondering why if it didn't have a cell radio.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

skyfox99 said:
Not mine on 3.0. I remember because it would say cell service usage and wondering why if it didn't have a cell radio.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We're not talking about the info on when radios etc. are active, but the display that's missing which should show when individual apps are active.

If I check the battery usage it says unavailable. F I click on the battery it list what is consuming the battery (wifi, stand by, etc.). But I cannot check wich apps have been active.
Regards.

Same here - TF from US with official 3.1
No individual app usage statistics...

Hopefully, sooner or later (in 3.2 maybe?) they will fix this...

Even Spare Parts in root FC's. Like you all, I hope there's a fix soon.

I just got my transformer yesterday from bestbuy and i was wondering if there was an app of widget that could display battery percentage and statistics. I've had my transformer docked unplugged for almost 4 hours now and the battery still shows 100%. No way that can be right. Ive also read somewherethere is a dual battery/dock widgetor guage but i cant find it in my widgets list. Is there such a widget or app?

teegunn said:
I just got my transformer yesterday from bestbuy and i was wondering if there was an app of widget that could display battery percentage and statistics. I've had my transformer docked unplugged for almost 4 hours now and the battery still shows 100%. No way that can be right. Ive also read somewherethere is a dual battery/dock widgetor guage but i cant find it in my widgets list. Is there such a widget or app?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your tablet battery is staying at 100% because you're running off the dock battery. Install this widget to get details for both.
https://market.android.com/details?id=org.flexlabs.widgets.dualbattery

Oppps, double post.

I use "Wheres My Droid Power", it's not optimized for the TF screen but it work to tell you what's using what percentage of your battery power.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.tools.power&feature=search_result
For those wondering what we're talking about,
Compare the Android phone's battery status to TF battery status page.

baseballfanz said:
I use "Wheres My Droid Power", it's not optimized for the TF screen but it work to tell you what's using what percentage of your battery power.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.tools.power&feature=search_result
For those wondering what we're talking about,
Compare the Android phone's battery status to TF battery status page.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If yiu click on the graph it will give you more not. Not as much as the phone, but useful info anyway.
Regards.

this is strange because my TF used to displaybattery use info for each app, but it no longer does so. I havent upgraded rom / rooted or anything so why would it work once, and suddenly no longer work? Odd...

nforsans said:
this is strange because my TF used to displaybattery use info for each app, but it no longer does so. I havent upgraded rom / rooted or anything so why would it work once, and suddenly no longer work? Odd...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you sure you're not muddling things up with another Android device you've owned or used? I've never seen a single report from anybody else of the per-app battery use monitoring working, nor have I ever seen it work myself (and I was a pretty early adopter in the US market).

Wiping battery stats doesn't improve battery life, says Google engineer

This file (batterystats.bin) is used to maintain, across reboots, low-level data about the kinds of operations the device and your apps are doing between battery changes. That is, it is solely used to compute the blame for battery usage shown in the "Battery Use" UI in settings. That is, it has deeply significant things like "app X held a wake lock for 2 minutes" and "the screen was on at 60% brightness for 10 minutes."
It has no impact on the current battery level shown to you. It has no impact on your battery life. -Diane Hackborn
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SOURCE

Someone should add a message in CWM recovery so that when a user selects the "Wipe Battery Stats" option it will display text that says something along the same lines as this.
WiredPirate said:
SOURCE
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I wonder they took so long to say anything about this. There have been great debates about this over the years on the internet.

I assure you the debates will continue, just look at the comments from the source lol.

i never heard someone claim this improves battery life, isnt this just to get an accurate reading?

sanriver12 said:
i never heard someone claim this improves battery life, isnt this just to get an accurate reading?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly.
This right here should be a well known fact by now.
Sent from my Atrix 4g using Tapatalk

True. No dev has said it improves battery. It is known it can get corrupted between roms and thats the reason we do it, so the real consumption is shown and achieved by device.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

Abu-7abash said:
Exactly.
This right here should be a well known fact by now.
Sent from my Atrix 4g using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Obviously not since a Google Engineer felt the need to elaborate. Just look at the comments and you will see there is plenty of discussion about it. Your statement is equivalent to saying we dont need a noob guide because everybody already knows how to do it. Besides most people don't read these forums as much as we do so with all the misinformation it's good to get the word straight from Google. Also Google phones are still for sale last time I checked so maybe someone is just now joining us. Or maybe someone forgot to read their well known fact checklist that came with their phone lmao.

MX battery life?

Hi! I got my MX couple of months ago, and I can tell I love it. Anyways the only things I wasnt happy with were the battery life and reception, and so I updated my phone's flyme os yesterday. (from 1.0.3 to 1.1.1)
I assumed the update would fix the issues ( as I think it did for the reception ) but the battery seems to be even more horrible after the update.
It seems that after the update my MX didnt even completely charge up. I put my phone on the charger at around 2:30 and unplugged it at 13:30, so it was on power for about 11 hours, but it didnt even charge itself completely in addition to the fact that it stopped actually charging at around 8 o clock as we can clearly see from the "today" screenshot.
Then comparing it to the "yesterday" screenshot with 1.0.3 we can tell it charged itself up completely.
Ive got the new 2core model with the updated 1700 mah battery (which should have the best battery life of all of the mx models) and this makes me wonder what is the battery like on the other mx's if this is normal. And yes my phone was showing the charging animation on the screen during the time I mentioned earlier in the message.
Sent from my M031 using xda app-developers app

my batterylife got perfect with 1.1.3 after i flashed the fw twice with clearing data

crimsonmeizu said:
my batterylife got perfect with 1.1.3 after i flashed the fw twice with clearing data
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the tip, I'll try this right away. Flyme will backup all data, right?

Except apps. If you have it enabled.

1.0.3 here, quad core model, my battery is fine, gets me over a day with normal use.
However I admit that it could be better.
Its also well known that 1.1.1 contained a bug that ate battery, so stay away from that firmware.
I didn't test 1.1.3 yet.

MrColdbird said:
1.0.3 here, quad core model, my battery is fine, gets me over a day with normal use.
However I admit that it could be better.
Its also well known that 1.1.1 contained a bug that ate battery, so stay away from that firmware.
I didn't test 1.1.3 yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info. Im currently on 1.1.3 and the battery seems even worse than it was. I really dont know what to do - the battery runs out in just couple of hours.
Hows your reception? Do you get good speeds all the time ? Did the update have effect on that? Mines horrible.. ;s
Sent from my M031 using xda app-developers app

Try to restore as less as possible. Disable WiFi never sleeps.

crimsonmeizu said:
Try to restore as less as possible. Disable WiFi never sleeps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Restore, wifi never sleeps, what? I dont get it
Sent from my M031 using xda app-developers app

My MX arrives this week and I'll be measuring the battery carefully to see if I can't find a replacement. (Yes, I realize it's not supposed to be "user replaceable", but the teardowns confirm that it is if you've got the patience and dedication. Here's hoping there is a higher-capacity battery in the same form factor.) Apps are nice, but more juice is better.

samanen said:
Restore, wifi never sleeps, what? I dont get it
Sent from my M031 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After upgrading restore only as less as possible. Never use a full restore with titanium etc.
Disable WiFi never sleeps option.

crimsonmeizu said:
After upgrading restore only as less as possible. Never use a full restore with titanium etc.
Disable WiFi never sleeps option.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where can I find that option ?
And I've never heard of titanium, haha.

Settings - WiFi - menu key - Advanced
One more thing: disable sync for unnecessary accounts

crimsonmeizu said:
Settings - WiFi - menu key - Advanced
One more thing: disable sync for unnecessary accounts
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Huge thanks. Already disabled all sync except flyme.
1.1.5 is out, do you think I should try that? Theres no thing mentioned about battery in the changelog but there's some magic in updates sometimes, isn't there?

Hehe that's true. I use 1.1.5 and it feels pretty good.

1.1.5 is nice, however there is a bug in android terminal emulator.
The osk wont work until you change the input type setting to word based.
I also suggest prerooting the image, Ubuntu works nicely on it too.

crimsonmeizu said:
Hehe that's true. I use 1.1.5 and it feels pretty good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What kind of changes have you experienced? Anything with battery life ? Smoother?
MrColdbird said:
1.1.5 is nice, however there is a bug in android terminal emulator.
The osk wont work until you change the input type setting to word based.
I also suggest prerooting the image, Ubuntu works nicely on it too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I heard about that bug, but that's an easy fix isn't that Also never ran into the need of terminal on my MX.
There was someone on meizume forums telling he could upload a prerooted image of 1.1.5, and as I have 0 experience on how to preroot the file I wish he could do that. You see I'm a newbie - don't just tell me to do things, please tell me HOW to do the things aswell ^^,

Kedros uploaded one already. You can just fetch his.

Battery is 71mm x 35mm x Unknown Depth. If I can find a few batteries matching the length-width, I can start trying to transplant them into my MX quad core.

Please keep us updated on that.
I would love to stick a higher capacity battery in there.

MrColdbird said:
Please keep us updated on that.
I would love to stick a higher capacity battery in there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, Id love that too! Please keep us updated
E: Already have my phone rooted (thanks to kedros), lets keep it on topic.
Sent from my M031 using xda app-developers app

LRX21Q Improvements

So, I manually flashed the recent OTA. Felt like sharing what I have noticed.
For one thing, EVERYTHING is snappier. Going into recent apps is fast, home screen and apps don't take forever to load. That's a definite improvement. If it changes after running for awhile, I'll update.
Google Now's Always On voice recognition now works. I couldn't get it to work while away from the Google Now launcher before the update.
Uncertain about battery consumption with browsers yet. I'm hopeful, and the back of my tablet not being a toaster oven all the time while browsing on Xda gives me hope, but again, this is me just being hopeful.
Nothing for enabling the notification LED yet. Weird.
All I can see. Share what you've seen here.

st33med said:
Uncertain about battery consumption with browsers yet. I'm hopeful, and the back of my tablet not being a toaster oven all the time while browsing on Xda gives me hope, but again, this is me just being hopeful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the impressions. Hopefully the excessive power usage while using browser is fixed or will be soon.
I will note though that even though it shouldn't need to be used to avoid using Chrome, I think that using Tapatalk to browse XDA is a better experience. IMO, of course.

Fromako said:
Thanks for the impressions. Hopefully the excessive power usage while using browser is fixed or will be soon.
I will note though that even though it shouldn't need to be used to avoid using Chrome, I think that using Tapatalk to browse XDA is a better experience. IMO, of course.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I noticed this too and im glad it wasnt only me. Certain websites cause the tablet to heat up, sometimes taking up as much as 40-50% CPU in the background until i force stop it.

Just flashed and rerooted. I hope its smooth now

mk92595 said:
Just flashed and rerooted. I hope its smooth now
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
can you confirm that CF-Auto-Root still works with the latest OTA?

nealkoy said:
can you confirm that CF-Auto-Root still works with the latest OTA?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes.

Will do a factory reset after this update to get a smooth new start

Any updates on the heated section next to the camera where the processor is at?

ElementalXY said:
Any updates on the heated section next to the camera where the processor is at?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That heat is coming from the processor, that just means it's just under heavy load.

Sadly, WiFi 802.1x auth still doesn't work (PEAP) and the "Sign-in to Wifi network" screen is still blank for me. (Tested with Cisco Wireless LAN Controller at work.)

st33med said:
So, I manually flashed the recent OTA. Felt like sharing what I have noticed.
For one thing, EVERYTHING is snappier. Going into recent apps is fast, home screen and apps don't take forever to load. That's a definite improvement. If it changes after running for awhile, I'll update.
Google Now's Always On voice recognition now works. I couldn't get it to work while away from the Google Now launcher before the update.
Uncertain about battery consumption with browsers yet. I'm hopeful, and the back of my tablet not being a toaster oven all the time while browsing on Xda gives me hope, but again, this is me just being hopeful.
Nothing for enabling the notification LED yet. Weird.
All I can see. Share what you've seen here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've noticed the same thing. Basically the stutter and lags have pretty much been fixed. For those wondering the home screen refresh has also been fixed.
I've been testing battery life today in combination with the chrome beta browser. Where I used to get 4/5 hours of sot with a single charge I'm now at 4.15 minutes of sot with 52% of battery left.
The new update has done wonders for the n9 and it just shows how much lollipop is still in it's infancy and still needs some updates to get everything sorted out. I'm sure it's the same for the Nexus 6.
Sent from my Nexus 9 using Tapatalk

scandalousk said:
I've noticed the same thing. Basically the stutter and lags have pretty much been fixed. For those wondering the home screen refresh has also been fixed.
I've been testing battery life today in combination with the chrome beta browser. Where I used to get 4/5 hours of sot with a single charge I'm now at 4.15 minutes of sot with 52% of battery left.
The new update has done wonders for the n9 and it just shows how much lollipop is still in it's infancy and still needs some updates to get everything sorted out. I'm sure it's the same for the Nexus 6.
Sent from my Nexus 9 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
IS this refresh the re-draw of the launcher when turning the device orientation in an app and then exiting?

KinetiClutch said:
IS this refresh the re-draw of the launcher when turning the device orientation in an app and then exiting?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think he is referring to the re-draw that seems to occur randomly when returning back to the home screen. Based on the impressions I may just flash the factory image to LRX21Q if these improvements are widespread. I still haven't received the OTA and can't sideload it because my tablet is still on the pre-release BL for some reason.

mbirth said:
Sadly, WiFi 802.1x auth still doesn't work (PEAP) and the "Sign-in to Wifi network" screen is still blank for me. (Tested with Cisco Wireless LAN Controller at work.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Was never a problem with my nexus 9. Working flawless.

It feels faster for sure, doesn't seem to get as hot either but maybe it does.

Yes I definitely see the improvement. I was one of the first buyers on the first day. But the unit I got has defected NFC chip. I returned it and got a replacement. Latest update definitely fixed the stutters and lags. I can vow for this.

scandalousk said:
I've noticed the same thing. Basically the stutter and lags have pretty much been fixed. For those wondering the home screen refresh has also been fixed.
I've been testing battery life today in combination with the chrome beta browser. Where I used to get 4/5 hours of sot with a single charge I'm now at 4.15 minutes of sot with 52% of battery left.
The new update has done wonders for the n9 and it just shows how much lollipop is still in it's infancy and still needs some updates to get everything sorted out. I'm sure it's the same for the Nexus 6.
Sent from my Nexus 9 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is this under heavy usage?

Overheating and Screen Flickering
Do you think that the overheating issue near the camera and the issue where the screen is flickering when the device is not at full brightness, can be fixed by a software update or a firmware update?

ElementalXY said:
Is this under heavy usage?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
https://plus.google.com/u/0/stream/mentions
François Simond a kernel dev said this.
Francisco Franco9:36 AM+5
Just a heads-up, this OTA provides a VERY significant performance improvement - there was a Kernel regression that they fixed on this build regarding memory cgroups. Its very noticeable while using the tablet with this new patch.

I haven't noticed a difference yet but I didn't do s full wipe when I flashed.