Hi All,
I've seen a similar post regarding this issue but no answer as to why Xcpuscalar eats approx 40% constantly when the device is left idle. When first starting Xcpuscalar all appears to be ok. Then after about 30-60 seconds the cpu usage of Xcpuscalar shoots up to about 40% and stays there. You can see this either using the health meters page, the task bar CPU meter or any other tool such as task manager/Supertasks.
Never saw this issue on my Xda II. Does anyone else see this? Is it normal? I don't want to use this application if it is going to constantly eat my battery because of cpu usage it uses.
Cheers,
Richard.
What version of Xcpu are you using?
Try out the latest!
Underclock to improve battery life
This is purely in theory, but I was wondering if underclocking the cpu would allow for a little more battery time, like say setting it to 416mhz. Any thoughts anyone?
Try task manager and you will know which process eats cpu usage while you running xcpuscalar, may be xcpuscalar itself consumes cpu usage.
Then when you find which process uses more usage kill that process if it is not necessary or you can find why it eats lot of usage.
Be warned that this thread is now outdated. There might be more current guides available…
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO MAKING YOUR BATTERY LAST LONGER ON YOUR HTC HD2 WITH ANDROID
OK I suppose this should be stickied as I've found numerous threads saying various stuff, but not a single thread, dedicated solely to this, providing useful and organized info.
Note: This guide is by no means definitive. Please feel free to correct me and add more tips, I'll be sure to add them to this post.
STEPS:
1. Try out a few ROMs and Radios to see which combination works best for keeping Android run as long as possible.
I have yet to find the best combo for my phone, but generally, the lightest ROMs with not much bloat in them (lots of items removed, fast startup) work best. With Radios it's all trial and error – a Radio that works miracles for one user is useless for another. You just have to try and see.
I know this is probably driving you crazy as you can read it everywhere around, but this can't be stressed enough: Don't flash your phone with a ROM/Radio you're not absolutely sure won't brick it. No one wants you to brick your expensive device. Read the flashing guides very carefully before you go on and do it.
Updating your build's Kernel is also a good idea.
2. Make sure you boot Android up as fast after running Windows as possible.
This one is crucial as it seems to affect your battery a lot.
To aid this, you can:
Download and install this (free) app (Exceller Multiple Build Loader is what I use, but you can choose something else) for the WM6. It enables you to autoboot into Android in the timespan of three seconds after running Windows, which is what you ideally want to do.
Disable HTC Sense in WM, it's unnecessary if you just want to boot into Android and takes a lot of time to load up. To do this, go to System settings, press Home, go to the Items tab and uncheck HTC Sense. You may want to check Windows Default to have at least the Zune-style interface to start from, but this isn't necessary if you're ok with an empty homescreen in WM.
3. Decrease the system load by automatically killing apps you no longer use.
This one gives a fair battery boost. By default, Android keeps all apps ready in RAM even if you press Home or Back to exit them to make them start quickly next time you need them and to keep their state. Most apps have a suspend mode which enables them to demand close to zero system resources as they run in the background, but some don't and close to zero isn't zero.
Download and install Automatic Task Killer (free) from the Market.
It gives you a list of the installed apps and enables you to uncheck those you don't want to autokill. It can also add your new apps to the list automatically.
Don't forget to uncheck applications you need to be running constantly, such as SetCPU (see below).
According to hastarin, this doesn't give you a battery boost. See the "What DOESN'T improve battery life" section. You can use AutoKiller Memory Optimizer, if you want to tweak your RAM – this app lets you set the limits for automatically killing apps only when you're low on RAM, which in turn may give you a battery boost.
4. Decrease the CPU performance when it doesn't need to perform at full speed.
I'm sure you're proud of your HD2's Snapdragon running at 1 GHz, I know I am, but it also drains a lot of battery when running on full speed.
NOTE: Using SetCPU with hastarin's R8 Kernel makes it redundant as the Kernel already has an interactive CPU governor in it. Thanks to socrated13 and atticus182 for this tip.
Download and install SetCPU ($1.99) from the Market.
It allows you to underclock your CPU to save battery. You can set profiles and play around with them. Generally, you don't want to set the minimum frequency too low as some tasks may then consume significantly more time to complete, wasting the energy you gained.
If you just want to try the app first to see if it helps, you can get it for free (search for SetCPU here at xda) and donate later by buying it on the Market (and please do, the developer put a lot of effort into it).
5. [INFORMATIVE] See how much energy your phone drains.
This one is not compulsory, but helps to get a general idea of how much energy your phone drains when you do such and such.
Download and install the Current Widget (free) from this forum. Just do a search on "current widget" and it should be the first post that comes up (don't worry, yes it's under Samsung Vibrant, but it works just as good for the HD2)
It allows you to put a widget on one of your home screens, where you can see the current your phone is currently draining. Can be set to update at various intervals. I prefer 30 s as it gives me enough time to shut down an app and look at it to see how much current the app itself is draining.
6. Decrease the brightness of your display.
This saves an incredible amount of battery life. I know you love your AutoBrightness, but it sets the brightness unnecessarily high, so until someone makes an AutoBrightness app with customizable overall brightness (once I get into programming apps for the Droid a bit, I might do it), you're left with doing this yourself.
Download and install the Brightness Rocker Lite (free) app from the market.
It displays a brightness bar everytime you bring up the volume control and thus lets you quickly change the brightness. Use the minimum brightness to see everything clearly and you should conserve a lot of juice.
7. Only use wireless functions when needed.
Having the mobile data connection, wifi, GPS or bluetooth enabled all the time causes severe battery drain. Sometimes even after you disconnect, the data connection connects again without you even knowing, downloading Over-the-Air updates or Weather, draining your battery unnecessarily.
Have a quick way to monitor which services are on and to turn them off (preferrably, have a widget/widgets on your home screen - I recommend the native Android widgets).
8. Recondition your phone for your battery after flashing each new Android build. (Thanks to t1h5ta3 for this tip)
Flashing a new Android build erases the battery stats and automatically rebuilds them based on voltages it sees, i.e. you need to recondition after each flash to get max battery life. The values are stored in the following file: data/system/batterystats.bin – if you delete this file, you set the new ground for making a new one from the value you want.
You can use the "battery life" widget by curvefish to show you temperature, voltage etc. What you're going for is voltage larger than 4.2 V on full charge.
To recondition:
Turn off the phone, plug it in, preferably overnight.
Boot the phone up while still pluged in.
Delete the batterystats.bin file ether through adb or terminal.
Drain the battery fully, until it powers down. Wait a minute or two and reboot it to drain it completely.
Congrats... your phone now knows corect voltage values for 100% and dead.
To delete the batterystats.bin file:
Find the means to be able to punch in lines of code. You can do this either by downloading and setting up the Android SDK or using a simplifying app like Droid Explorer. Do a google search for whichever you prefer.
Punch in the following code:
Code:
rm data/system/batterystats.bin
Or just find the file in Droid Explorer and delete it.
What DOESN'T improve battery life:
Getting a slower (and thus presumably less power-consuming) SD Card – because a slower SD card actually makes things worse as it needs more time to perform a task and thus keep the CPU busy a longer time.
Underclocking your CPU too much – similar reasons
Killing tasks automatically immediately after closing them – this apparently makes battery life worse, because when a program is in RAM, it doesn't consume system resources, but when you run it again, it does. Thanks to hastarin for the clarification.
Useful threads concerning battery life:
[REF] UPDATE: ALL GOVERNORS! Save battery while running ANY Android build (featured by the xda crew)
battery voltage / wipe batt stats
Battery Solution the **FINAL POST**
Time to Recharge to Full Battery
[TIPS] Thoughts on improving battery life for Android on the HD2
[UPD] 48hours + battery with mDeejay Froyo Z v1.7
Best SD Card for Overall Android Battery Life
Increase Battery Life [WinMo registry tweaks - Need confirmation] (do give this a try)
Hope this helps. If you have more tips or on-topic threads, I'll be delighted to add.
also see http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=827355
a properly conditioned battery does wonders for battery life. a fully charged battery shuld be over 4.2v . i was finding that depending on the the true state of charge when flashing, that is the level that was being assumed by the phone as " 100%" charged. ie: when i flashed my current rom it quit charging @ only 3.7xx volts... far from fully charged.
see my thread on the file to delete etc.
edit: after doing alot more research; heres what ive found...
for what its worth: Li-Io battery technology realy isnt different whether it be a phone, rc car, etc...
our batterys are a single cell. ie: rated 3.7v
4.2-4.25v is concidered by the industry as fully charged
3.7v is nominal voltage
3.2v "shorted" voltage : ie: voltage sag due to max discharge @nominal voltage
3.0v discharged
2.5v protection circuitry kicks in.
this jives with what i am now seeing on my phone after wipeing stats and calibrating...
it is also a industry standard to fully discharge ( 3.0v )about every 30 discharge cycles.
edit
Thanks, I added your tip in the first post (will add the link to your thread too, forgot to do it now and can't edit within 5 minutes of last edit yet)
no problem.
im new to playing with the hd2, but been playing with android for well, just about 2 years (early G1 adopter)
it shocked me coming to this forum and seeing the same question worded diferently atleast 7 times on the first page.
lets hope mod's will sticky this..
I'm no expert but from what I've been seeing the difference setCPU makes with the new hastarin kernel's is negligible. In fact I don't think you can use setCPU with with r8 anymore...
Excellent thread! All info was scattered throughout the forums, and this is a nice thread to sum up everything!
Indeed, using hastarin's R8 you won't need to use setCPU since hastarin has included an interactive governor in his kernel
R8 is a vast improvement over the older kernels, I would reccommend it to everybody that uses Android on his/her HD2!
Slampisko,
Very nicely done and there should be more informative guides like this!
Should be made an instant sticky.
PLEASE do yourself a favor and don't use an automatic task killer. Just because an app is in memory doesn't mean it's using CPU and therefore battery but it will use it to run it again after you killed it.
If you must tweak things here use Autokiller Memory Optimizer to change the levels the out of memory optimizer kicks in at.
Of course if you have an app that refuses to close or is just chewing cpu for no reason then manually killing it is fine.
More info linked in my FAQ in my sig.
Sent from my HTC HD2
Thanks for all the feedback! I'll edit the first post to include the additional info...
Hey guys, cool guide
I tried somes tuff, and read various posts, but somehow I cant figure out why my HD2 with MDJ FroYo Sense Clean v. 2.2 [kernel: hastarin R8] keeps sucking the battery empty so far.
Only program i installed in addition to the Android version mentioned above, is the Current Widget to the how much mA it drains.
Those are my settings:
MDJ FroYo Sense Clean v. 2.2 [kernel: hastarin R8]
GSM only (2G)
Data disabled
Wifi disabled
GPS disabled
Bluetooth disabled
syncing disabled (Background data + auto sync both disabled)
I also killed all running things that i think i dont need and still Current Widget shows me, battery drains in standby 55mA-60mA
So i was wondering what i am missing??? since most of the users get a standby mA of 8 or below... I tried for several days now, but somehow i cant find a solution...
just an update from me....
after conditioning the battery, im currently @27 hours since unplugging, gps, and wifi turned on the entire time, im @ 3.873v or 61%! granted, its been light usage its my secondary phone right now, but i am on the outskirts of service, and the week signal usualy sucks the battery...
ill update again , probably this time tomorow once it finaly dies...
<edit> as you can see in post #2, after 27 hours of up time, i still have higher battery voltage than what the phone was assuming was 100% on initial flashing of the rom...... just food for thought...
That's very interesting, t1h5ta3... Trying it right now, will edit post with results
<Quote>Killing tasks automatically immediately after closing them – this apparently makes battery life worse, because when a program is in RAM, it doesn't consume system resources, but when you run it again, it does. Thanks to hastarin for the clarification.<End>
Do not necessaryly agree. A 'program' is a collection of endless conditions and calculations that puts strain on the CPU. Unless a 'freeze program' function is built in to Android to literally freeze a program when its idle in ram the, the program will still continue to consume valueble cpu power just to stay idle albeit at a reduced rate. But having many program in memory in this state can tax the system performance draining the battery.
I don't have the file batterystats.bin in data/sytem!!!
Any help?
Edit: In fact i found it with root explorer search however i am enabling view of hidden files and i don't see it!
Does deleting it While in android by root explorer will cause any problem?!
@Life Engineer: Nope, I deleted it by Droid Explorer's console while having android up and running and nothing bad happened.
Slampisko said:
@Life Engineer: Nope, I deleted it by Droid Explorer's console while having android up and running and nothing bad happened.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
BTW i don't agree saying that conservative is the best governor; i guess many accept with me; latest tests showed that interactive is the best and it worked for me!
You may consider putting it in the thread
@Life Governor: I was thinking about that too. Will edit thread.
Question when it comes to draining the battery which side do I drain it on win or Android?
@WCENIGHTCRAWLER: Android I suppose, as Android needs to know the correct voltage for drained battery.
Slampisko said:
@WCENIGHTCRAWLER: Android I suppose, as Android needs to know the correct voltage for drained battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm unsure on this as well. Maybe I'm a bit behind on all the dev that's happened. But I remember if draining battery in Android, it messes up with the build on the SD card.
Might give this a go tonight and see.
Hi!
I actually found the settings to change the cpu frequency today the warning I was given when i pressed " Performance " have scared me of, but not anymore.
So I was wondering, what are the best settings in your opinion, about the settings, for the Hd2 only. For heavy use, medium ( just listening to music , from-to-work) and for preserving the battery as long as possible.
And I would also like some help with the combinations of the different types of governors with the min/max cpu settings.
I know what RJackson wrote about the different governors
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=843406
Thanks!
first thing first - congrats for overcoming your fears!
for daily use I have the on demand governor with 245-998 Mhz. I find it to be the best because you can get the performance when you need it and yet the CPU can "calm down" at times you don't run the heavy apps, thing that also saves you some battery
settings
I use the same as above. on demand gov. also.
thanks for your replies =)
Any information about how long the battery last for you guys?
(my battery is 4201mV @ 100%)
I use the setting as I posted above, I unplugged my phone about 17 hours ago made a few calls and texts, gmail and viber are updating every 15 mins via wifi. still got 73% of juice left (I have the stock battery, don't know about V, mA capacity)
Just one simple question. When phone is in deep sleep, the cpu's running speed is the min frequency I choose from the cpu settings or a default lower one?
I use smart ass 2 with min at 768 and max at 1516 . So in deep sleep my phone is running at 768?
Thanks in advance...
Sent from my Huawei u8800 using XDA Premium App
spirosbond said:
Just one simple question. When phone is in deep sleep, the cpu's running speed is the min frequency I choose from the cpu settings or a default lower one?
I use smart ass 2 with min at 768 and max at 1516 . So in deep sleep my phone is running at 768?
Thanks in advance...
Sent from my Huawei u8800 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not 100% sure but freq is minimum as it can be. And if cpu is not used no metter is freq 10000MHZ or 300Mhz it uses almost the same power. But when cpu is in use freq is important to power usage. Freq management is good not because it lowers freq but because it lets use lower freq on things that is not require hi freq. so it saves LITTLE LITTLE BIT of power. In idle mode (deep sleep) no meter what freq is.
But i still don't understand the need of governor. It's good only in cases where you overclock cpu but if don't - i don't see why it should be used.
PS Use app called CPU SPY it shows on what freq your cpu is being used and how much of the time.
Thanks! I use CPU SPY and it says tha about 60% or more is in deep sleep, 15%-25% is at 768 and the rest higher, which seems to be a good thing. But my phone still lasts for about 10-15 hours with normal use.
So i thought that maybe my min 768 frequency drain a lot of battery.
To clear things up a bit I use latest oxigen rom+latest franco kernel+zram+Juwe ram script...
Actually deep-sleep state is a special state supported by your phone MCU. In this state, a lot of functionality (therefore a lot of logical gates) are disabled thus MCU consumes very low power compared to normal functioning states. The thing about a CPU/MCU is when it is running even if there are no work to do no code to process, it has to run some command. While idle it must run NOOP (no-operand / no operation) command or do something equally unnecessary like counting a not required number. But in deep sleep mode, MCU actually stops working except for core functions to keep your phone going on.
Think about it this way, in a normal working state, CPUs most basic functionality is to read a command from memory, execute it and proceed to the next command to continue. Thus, in an operating system or a single purpose embedded software, CPU/MCU has to execute a "do nothing" command when you have no job to give it. But even a "do nothing" command need all of the MCU/CPU resources to be kept readily available. If you're sure that you have absolutely no job for your MCU/CPU to do, what you can do is to tell it to go and sleep fr a while until you wake it up again. In sleep, MCU/CPU can shut down a lot of its support systems like math processing, external memory access, graphics related functions (if any), even IO outputs. Depending on your CPU/MCU, this means until an interrupt occurs or a special sub system wakes it up, most of the sub-systems within your MCU/CPU thus may be millions of transistors will not be working so, your CPU/MCU will not consume as much power.
In layman's terms, deep-sleep state is a special state that shut down most of your MCU in your phone, thus while crippling it by removing its ability to function, making sure that it doesn't consumes much power. So OS (Android) (with the help of some additional hardware) controls when your MCU will sleep and under what circumstances it will wake. So it shuts down the engine -so to speak- when you're not using it for long terms and saving fuel rather than leaving your car on idle.
Hope this helps..
Thanks t_d_z. That is also how I imagined things...
But what is wrong with my battery which today, for example, went 33% down in 5 hours with 68% (from cpu spy) in deep sleep, without wi-fi on.
As i said above, I use latest oxigen rom+latest franco kernel+zram+Juwe ram script+smarass2 governor...
I also calibrated my battery by wiping battery stats, like i read in a post.
I have read in an other forum that if you use smartass (I use smartass2) or ondemand (I think...) governors, the governor is learning your habits and after a week you see the difference. Is that true?
Finally, can you guys who have "good" battery life, post your settings? (By settings I mean: rom, kernel, governor with cpu parameters, how you use the phone and everything else you think is important).
Thanks again...
I get about two days of battery life. I use Oxygen without any modifications. CPU is min. 245 (or something like that with 200, I dunno now) and max. is 800. Wifi is always on when I am home.
Try installing Oxygen-r1 and use it with a full battery, do not change anything and do not install too many apps. There will be apps that just won't stop running (like BBC or CNN app), I do not install those. Then you will see how long your battery lasts. If you just write some messages throughout the day and call somebody for 1-3 hours you should get about 2 days.
Then install your apps and test it again - maybe your apps are the problem.
spirosbond said:
Thanks t_d_z. That is also how I imagined things...
But what is wrong with my battery which today, for example, went 33% down in 5 hours with 68% (from cpu spy) in deep sleep, without wi-fi on.
As i said above, I use latest oxigen rom+latest franco kernel+zram+Juwe ram script+smarass2 governor...
I also calibrated my battery by wiping battery stats, like i read in a post.
I have read in an other forum that if you use smartass (I use smartass2) or ondemand (I think...) governors, the governor is learning your habits and after a week you see the difference. Is that true?
Finally, can you guys who have "good" battery life, post your settings? (By settings I mean: rom, kernel, governor with cpu parameters, how you use the phone and everything else you think is important).
Thanks again...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look not at cpu spy but in battery usage to find out what drains your battery. And i can tell All roms are kinda lame in terms of battery, except CM7. In deep sleep it takes about 7% of battery in 10hours. I tried all roms but non of them was so efficient. But latest franco kernel (which i think even more improves cm7 rom) does not support cm7 right now, so i've attached older version if you would like to test cm7+franco kernel.
With normal usage of 50 sms and 30minutes of calls and sometimes wi-fi to download few apps and 20minutes on easy games my battery lats about 18hours. Whan only sms it lasts 30hours. depends how long lcd is on
Well, I'm not an expert on smart phone OSes but I'm an expert on embedded systems and micro controllers. If the designers are not really stupid (which I'm sure they are not) all the peripherals gets suspended when the main CPU goes to deep sleep mode. So, it is almost impossible for the phone to consume much power in deep sleep state. Most likely your phone consumes that power the rest of the time when it is not in sleep mode. I agree with Tommixoft, you should use battery usage info rather than CPU spy to find what drains your battery. Also, here is a quick check list about what consumes power :
1. Screen, especially when it is brightly lit
2. GSM network (Even when you're not talking to phone, GPRS/Edge/3G network communications drains almost as much power)
3. Wireless network
4. GPS
As an additional note, if your phone is not going to sleep mode regularly try to uninstall applications that have "prevent phone from sleeping" security setting.
Hope this helps, and of course there are a lot of more experienced people in the forum that knows about the details of the kernel so they might provide additional info.
Regards,
---------- Post added at 05:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:10 PM ----------
Oh I forgot to tell the MOST important thing, 768MHz is way too high a value to set as minimal frequency. Try to set it 245. I use 122 MHz and it work pretty well. Don't forget, when you need the CPU power, the governor will provide it for you.