Related
I'm within my 30days
I love this phone.
My battery discharges rapidly, especially their the first 5 mins off the charger.
I have been looking at this issue, but I am new to android.
I find it funny we can't actually see a battery percentage without installing third party apps. Then Sprint tries to say that these apps are the cause of the issue.
Trust me, I understand that this phone will drain the battery more rapidly than a lot of other phones. But there is something wrong with the way this phone charges the battery, therefore we see less battery life.
Can anyone prove or disprove their little claim that I am killing the battery by looking at its performance?
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
tell him that the phone and the plan is also draining your wallet, may be you should do something about that too
the reason your battery sometimes drops so quickly after you take it off the charger has been well documented. several threads with ways to improve the battery as well.
it has to do with the way the battery actually charges. it charges to 100% then allows the phone to discharge to 90% then charges up again...so at any time when you unplug the phone you may have 91% to 100% charge. or something like that.
1) have you tried conditioning your battery? (plug, wait, unplug, rinse repeat)
2) are you rooted? (try using something like SetCPU or JuiceDefender)
3) are you on stock or custom rom? (the custom kernel devs have been working on this issue)
hmmmm...how could you possibly disprove the sprint person? try not using it for a couple days...see what happens.
DraginMagik said:
try not using it for a couple days...see what happens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No doubt....my withdrawals kick in after its been in my pocket for too long...
While do appreciate the input, I disagree with it being well documented. I have tried both top off methods, aka conditioning, and it seems to give you more of a charge, but as soon as discharge the battery you are right back where you started, conditioning the battery every morning is not ideal.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
If the phone is new, its going to take a few cycles to improve. I remember when in my first week it wouldn't last a day. Now I can get 20-30 hours out of it. (ROMs and tweaking of course.)
There are tons of threads detailing what you can do to improve battery life... What have you done?
The purpose of a battery graph is to compare how your phone discharges to how your phone is being used. What plotting app do you have?
engagedtosmile said:
If the phone is new, its going to take a few cycles to improve. I remember when in my first week it wouldn't last a day. Now I can get 20-30 hours out of it. (ROMs and tweaking of course.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is false...lithium batteries do not get broken in or conditioned. What you saw is more than likely a result of constant using your new toy. The novelty has worn off and you have tweaked it so now you have extended the battery life.
I have disabled Bluetooth, WiFi, gps, and 4g
I set the radio to cdma only, and this led to problems. So I cleared all data And started over.
Are youguys seriously ok with 'conditioning' your batteries every morning?
Sometimes I think people think I'm just trying to find faults with this device. I want to keep the phone, but I also want this problem clearly identified and resolved. I should not have to use my tilt 2 to charge my battery because my new state of the art phone can't do it correctly.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
lettcco said:
tell him that the phone and the plan is also draining your wallet, may be you should do something about that too
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it's called the Fat Wallet Mod Discussed in other threads also,
But yes, I think it's dumb to have to condition the phone to get the best battery life, and how I have to get soo much good Light to take a good camera shot when other comparable phones don't need too. You have to weigh the goods and bad yourself.
The discharging of the battery is necessary as trickle charging a lithium battery is not recommended...thus this leads to you possibly having 95% instead of the full 100%. This is normal. Just unplug the device and charge again, or top it of in the car.
You never mentioned if you were rooted or not. If you don't use the news then don't sync it. If you don't use gtalk then disable it and turn off the auto sign in...i found that this app uses a lot of battery and its turned on by default.
It is not conditioning your battery.
When you charge your new evo and it hits 100%, the phone STOPS charging. It has no trickle charge. It begins charging again at 90% if still plugged in, although it reads 100% until it comes off the charger.
SO, when you unplug it, it says 100%, but could be anywhere between 90 and 100. If you simply unplug your phone, wait for it to display something other than fully charged (usually takes 30-60 seconds), then plug it back in, it will then charge back to 100%. You can simply unplug it, wait a few and then plug it back in while you go about your shower and cereal. When you are ready to leave the house you'll probably be at or near 100% instead of seeing it drop to something much lower.
This is NOT conditioning your battery. A more appropriate term would be "bump charging". As you are simply bumping it back to a charge state when it was in a resting state.
Another GREAT method of increasing battery life is resetting your battery stats. This is clearing out what the phone defines as full, and as empty and setting up these values again. I am not sure why, but they are off on many phones. They also get wiped anytime you flash a new rom so this procedure would again be in order if you experience poor battery life.
These are the instructions straight off cyanogen wiki. You can also reset them using Amon recovery.
Battery recalibration
If you're experiencing higher than normal battery drain, try the following:
1.Charge the phone to full battery; let it keep charging until the battery says it is fully charged. Do not just wait until the light is green, it isn't always fully charged, causing a lot of inaccuracies. (You can check by going to: Settings -> About Phone -> Status -> Battery Level = Full.)
2.Boot to recovery mode and go to console (or adb shell) and type:
mount -a
rm /data/system/batterystats.bin
NOTE: Newer Amon_Ra and ClockworkMod recoveries have an option to delete the battery stats, do this in place of the console commands above.
NOTE: To have the most accurate of battery stats, reboot the phone immediately after wiping the battery stats and wait for CM to boot completely to the desktop. Once your entire boot is done and you have full access to the phone, go ahead and pull the charger and continue with this troubleshooter.
1.Do not charge the phone until after draining the battery completely, resulting in it automatically shutting off.
2.Recharge the phone completely and then use as you normally would.
Excellent write up carguy... +15 internets to you
surrealmethod said:
Excellent write up carguy... +15 internets to you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
why thank you kind sir!
potna said:
I'm within my 30days
I love this phone.
My battery discharges rapidly, especially their the first 5 mins off the charger.
I have been looking at this issue, but I am new to android.
I find it funny we can't actually see a battery percentage without installing third party apps. Then Sprint tries to say that these apps are the cause of the issue.
Trust me, I understand that this phone will drain the battery more rapidly than a lot of other phones. But there is something wrong with the way this phone charges the battery, therefore we see less battery life.
Can anyone prove or disprove their little claim that I am killing the battery by looking at its performance?
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sprint rep is an idiot and if you took the time to search instead of making this post you could have saved yourself some trouble
no...i can't imagine anyone 'conditions' their battery daily. however, if experiencing issues wiping the stats and doing the conditioning thing do have an impact.
Sporkman said:
sprint rep is an idiot and if you took the time to search instead of making this post you could have saved yourself some trouble
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While most of the battery problem isn't the plotter app, the plotter app is using a fair amount of battery, so I usually would recommend not having such apps running except when you are diagnosing problems. Turn off various apps sync settings and keep background apps to a minimum, like juice plotter, battery widgets, and other data intensive apps and widgets. That right there will save you some power. Other than that, follow all the excellent suggestions that are already in this thread. Oh, and I find I get better battery when I just don't worry about it. I set up all my sync services and then leave them alone. Then just go about my day, using my phone as needed. Constantly worrying about it only wastes power because you are constantly fiddling with settings and apps.
PROTIP: Never believe anything a cellular rep tells you. Ever. EVER!
The Evo just has terrible battery life, that's my personal conclusion. One of the trade offs with such a huge screen and such. You'd think that in this day and age battery technology would have kept up with all the other bells and whistles, but no.
carguy4471 said:
It is not conditioning your battery.
When you charge your new evo and it hits 100%, the phone STOPS charging. It has no trickle charge. It begins charging again at 90% if still plugged in, although it reads 100% until it comes off the charger.
SO, when you unplug it, it says 100%, but could be anywhere between 90 and 100. If you simply unplug your phone, wait for it to display something other than fully charged (usually takes 30-60 seconds), then plug it back in, it will then charge back to 100%. You can simply unplug it, wait a few and then plug it back in while you go about your shower and cereal. When you are ready to leave the house you'll probably be at or near 100% instead of seeing it drop to something much lower.
This is NOT conditioning your battery. A more appropriate term would be "bump charging". As you are simply bumping it back to a charge state when it was in a resting state.
Another GREAT method of increasing battery life is resetting your battery stats. This is clearing out what the phone defines as full, and as empty and setting up these values again. I am not sure why, but they are off on many phones. They also get wiped anytime you flash a new rom so this procedure would again be in order if you experience poor battery life.
These are the instructions straight off cyanogen wiki. You can also reset them using Amon recovery.
Battery recalibration
If you're experiencing higher than normal battery drain, try the following:
1.Charge the phone to full battery; let it keep charging until the battery says it is fully charged. Do not just wait until the light is green, it isn't always fully charged, causing a lot of inaccuracies. (You can check by going to: Settings -> About Phone -> Status -> Battery Level = Full.)
2.Boot to recovery mode and go to console (or adb shell) and type:
mount -a
rm /data/system/batterystats.bin
NOTE: Newer Amon_Ra and ClockworkMod recoveries have an option to delete the battery stats, do this in place of the console commands above.
NOTE: To have the most accurate of battery stats, reboot the phone immediately after wiping the battery stats and wait for CM to boot completely to the desktop. Once your entire boot is done and you have full access to the phone, go ahead and pull the charger and continue with this troubleshooter.
1.Do not charge the phone until after draining the battery completely, resulting in it automatically shutting off.
2.Recharge the phone completely and then use as you normally would.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sorry but that all sounds like the formula to derive the circumference of the nucleus of an atomic variable perpendicular to the perimeter of the nth root in relation to the isosceles of the .........geezus, all that just to get a smidgen of decent battery life...
coming form other android phones, ive learned to wipe batt stats in recovery to get the best life.
normaly i wind up seeing voltage @ 100% a little over 4.260v
now on our phones we dont have that option, and i noticed while trying out diferent roms that its hitting " 100% " at various voltages depending on what the batt truely was when flashing.
if i recall the file is : /data/system/batterystats.bin that we need to delete? corect?
well, before i did it, it hit 100% @ 3.782v and wouldnt go any higher...
now, im sitting @4.246... im not 100% sure its fully charged. ill let it sit overnight turned off and see where i wind up.
UPDATE 11-20
SO, voltages have been confirmed.
100% = 4.20-4.25 depending on battery condition
0%= dependent on the kernel generaly 3.2-3.0 {found some as high as 3.7v!} thank you to hastarin for pointing the files out
if your not seeing 4.2v your not getting full battery life.
sure enough, i was sitting just shy of 4.3v this am after an overnight charge with the phone turned off...
Interesting info, but where would you find out the voltage the battery is producing?
so, how to wipe the battery stats?
time to get down and dirty and learn to navigate thru the android OS.
download and set up the android SDK
http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
heres a newbie guide to adb in the nexus forum
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=619153
for those less computer literate, you can use droid explorer to do alot of the stuff thru a GUI. it also will set up adb for you.
http://de.codeplex.com/
the code that you type in to remove the battery stats is
Code:
rm data/system/batterystats.bin
now to properly condition the battery.
turn off the phone, plug it in, preferably overnight.
boot the phone up while still pluged in.
delete the batterystats.bin file ether thru adb or terminal
drain the battery fully, untill it powers down. wait a min or two and reboot it to completely drain it.
congrats... your phone now knows corect voltage values for 100% and dead.
Remember: Flashing a new Android build erases the battery stats, and automaticly rebuilds them based on voltages it see's .
ie: you need to recondition after each flash to get max battery life.
i use the "battery life" widget by curvefish to show me temp, voltage etc.
Slampisko said:
Interesting info, but where would you find out the voltage the battery is producing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
some builds will show actual voltage under menu/about phone/battery use
otherwise i use the " battery life" widget by curvefish, available for free from the market. once you add it to the screen, tap it, hit settings, then check both charging info and extended info.
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...
just a little food for thought: its been over 27 hours since i unpluged, and my voltage is still higher than what the phone assumed was 100% @ the time of the initial flash....
@ 50 hours (still 10%) i finaly got sick of waiting for it to die. i turned screen on full bright, and ran gps test and locked the screen on. phone finaly died @ 2.988v im now charging it again with the phone turned off.
Umm why do we need this though ?
Wont the phone keep running as long as there is sufficient voltage in the battery ?
What is the use of this method ?
This is for people who have found a build they are happy with and want to use for a while so that their battery lasts longer, much longer. As the OP has posted, his phone is currently lasting about as long as it does in WinMo which is an impressive feat, more so being as he's running his GPS non-stop at the same time.
I for one am going to do this myself when I get the time. If I knew whether my alarm would go off while the phone was switched off (for the overnight charge) I'd do it tonight but cannot risk being late for work tomorrow lol
Thanks Reno but I meant HOW does it work ?
I thought this method just helps you see your battery's percentage .. Wont the battery run no matter what the percentage show as long as the battery has a charge ?
Can someone please explain this ?
Yeah I cant afford not waking up late as well, so im charging it while its on, would that affect anything ?
It will still charge up the battery wouldnt it ?
as stated in the op.... when you flash a build, android assumes whatever that voltage is =100% so if you realy only have 50% (about 3.7v) thats all it will charge to...
100% is realy 4.2v , this recalibrates it to alow it to fully charge.
do they not teach reading comprehension now a days? its not just this thread... its the whole forum!
Oh ok thanks ! Makes sense ..
Well I charged my phone during the night while it was switched on, in the morning the battery stated it has 4.212mV
Do I need to recalibrate it ?
recalibrating cant hurt.
For those of you who are using droidexplorer.... when right clicking on batterystats.bin and selecting delete the file does not disappear... is this how its suppose to be? If that is not suppose to happen then where exactly do you type "rm data/system/batterystats.bin"
in the console
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.
people please post what you are seeing for voltages 100/0 % before complaining about battery life.
ducvader said:
For those of you who are using droidexplorer.... when right clicking on batterystats.bin and selecting delete the file does not disappear... is this how its suppose to be? If that is not suppose to happen then where exactly do you type "rm data/system/batterystats.bin"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So this ^^^^ is the adb command?
Then I would type in
adb devices
rm data/system/batterystats.bin
Is this right,or is there any other commands I need after I put in adb devices?
very interesting
maybe i should try it..
4.2v @100%
This is just a quick question from a bit of logical thinking really...
Once we've got a properly calibrated Batterystats.bin file, can we back that up and use it with other builds?
Can we also therefore share it with other peoples phones as well?
Standart disclaimer: I am not responsible if you break things by following this guide, though I will be genuinely surprised if you do.
Credits: This fix is a combination of battery management techniques discussed in the Atrix forums + a technique that I originally found in a Milestone forum (I didn't invent it, but I am too lazy to search who originally posted it ).
This worked in fixing the problem for me (the same problem that I see many others are writing about on the forums), but I can't guarantee it will work for you.
Who should use this? (aka your battery problem symptoms are
1. Battery life on 2.3.4 is significantly worse for you than before.
2. Battery stats are jumping and showing inconsistent information.
3. Your phone loses 30%-60% just by sitting there overnight.
4. Phone idle draining 30%-60% of battery just by sitting there overnight.
5. After flashing a couple of roms, your battery stats got messed up and the phone thinks it's at 100% charge while it's not.
I personally started having battery problems after flashing a couple of roms, applying 1% battery mod and despite flashing jug6ernaut's CWM battery fix.
When I went to bed with a 100% charge, I would wake up to a 50% charge, with Phone Idle process showing up as massacring the battery. The steps below successfully fixed the problem for me.
Prerequisites:
1. Atrix on one of the rooted 2.3.4 roms (ideally,- deodexed and with unlocked CWM)
2. Wall Charger
3. jug6ernaut's CWM battery fix (put it on your SD card you will need it later!) I have also attached it to this post.
4. Battery Calibration app from the market
5. Watchdog Lite or Full from the market
Instructions:
It's best to complete this procedure in the evening before going to bed, so you can leave it at 100% overnight and check in the morning if the drainage issue is fixed!!!
The whole procedure along with recalibration might take up to 5-6 hours!
1. Take the case off your Atrix (one of the latter steps involves taking the battery out from the phone while it's plugged in. Make sure your case won't stand in the way.)
2. Install Battery Calibration app from the market
3. Plug in your Atrix to charge while it's on, wait till it gets to a 100%
4. When the charge is 100%, open the BatteryCalibration app and lookup what the charge is in MV while at 100%. (Explanatory pic, needed number circled in red). Write it down.
My Atrix was showing ~3400MV while at 100%, which is definitely not the maximum capacity.
5. Discharge your Atrix completely until it shuts off.
A good way of doing this quickly is by turning on wifi, and a video player.
6. Without turning on the phone plug it into a wall charger and let it get to 100%
7. When it's at 100%, without unplugging it from the wall charger, take off the battery cover, and take the battery out.
Your phone will "reboot" and show a Missing Battery icon.
8. Without unplugging the phone from the wall charger or turning it on, put the battery back in and wait until the phone recognizes the battery.
9. Your battery should now be recognized by the phone, and showing a charge % significantly lower than 100%.
Mine showed only 5%. Back when I used a Milestone, it usually showed 60% after doing this.
10. Let it sit there charging for 2-3 hours.
My phone wouldn't charge past 10%, but yours might. The numbers don't matter much as the phone is definitely getting additional charge that could have been lost while flashing ROMs, etc.
11. After 2-3 hours, turn the phone on while holding the volume down button and get into CWM.
Do not disconnect it from the charger still!
12. Install jug6ernaut's CWM battery fix (even if you had it installed before), do not reboot yet.
Do not disconnect it from the charger still!
13. Wipe battery stats in CWM, reboot.
Do not disconnect it from the charger still!
14. When the phone turns on, go into BatteryCalibration app again and look up your MV numbers
- if you were like me, they should be significantly higher than before. After this whole process I had 4200MV at 100%, comparing to 3400MV before calibration.
Do not disconnect it from the charger still!
15. Before going to sleep - Install Watchdog from the market. Go into it's preferences, set CPU threshhold to 20%, check "Include phone processes", check "Monitor phone processes", check "Display all phone processes", set system CPU threshhold to 20% as well.
Do not disconnect it from the charger still!
16. Make sure your wifi and data connections are off. Now finally unplug the phone from the charger.
Go to bed, let your phone sleep too.
17. Success! Next morning check where your battery % is at and if you followed the instructions correctly / got lucky like me, your battery life should be 90% or more.
I went to bed with 98% and woke up to 94%. So, I consider this mission a success.
(Your general battery capacity should have increased, even if something still was draining the battery, you will be able to find the infringing process in WatchDog with the settings we've set up in step 15 )
That's all folks! Please report your success / lack of such here. Also, feel free to ask questions, and I along with other users with answer them according to our ability.
I will later add a section on "good practices for battery usage" with tips and tricks.
Cheers!
Attached are screenshots of my results after calibration: This was under moderate usage. Pretty damn good if you ask me.
Post-calibration methods of improving Battery Life
Updated: Post#2 will explain how to solve battery drainage problems when recalibration wasn't enough. It will also explain how battery reporting works, common practices, tips, tricks, etc.
Battery Tips / Tricks / Common Practices
Important things to know:
1. It's important to understand how battery indicator on Android works and how Android manages / reports your battery life. Please read this article:
Your Smartphone’s Battery Gauge is Lying to You (and it’s not such a bad thing)
http://phandroid.com/2010/12/25/you...is-lying-to-you-and-its-not-such-a-bad-thing/
2. Li-ion batteries used in modern smartphones don't have "charge memory". Partial charges won't hurt the battery (e.g. charging from 60% to 80% or from 10% to 50% etc). Feel free to give your phone small charges whenever you have time and need the phone to last longer.
3. Smartphone batteries don't like to be completely discharged or to be kept at 100% capacity for extended periods of time (this actually damages batteries over time). But worry not, the battery software prevents this from happening for you. That's why some of your phones never get to 100% or drop from 100% to 90% minutes after you disconnct the phone from a charger.
4. All batteries gradually lose a small percentage of their capacity after a certain amount of charge cycles. It's a natural part of life. It's always nice to have a spare battery or to purchase a replacement when your current battery isn't to the task anymore.
5. Don't pay much attention to the battery %, just use your phones. I know it's very tempting to track your battery usage every 15 minutes and try to find problems. Been there myself. Thing is, if you do this, you might start thinking you have problems, when you don't have any.
Bottom line - just try to use your phone and not mess with the battery unless problems become really apparent.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other proven ways to improve Battery Life
If you have re-calibrated to a full capacity (4200mv) but your battery still drains terribly - follow these steps to pin point the problem.
1. Find which app / process is draining the battery.
If you get lucky, the infringing app will show up directly under the stock "Battery Usage" statistics. However, in most cases "Battery Usage" isn't very informative. Most people report that they only see "Phone Idle" consuming most of the battery without much insight into the details.
Things to do:
- install Watchdog, go to preferences, set CPU threshhold to 20% (or even lower if it's not enough), check "Include phone processes", check "Monitor phone processes", check "Display all phone processes", set system CPU threshhold to 20%(or even lower if it's not enough) as well. Run it for a couple of days.
If you start getting frequent Watchdog notifications about a certain app breaching the threshold - uninstall it, find an alternative.
- install BetterBatteryStats from here -
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1179809 run it for a couple of days and monitor apps / processes that are using up more wakelocks than they should.
Once you find the infringing app - uninstall it, if it's a process - find out if it's safe to stop / freeze before doing anything.
2. Freeze bloatware aka "stop the problem before it becomes a problem."
Unless you are running CM7, your rom is based on stock 2.3.4 and still has blur in it. Blur apps and processes might be running without you even using them and sucking out precious batter life while they are at it.
Things to do:
- Get TitaniumBackup, freeze all bloatware that is mentioned as "safe" in this thread -
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1182663
Use your phone for a couple of days afterwards and watch for improvements.
If these software tweaks aren't enough, the problem might be with your system setup. Go through these steps which should hopefully fix your setup in favor of awesome battery life:
3. Flash a custom kernel, set up battery saving profiles.
Many people have reported success with this step. Custom kernels are not just for overclocking. A custom kernel with smart profiles will definitely give definitely extend your phones operating life during the day.
Things to do:
- Get a custom kernel., the popular choice on here seems to be faux'es kernel, so I recommend it -
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1156040
Get one of the battery saving SetCpu profiles along with it. Basically, a good battery saving profile looks something like this:
- absolute minimum CPU clock with screen off (something like 275 Mhz)
- lowering CPU clock with temperature > 50C (something like ~800Mhz)
- lowering CPU clock when battery < 30% (something like ~800Mhz)
Many people reported success in using such profile for lowering "Phone Idle" drain.
4. Flash a different radio.
WARNING: Be extremely careful with this. Flashing a wrong radio is the right way to hard brick your phone.
Although some people are reporting to have fixed battery drainage by trying out a different radio, I seriously wouldn't recommend going on a flashing spree unless you know what you are doing.
My advice here: flash the latest 2.3.4 for your carrier if you haven't yet. From there on, experiment at your own risk.
5. Disable Data and Wifi when idle either manually or with an app."
I seriously get surprised every time someone says they have a horrible battery life, when they keep an internet connection on at all times. Constant data always = battery drain.
Things to do:
- use apps like Green Power to disable data / wifi for you when you are not using it
- learn to turn off your internet connection manually
6. If all else fails - start over from scratch (read: clean install a rom).
I've heard reports of people getting better life with Froyo than GB, or that a specific custom ROM solved their problem for them. A million dollar question: if it works for you, why not use it?
Things to do:
- try a ROM without blur, like CM7
- try Ninja Speed Freak (developer and many users reported great battery life)
- if battery life is your top concern - try Froyo
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FAQ
....coming soon...
... ask away!
Many thanks! Have pass about three days reading about the battery issues/solutions, and I was getting confused by so many info! Will try it tonight!
PS: Does the jug6ernaut's CWM battery fix works for the Orange 2.3.4 ?
eklam said:
Many thanks! Have pass about three days reading about the battery issues/solutions, and I was getting confused by so many info! Will try it tonight!
PS: Does the jug6ernaut's CWM battery fix works for the Orange 2.3.4 ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you using stock Orange 2.3.4 rom?
If yes, your Rom might not have the battery jumping problem. You can still use this guide without the battery fix to recalibrate.
Let's wait for someone with Orange 2.3.4 to confirm if jug6ernaut's CWM battery fix can be used or not.
Indeed, I have not the battery jump issue, but I'm exprimenting some weird behavior...
like when I restart the phone, it shows about 10% higher than before. I tried this multiples times yesterday. When it was about 40%, it starts to drop suddenly, 'till it got to 18% and get back to normal decrease to 4%, 2~3 hours later...
See the images attached, the red circles are the times I rebooted it and the blue arrow is when it drops suddenly...
Question on step 4. To confirm, we shouldn't click on anything in BatteryCalibration, all that needs to be done is take note on the MV number, correct?
eklam said:
Indeed, I have not the battery jump issue, but I'm exprimenting some weird behavior...
like when I restart the phone, it shows about 10% higher than before. I tried this multiples times yesterday. When it was about 40%, it starts to drop suddenly, 'till it got to 18% and get back to normal decrease to 4%, 2~3 hours later...
See the images attached, the red circles are the times I rebooted it and the blue arrow is when it drops suddenly...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did it only start doing this on 2.3.4 or you haven't checked before? Anyway, I would do the calibration to see if it changes anything.
coleburns said:
Question on step 4. To confirm, we shouldn't click on anything BatteryCalibration, all that needs to be done is take note on the MV number, correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No clicking in step 4. Just write down or remember the MV number.
Yes it just starts when updating to 2.3.4... In the first days I got the impression of lower battery level, so reading the forums I saw the restart/level change problem, and tested it
eklam said:
Yes it just starts when updating to 2.3.4... In the first days I got the impression of lower battery level, so reading the forums I saw the restart/level change problem, and tested it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You probably updated to 2.3.4 while not at 100% battery level, and it messed up your battery stat. So, yes, do all the steps in this guide except for jug6ernaut's battery fix part.
thanks, ill give this a shot....again.....tonight and hopefully it will fix my issue.
Screenshots of results added to post 1
Download link seems to be down...just errors out when trying to download.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
jarsh92 said:
Download link seems to be down...just errors out when trying to download.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which download link? CMW_Jug6_FIXv2.zip?
I'm on a rooted stock GB and I'm having the problem where the battery usage stats are inaccurate and won't got below 90% after using it all day. This all started after I used Battery Calibration. Do you think that this would help correct the problem?
Edit: Also, would I need to complete all of the steps including the CWM part? I haven't flashed any roms yet, so I don't know if this would be necessary.
ThickG said:
I'm on a rooted stock GB and I'm having the problem where the battery usage stats are inaccurate and won't got below 90% after using it all day. This all started after I used Battery Calibration. Do you think that this would help correct the problem?
Edit: Also, would I need to complete all of the steps including the CWM part? I haven't flashed any roms yet, so I don't know if this would be necessary.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems like you used Battery Calibration while not at 100% charge and your battery stats got messed up.
The reason I recommend using CWM is because the battery stats file is created on each boot. So, with my instructions you can charge the phone to 100% while it's off and wipe the messed up stats before it boots.
You can try using my instructions, without the CWM part, except you need to wipe your battery stats with Battery Calibration app after step 4.
lol i left pandora on since this morning and its only at 67%. ugh, when i wanna force drain the battery it goes slow as hell but when i wanna conserve battery live for usage it drains quick. hahaha.
I just flashed navalynt's πCrust rom fully charged, cleared stats through cwm, booted and now i'm close to 3days.
dictoresno said:
lol i left pandora on since this morning and its only at 67%. ugh, when i wanna force drain the battery it goes slow as hell but when i wanna conserve battery live for usage it drains quick. hahaha.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol yes. I used video playback to drain mine. But if it's really a PITA, you can always just leave it till tomorrow to discharge naturally.
Jonous said:
I just flashed navalynt's πCrust rom fully charged, cleared stats through cwm, booted and now i'm close to 3days.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, that's why flashing only when at 100% charge always pays off.
I get the same results by booting to CWM, wiping battery stats, rebooting, starting Battery Calibration, plugging phone into wall charger, charging to 100% (4197mv for me), and then calibrating with Battery Calibration. I start this process at any battery percentage, and have been doing this for a long time now. I have never had to deplete my battery until my phone shuts off, and get great battery life.
Beamed from WinBorg 4G via XDA Premium
CaelanT said:
I get the same results by booting to CWM, wiping battery stats, rebooting, starting Battery Calibration, plugging phone into wall charger, charging to 100% (4197mv for me), and then calibrating with Battery Calibration. I start this process at any battery percentage, and have been doing this for a long time now. I have never had to deplete my battery until my phone shuts off, and get great battery life.
Beamed from WinBorg 4G via XDA Premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After the calibration I had 4200mv, so it seems like you are doing things right in regards to the battery.
"Taking the battery out and putting it back in" trick works wonders though in restoring battery life to maximum state (if you had it decrease for some reason). I've tested it multiple times even back when I had the Milestone.
So, I am using MIUI 2.1.12 with LorDModUE 8.6 CFS 2WCR kernel.
I have installed 4EXT Recovery Controller and CurrentWidget.
With CurrentWidget, I monitored the battery while charging until it reached 0mA (which means the battery is as full as it can get).
With 4EXT Recovery Controller I removed the batterystats.bin file.
I drained the phone until it shut itself down. Then I charged it (without powering it on) until it was full (LED was green).
I power on the phone... 99% battery.
I plug in the charger... it says 26mA (which means it would reach 0mA as in full charge in another 20-30 minutes).
WHAT THE HELL?!
This never happened while I was using the default CM kernel included in MIUI. Only happened with Tiamat and LordMod.
--
Seriously, guys, what is the best way to calibrate the battery?! Perhaps I should not have let it shut itself down, but plug the charger when the phone was at 1% (which lasted for another 20-30 minutes, by the way)?!
if I don't remember it wrong the LED turns green at 90%.
afair the battery doesn't get charged during booting. which means that you probably lost the 1% during boot.
I also used the same method and got it calibrated correctly
but is their any other way too ?
monki79 said:
if I don't remember it wrong the LED turns green at 90%.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The LED turns green on AOSP ROMs at 90%, when the phone is ON, as far as I know. When it is OFF, it works fine (goes green at 100%).
I want to hear from the developers / those that know how these codes work and stuff... Cause I don't want to look at my phone how the percentage goes down so fast, then, when it reaches 10%, I can play Pocket Legends for another 20 full minutes -.-
Formhault said:
With CurrentWidget, I monitored the battery while charging until it reached 0mA (which means the battery is as full as it can get).
With 4EXT Recovery Controller I removed the batterystats.bin file.
I drained the phone until it shut itself down. Then I charged it (without powering it on) until it was full (LED was green).
I power on the phone... 99% battery.
I plug in the charger... it says 26mA (which means it would reach 0mA as in full charge in another 20-30 minutes).
WHAT THE HELL?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The battery doesn't charge to full capacity first time around. When I used to calibrate the battery I would charge until it was drawing 0mA, then reboot; it would be drawing about 26mA, so I'd charge to 0mA again and reboot; it would now be drawing about 15mA, so I'd carry on charging to 0mA, reboot, repeat, repeat and repeat until it eventually continued to draw 0mA after a reboot. Then I'd delete the batterystats.bin file.
As one of Google's engineers says, deleting your battery stats isn't going to improve your battery life. I haven't done any of that for a long time now and I've noticed precisely no difference (except for the extra time I've gained by not having to wait for it to finally charge up to full capacity).
hopscotchjunkie said:
The battery doesn't charge to full capacity first time around. When I used to calibrate the battery I would charge until it was drawing 0mA, then reboot; it would be drawing about 26mA, so I'd charge to 0mA again and reboot; it would now be drawing about 15mA, so I'd carry on charging to 0mA, reboot, repeat, repeat and repeat until it eventually continued to draw 0mA after a reboot. Then I'd delete the batterystats.bin file.
As one of Google's engineers says, deleting your battery stats isn't going to improve your battery life. I haven't done any of that for a long time now and I've noticed precisely no difference (except for the extra time I've gained by not having to wait for it to finally charge up to full capacity).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know about Google's statement.
The battery would drain fast, then, when it reaches 1% or 5%, you would be able to use your phone like it had 30%. Just that it shows the values wrong. Calibrating the battery should fix that...
Anyway... I'm not going to struggle any further.
I'll tell what I've done;
- I have installed Battery Balibration app and CurrentWidget,
- Waited battery charging till reached 0ma,
- Removed battery stats and restarted,
- Then waited to drain battery and shut-down itself,
- I connected USB charger to PC and TURN ON THE PHONE !!
- Again waited battery to reach 0 ma,
- Then plugged off and monitored that current widget shows the range btw 3-10 !!
I don't know exactly if it helps but, maybe you should turn on your DHD while carging..
For further instructions you may qant to check this topic;
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1226016
Formhault said:
So, I am using MIUI 2.1.12 with LorDModUE 8.6 CFS 2WCR kernel.
I have installed 4EXT Recovery Controller and CurrentWidget.
With CurrentWidget, I monitored the battery while charging until it reached 0mA (which means the battery is as full as it can get).
With 4EXT Recovery Controller I removed the batterystats.bin file.
I drained the phone until it shut itself down. Then I charged it (without powering it on) until it was full (LED was green).
I power on the phone... 99% battery.
I plug in the charger... it says 26mA (which means it would reach 0mA as in full charge in another 20-30 minutes).
WHAT THE HELL?!
This never happened while I was using the default CM kernel included in MIUI. Only happened with Tiamat and LordMod.
--
Seriously, guys, what is the best way to calibrate the battery?! Perhaps I should not have let it shut itself down, but plug the charger when the phone was at 1% (which lasted for another 20-30 minutes, by the way)?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Theres a better alternative, use the battery calibration app in the market
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.nema.batterycalibration&hl=en
It's always worked a charm for me.
knp3385 said:
Theres a better alternative, use the battery calibration app in the market
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.nema.batterycalibration&hl=en
It's always worked a charm for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right, with Battery Calibration i have solved my problem with battery, now i can use all day without charging.
Sorry if my question is a silly one...
what's the point in calibrating your battery? I mean... except for the stats (and I guess, the percentage in the bar), do you improve your battery life by calibrating it?
Duwie_80 said:
Sorry if my question is a silly one...
what's the point in calibrating your battery? I mean... except for the stats (and I guess, the percentage in the bar), do you improve your battery life by calibrating it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some says it's irrelevant, calibrating it's just an illusion
But did calibrate my battery and my battery life is improved too terrific !!
Duwie_80 said:
Sorry if my question is a silly one...
what's the point in calibrating your battery? I mean... except for the stats (and I guess, the percentage in the bar), do you improve your battery life by calibrating it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
fremce said:
Some says it's irrelevant, calibrating it's just an illusion
But did calibrate my battery and my battery life is improved too terrific !!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't really know. It would be silly for the Android system to display the battery percentage (up there, in the status bar) by reading the batterystats.bin.
My phone's battery level drops somewhat fast, then, when it would reach 30% or so, it doesn't drop as fast. Also, at times, when I reach 10%, 5% or even 1%, I am still able to play an intensive game like Pocket Legends for an extended ammount of time (30 minutes, for example). Pocket Legends is CPU/GPU intensive and it also requires an active Internet connection, so I'd say it's pretty power hungry.
I don't really get the entire purpose of calibration. I have done it and I can't seem to notice any difference.
I'm going to do it again, now, because I switched to a Sense ROM (RunnyDrOiD). I'll monitor the battery with Battery Monitor Pro. When it reaches +0mA, I'll reboot and so forth so forth until it's drawing 0mA, although I doubt I'll resist that much time, so I'll just delete the batterystats.bin after a few reboots, when it reachs 0mA.
fremce said:
Some says it's irrelevant, calibrating it's just an illusion
But did calibrate my battery and my battery life is improved too terrific !!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If everybody knew the meaning of the word "calibration" then nobody would talk such nonsense.
Calibration improves the accuracy of the percentage shown!
The illusion is that you improve your battery life with it....
Dlog said:
If everybody knew the meaning of the word "calibration" then nobody would talk such nonsense.
Calibration improves the accuracy of the percentage shown!
The illusion is that you improve your battery life with it....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I said... calibrating the battery may fix the "problem" where once you reach 1% / 5% you can use your phone like it still had ~20%.
I'm gone test it too...
Hi there people, I didn't find any battery thread similar to what I'm going to say so I'll spam a little bit
I've just found as I was fooling around this: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/PowerSki...AU_MobilePhoneAccessories&hash=item20c1a1c8ad
It suppose to be a silicon case with a battery build in(1500mah ..not bad), I don't know the dimensions but I just someone might think it as a solution to our 1230mah small battery(with this you have a total of 1730mah which is plenty)
P.S. To mods.. feel free to delete my post, I just wanted to inform the people about a solution that might be handy
evronetwork said:
Hi there people, I didn't find any battery thread similar to what I'm going to say so I'll spam a little bit
I've just found as I was fooling around this: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/PowerSki...AU_MobilePhoneAccessories&hash=item20c1a1c8ad
It suppose to be a silicon case with a battery build in(1500mah ..not bad), I don't know the dimensions but I just someone might think it as a solution to our 1230mah small battery(with this you have a total of 1730mah which is plenty)
P.S. To mods.. feel free to delete my post, I just wanted to inform the people about a solution that might be handy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
https://www.google.com/search?q=xda+powerskin+desire+hd
first link....
I'm really frustrated because i really used to love the n7 so much I was an early adopter and bought another one after I dropped my first and then went on to buy my girlfriend one. But after being plagued with this issue and stuck on 4.1 its just not the same anymore since I cant flash custom roms all day :/
I've been having a charging issue with android 4.2.1 since it came out (both stock and all the roms I tried) but I noticed that whenever I reverted to 4.1.2 the issue went away completely. So I've been waiting for 4.2.2 to come out for a while now to see if it fixed the issue and after flashing the update tonight it seems to have the same problem.
I've tried searching for months now and haven't found any answers.
So this is the issue with both 4.2.1 and 4.2.2:
The battery charges at an insanely slow pace to the point that it ruins the tablet completely. I'll plug it in over night for 8+ hours and it will not gain more then 40% battery life in that time.
Its to the point that when I was just using it right now on the charger with brightness turned all the way down and nothing on other then sync and WiFi that light web browsing for 10 mins caused it to discharge a percent after being plugged in for 19 minutes.
Notes:
Its a c70 16gb
I tried 3 different stock N7 chargers with stock cables as well as trying them with other cables.
I'm not plugged into any kind of extension cords and I've tried multiple wall sockets at different locations.
My girlfriends nexus 7 32g charges fine on 4.2.1 and I have not updated her to 4.2.2 to test yet.
I haven't checked the battery connection because like I said whenever I revert to stock 4.1.2 or any 4.1.2 rom it charges in 4 hours flat or 6 hours with heavy usage while charging.
So anyone have any ideas? If not I guess I have to rma.
Do both, yours and your girlfriend's devices take that long to charge?
sl4y3r88 said:
Do both, yours and your girlfriend's devices take that long to charge?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope her nexus 7 charges fine. ( a little slower on 4.2 then 4.1 but nothing like mine)
Her nexus does have issues with turning on sometimes on 4.2.1 like a lot of other users but its nothing holding the power button for 10 seconds doesn't fix.
It also just noticed it seems to discharge at an extremely fast pace. (still on 4.2.2)
It just dropped from 55% to 51% in the time I've typed these responses with brightness all the way down.
So anyone want to try and help me figure this out before I send it in friday? I called it in to Google play device support to try and report the software bug and they said its the first they heard of it and they would pass it on but I felt like the rep didnt want to help as I bought it from a third party. I'm willing to do any tests suggested and hop between software versions to try and figure out this bug.
Why do you think it is a "software bug" when millions of people running the "same software" don't experience the same behavior?
I realize that software can exhibit data-dependent behaviors, and thus exhibit low occurrence rates... but there is no "software" involved in charging the battery.
Do you think a booted Linux kernel is needed to charge a battery? How would the battery get charged when the device is turned off in that case? C'mon!
Send it back and tell them the battery (or charge contoller CIRCUIT) is defective.
If it's out of warranty, PAY them to replace it.
bftb0 said:
Why do you think it is a "software bug" when millions of people running the "same software" don't experience the same behavior?
I realize that software can exhibit data-dependent behaviors, and thus exhibit low occurrence rates... but there is no "software" involved in charging the battery.
Do you think a booted Linux kernel is needed to charge a battery? How would the battery get charged when the device is turned off in that case? C'mon!
Send it back and tell them the battery (or charge contoller CIRCUIT) is defective.
If it's out of warranty, PAY them to replace it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then how do you explain that if right now I flash back to 4.1.2 it will work fine? If you want I'll provide screenshots.
I just flashed back to 4.1.2 this morning and it worked perfectly. Just now I flashed codefires 4.2.2 build and the problems back.
Please explain how that is hardware related.
I may of jumped the gun assuming it was a charging issue. It seems like it might be a battery drain issue. Here's a couple screenshots from a fresh install of codefirex 4.2.2 build.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium HD app
All I was trying to say is that when the OS is booted, at most all it does is monitor battery voltage and current - it doesn't get actively involved in control of charging circuitry.
At most this historical data can be used to *predict* when the battery will run out of juice, and this number is what is shown to the user as a % charge number. Hopefully that allows the prediction to be sort of correct as the battery ages and it's characteristics change.
This "calibration data" is only used for prediction - it does absolutely nothing to alter the rate at which current is drawn from the battery by the motherboard, nor for attempting to alter the behavior of a battery charge controller.
Li-Ion and Li-Polymer batteries are indeed complicated enough that they should not be charged by extremely simple circuits if a long operating lifetime is desired. For this purpose though, monolithic battery charge controllers chips are used - they do not need any assistance of a micro-controller or advanced CPU running a modern OS. That's why they are able to charge batteries rapidly and appropriately when the motherboard is in a "powered down" state.
Relative to a big multi-core CPU chip, which might have hundreds of millions of transistors, battery charge controllers are extremely small circuits - they are sold by the billions and cost in the ballpark of one to several pennies. They don't need the support of a CPU or even a microcontroller to operate correctly.
Good luck with your tab; I hope you enjoy it.
bftb0 said:
All I was trying to say is that when the OS is booted, at most all it does is monitor battery voltage and current - it doesn't get actively involved in control of charging circuitry.
At most this historical data can be used to *predict* when the battery will run out of juice, and this number is what is shown to the user as a % charge number. Hopefully that allows the prediction to be sort of correct as the battery ages and it's characteristics change.
This "calibration data" is only used for prediction - it does absolutely nothing to alter the rate at which current is drawn from the battery by the motherboard, nor for attempting to alter the behavior of a battery charge controller.
Li-Ion and Li-Polymer batteries are indeed complicated enough that they should not be charged by extremely simple circuits if a long operating lifetime is desired. For this purpose though, monolithic battery charge controllers chips are used - they do not need any assistance of a micro-controller or advanced CPU running a modern OS. That's why they are able to charge batteries rapidly and appropriately when the motherboard is in a "powered down" state.
Relative to a big multi-core CPU chip, which might have hundreds of millions of transistors, battery charge controllers are extremely small circuits - they are sold by the billions and cost in the ballpark of one to several pennies. They don't need the support of a CPU or even a microcontroller to operate correctly.
Good luck with your tab; I hope you enjoy it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for taking the time to write out this detailed explanation. I read it over a couple times and that all makes a lot of sense and now I have a little better understanding of how things work charging wise.
But I still can't wrap my head around how the problem DISAPPEARS COMPLETELY on any 4.1 based build...
I'm not trying to contradict you in anyway it seems like you are way more knowledgeable then me on the subject.
It just doesn't make any sense and I was hoping you could make more of it for me.
Maybe it isn't the charging but a battery drain issue something on 4.2 based builds is draining more current then the charger can dish out.
But while i was doing research I read that chargers up the current they dish out if the device is in use. Is that correct?
I've looked into the media server bug but as I just did a fresh install of stock 4.2.1 and haven't changed or added anything to the file structure that wasn't included in the factory image, I also went through and turned off the keyboard press sound and all other sounds like explained in some of the threads I have read. I also read that the problem is supposed to be fixed in 4.2.2. I also haven't installed any apps from the market.
I guess all I'm looking for is the answer to this question:
Could there really be a hardware related problem of any sort (not just charging and battery problems but anything) that causes problems with 4.2 based builds specifically but doesn't cause problems with 4.1?
If the answer is yes then I don't have to feel bad about sending it in but if its software based issues I'll be upset that I wasn't able to fix it and gave up.
Have you let the battery drain all the way or do you just plug it in at a certain point? if not let it get to the point were it will turn itself off. if the battery with the cross in it stays for more than it would take for 1% to drain then it just might be your battery stats file. even if its not let it drain and then charge it while its off. you can check the battery by pushing the power button quick. i know i have had this problem with other devices that were fixed by doing this. and my N7 did it last night were i updated and plugged it in, it was at 60% and when i woke up it was at 46%.
projectzro said:
Have you let the battery drain all the way or do you just plug it in at a certain point? if not let it get to the point were it will turn itself off. if the battery with the cross in it stays for more than it would take for 1% to drain then it just might be your battery stats file. even if its not let it drain and then charge it while its off. you can check the battery by pushing the power button quick. i know i have had this problem with other devices that were fixed by doing this. and my N7 did it last night were i updated and plugged it in, it was at 60% and when i woke up it was at 46%.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll give this a try right now then post results, the battery is already pretty low so It shouldn't take very long. Thanks for the response.
projectzro said:
Have you let the battery drain all the way or do you just plug it in at a certain point? if not let it get to the point were it will turn itself off. if the battery with the cross in it stays for more than it would take for 1% to drain then it just might be your battery stats file. even if its not let it drain and then charge it while its off. you can check the battery by pushing the power button quick. i know i have had this problem with other devices that were fixed by doing this. and my N7 did it last night were i updated and plugged it in, it was at 60% and when i woke up it was at 46%.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I let it run dry and am getting some weird behavior...
The dead battery symbol did not pop at all. It actually booted played the low battery sound half way through the nexus logo loaded into the OS and immediately was greeted by the battery to low logo powering down message and then it returned off. It did this cycle all the way through three times in a row before holding the power button did nothing. I let it sit for a minute before trying again and I got another boot out of it all the way to the OS again. But I've yet to be greeted by the battery with the cross symbol. Holding the power button will do the cycle described above or do nothing at all.
krisserapin said:
But while i was doing research I read that chargers up the current they dish out if the device is in use. Is that correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, the 120v->5v converter certainly can be providing more current @5v because the device is active, but that's only because the motherboard is drawing current in parallel with the battery charging circuit. It doesn't mean the battery charge rate is higher.
krisserapin said:
Could there really be a hardware related problem of any sort (not just charging and battery problems but anything) that causes problems with 4.2 based builds specifically but doesn't cause problems with 4.1?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I suppose so.
I would do a few things to determine whether that is a reasonable hypotheses, though.
1) See how fast the battery charges with the tablet turned off. Should be close to 40%/hour for a new battery. You know there is no "software" running with the tablet turned off, so if you don't see some reasonable number here (say > 20%/hr) then a bad battery or charge controller circuit in the tab are the most likely culprits. Also, if the temperature rise of the tablet while doing this seems higher than the gf's unit, that would implicate the battery, not the charging circuit.
2) There's software, and then there's software. (Preinstalled vs. User installed) Run the battery down a ways, and then observe the battery charging rate with the device on but screen off (sleeping), but on a stock 4.2 install with ZERO user apps installed. Then, install/restore all your favorite apps, reboot, maybe use a couple of your fave apps, and repeat the same charge rate trial (screen off/sleeping). Are there large differences between the two cases? If so, that would implicate one of your apps in causing either lots of additional compute operations or preventing entry into the LP0 state (perhaps because of wakelocks?)
The thing is, the N7 battery is rated at 4325 mAh; that is sort of the same thing as 4.325 amps of current for 1 hour. (Voltage range of roughly 4v to 3.5v).
So, if a "good battery" can be charged in 2.5hrs, that is sort of like stuffing 1.73 amps into the battery for that time (1.73 x 2.5 = 4.325 A-h or 4325 mA-h). That's pretty near to the max capacity of the AC charger (2A)
Now, some users have reported discharging their tabs in 4 hours under heavy continuous use; that would be about 1.08 amps for 4 hours.
Since the wall charger is rated to produce 2A, this suggests that very heavy usage simultaneous with charging would indeed cause battery charging to slow down significantly - let's suppose it drops from 1.73a to 0.65a. Now it takes the battery 6.6hrs to charge ... but that is still just over 15%/hr ... with the tab in active use.
But that's not what you were noticing - you were seeing much worse charge rates than this when the tablet was supposed to be more or less idle!
Finally I should point out that I previously mentioned that the % charge number is a prediction, not a measurement! If for some reason this number were screwed up, then the "charge rate" observations could be completely screwed up. (Think of this as being analogous to trying to partially fill a gas tank in a car or estimate fuel mileage with a broken gas gauge) The only way to be sure that you are not falling victim to something like this is to record battery voltages - the 100% level should be up around 4v, and the 10% values down around 3.5v.
You can observe this value at /sys/devices/platform/tegra-i2c.4/i2c-4/4-0055/power_supply/battery/voltage_now
(note value is reported in uV)
Whew - long post. It doesn't directly answer your question about "why was 4.1 so different?" - but gives you an idea about why I was skeptical when you saw charging rates as low as you did.
I dunno, maybe the % charge prediction value numbers are screwy on your tab for some strange reason in 4.2, perhaps because of a minor hardware difference. I can't rule it out - I once saw a bug expression in a hardware/software combination that required three independent conditions (from three separate vendors!) to have precise configurations before the bug would show itself.
I hope this post gives you some ideas to try; it certainly doesn't give a solution.
Good luck - if you feel like spending more time investigating, go for it; just don't let the clock run out on the warranty period if you have one left.
bftb0 said:
Well, the 120v->5v converter certainly can be providing more current @5v because the device is active, but that's only because the motherboard is drawing current in parallel with the battery charging circuit. It doesn't mean the battery charge rate is higher.
I suppose so.
I would do a few things to determine whether that is a reasonable hypotheses, though.
1) See how fast the battery charges with the tablet turned off. Should be close to 40%/hour for a new battery. You know there is no "software" running with the tablet turned off, so if you don't see some reasonable number here (say > 20%/hr) then a bad battery or charge controller circuit in the tab are the most likely culprits. Also, if the temperature rise of the tablet while doing this seems higher than the gf's unit, that would implicate the battery, not the charging circuit.
2) There's software, and then there's software. (Preinstalled vs. User installed) Run the battery down a ways, and then observe the battery charging rate with the device on but screen off (sleeping), but on a stock 4.2 install with ZERO user apps installed. Then, install/restore all your favorite apps, reboot, maybe use a couple of your fave apps, and repeat the same charge rate trial (screen off/sleeping). Are there large differences between the two cases? If so, that would implicate one of your apps in causing either lots of additional compute operations or preventing entry into the LP0 state (perhaps because of wakelocks?)
The thing is, the N7 battery is rated at 4325 mAh; that is sort of the same thing as 4.325 amps of current for 1 hour. (Voltage range of roughly 4v to 3.5v).
So, if a "good battery" can be charged in 2.5hrs, that is sort of like stuffing 1.73 amps into the battery for that time (1.73 x 2.5 = 4.325 A-h or 4325 mA-h). That's pretty near to the max capacity of the AC charger (2A)
Now, some users have reported discharging their tabs in 4 hours under heavy continuous use; that would be about 1.08 amps for 4 hours.
Since the wall charger is rated to produce 2A, this suggests that very heavy usage simultaneous with charging would indeed cause battery charging to slow down significantly - let's suppose it drops from 1.73a to 0.65a. Now it takes the battery 6.6hrs to charge ... but that is still just over 15%/hr ... with the tab in active use.
But that's not what you were noticing - you were seeing much worse charge rates than this when the tablet was supposed to be more or less idle!
Finally I should point out that I previously mentioned that the % charge number is a prediction, not a measurement! If for some reason this number were screwed up, then the "charge rate" observations could be completely screwed up. (Think of this as being analogous to trying to partially fill a gas tank in a car or estimate fuel mileage with a broken gas gauge) The only way to be sure that you are not falling victim to something like this is to record battery voltages - the 100% level should be up around 4v, and the 10% values down around 3.5v.
You can observe this value at /sys/devices/platform/tegra-i2c.4/i2c-4/4-0055/power_supply/battery/voltage_now
(note value is reported in uV)
Whew - long post. It doesn't directly answer your question about "why was 4.1 so different?" - but gives you an idea about why I was skeptical when you saw charging rates as low as you did.
I dunno, maybe the % charge prediction value numbers are screwy on your tab for some strange reason in 4.2, perhaps because of a minor hardware difference. I can't rule it out - I once saw a bug expression in a hardware/software combination that required three independent conditions (from three separate vendors!) to have precise configurations before the bug would show itself.
I hope this post gives you some ideas to try; it certainly doesn't give a solution.
Good luck - if you feel like spending more time investigating, go for it; just don't let the clock run out on the warranty period if you have one left.
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Click to collapse
Wow thank you so much for the help. I'll play around with this tonight and see what happens. If I can't figure it out by the morning I think I'll be able to RMA it without feeling like I just rolled over and let my n7 get the best of me.
So after charging it on stock 4.2.1 with the power completely off it only charged 3% in a little over a hour and voltages read 3.6. I'm gonna leave it on the charger over night turned on starting from 3% with only two extra battery monitoring apps installed and report back in the morning with screenshots of the results. After that ill probably revert to 4.1.2 drain the battery fully, charge it off for an hour report the values then let it charge fully with the battery apps on for reference take a few more screenshots then lock the bootloader install the ota and ship it off to good old ASUS since it sounds like its hardware from whats been explained.
FWIW, I drained my N7 last night (LOL, typing novels into XDA threads) - when I finished I was at 6% charge - that was 3.66v. In the morning @ 100%, the battery voltage was 4.1-something.
Sounds to me like you've definitely got a hardware problem.
Good luck with the RMA.
Canyou help me?
Since I flashed 4.2.2 my 240V-USB charger only cahrges thes battery about 5% in one hour.
Before (with 4.2.1) It was definitely faster. It charged more tha 5% per hour (maybe 20-25%).
I double checked the plug in the socket. checked the correct fit of the USB cable on the docking station.
Everything fits tight. No wiggle.
It must be software related, since it started after flashing the OTA zip from 4.2.1 to 4.2.2
Polarfuchs said:
Canyou help me?
Since I flashed 4.2.2 my 240V-USB charger only cahrges thes battery about 5% in one hour.
Before (with 4.2.1) It was definitely faster. It charged more tha 5% per hour (maybe 20-25%).
I double checked the plug in the socket. checked the correct fit of the USB cable on the docking station.
Everything fits tight. No wiggle.
It must be software related, since it started after flashing the OTA zip from 4.2.1 to 4.2.2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From a partially charged state, say below 50%, turn the device off, (NOT sleeping, but powered OFF) and put it on the charger for one hour.
It should charge at around 30-40%/hr.
As I pointed out above, how is it possible that software would be affecting the charging with the device turned OFF?
I believe you are seeing exactly what you report; my best guess is that a hardware problem occurred just about coincidentally with your upgrade. Just coincidence - not causation.
You also should inspect the battery voltage (see above for path in /sys) in case something crazy is happening with the %charge *prediction* (it is not a measurement) - because the total charging range is from about 3.65v-4.15v, a normal charge rate should be roughly 150 to 200 mV/hr
good luck