Database Users

Battery Life Testing - Kernel + Rom Combo's

Iv always considered battery life a very important factor in my purchasing of a phone and was one of the big reasons i moved from my Desire HD to the Nexus S (amongst many others). However having been on the android scene for a while im used to tinkering with kernels and roms etc and due to the new battery graph in gingerbread im now able to make direct comparisons rom by rom and kernel by kernel to see how they all differ. This is all shown + explained below.
First id like to explain my method;
I install the rom and kernel with the same apps I always use and charge the phone fully until i am about to go to sleep. I then unplug the phone and leave it in the exactly the same place on my desk with exactly the same settings (sync intervals etc) and i kill all apps before i leave it just to make sure the test is fair.
In the morning i then take a screen shot of the battery life over the period of usually 8 hours and will upload this for you to see. I then look at the over-night battery drain as a comparison on how good battery life is on specific roms and kernels.
Justification - Many of you may be thinking who cares about standby battery life? I care about the battery when im using it!?
Well although that's valid there are many reasons i have taken this approach;
1. It is completely fair i.e. no individual differences such as 'im a heavy user' but we all have different definitions of a 'heavy user'. This is eliminated by the fact the phone is not used and thus the same every time (no individual differences)
2. If a phone has severe battery drain during sleep general knowledge should dictate that battery drain should increase when the screen is on, cpu is working and your syncing your facebook wall, thus a direct correlation with sleep battery drain and usage drain should be apparent.
Therefore i have decided over the next few days/weeks etc i will upload on a regular basis a screenshot of the battery drain over night, along with the battery use details and screen on time etc etc. In addition to the rom and kernel info and i hope that over time this proves to be a very useful thread.
I have been doing this over the last few days on a less strict system and there have been some VERY interesting results which i will upload over the next few days.
(Just a final note iv never really done anything like this on xda before so if its a stupid idea then please tell me now so i dont waste my time doing it, however if people are really interested please let me know and il make sure i do my best!!)
Thanks for reading my extremely long post!
Bratfink
SCREENSHOT 1: This was using modacos custom rom r10 and the kernel that comes with it, i had quite a short sleep (about 6 hours) but the curve pretty much shows what the point im trying to make is. The battery life is great!!
SCREENSHOT 2: This is CM7 Nightly build 27# with Netarchy's latest 1.2.1 kernel and although i didnt use the screen once of charge for a few minutes as you can see once the screen was off battery life barely decreased and was over a long period of time.
If anyone wants me to test specific combos please let me know.

I'm actually looking forward to reading your results.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

Yep, this would actually be pretty useful. Good luck and good work!

i'm a sucker for these types of tests, always love doing them and seeing the results. post soon!

I like others will be keeping an interested eye on your findings.

Uploading pictures of modaco r10 with it's own original kernel today. Its an interesting result!
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
Uploaded to OP

I'm interested too.

Can u try modaco r10 with Netarchy 1.2.1 kernel.
bratfink said:
Iv always considered battery life a very important factor in my purchasing of a phone and was one of the big reasons i moved from my Desire HD to the Nexus S (amongst many others). However having been on the android scene for a while im used to tinkering with kernels and roms etc and due to the new battery graph in gingerbread im now able to make direct comparisons rom by rom and kernel by kernel to see how they all differ. This is all shown + explained below.
First id like to explain my method;
I install the rom and kernel with the same apps I always use and charge the phone fully until i am about to go to sleep. I then unplug the phone and leave it in the exactly the same place on my desk with exactly the same settings (sync intervals etc) and i kill all apps before i leave it just to make sure the test is fair.
In the morning i then take a screen shot of the battery life over the period of usually 8 hours and will upload this for you to see. I then look at the over-night battery drain as a comparison on how good battery life is on specific roms and kernels.
Justification - Many of you may be thinking who cares about standby battery life? I care about the battery when im using it!?
Well although that's valid there are many reasons i have taken this approach;
1. It is completely fair i.e. no individual differences such as 'im a heavy user' but we all have different definitions of a 'heavy user'. This is eliminated by the fact the phone is not used and thus the same every time (no individual differences)
2. If a phone has severe battery drain during sleep general knowledge should dictate that battery drain should increase when the screen is on, cpu is working and your syncing your facebook wall, thus a direct correlation with sleep battery drain and usage drain should be apparent.
Therefore i have decided over the next few days/weeks etc i will upload on a regular basis a screenshot of the battery drain over night, along with the battery use details and screen on time etc etc. In addition to the rom and kernel info and i hope that over time this proves to be a very useful thread.
I have been doing this over the last few days on a less strict system and there have been some VERY interesting results which i will upload over the next few days.
(Just a final note iv never really done anything like this on xda before so if its a stupid idea then please tell me now so i dont waste my time doing it, however if people are really interested please let me know and il make sure i do my best!!)
Thanks for reading my extremely long post!
Bratfink
SCREENSHOT 1: This was using modacos custom rom r10 and the kernel that comes with it, i had quite a short sleep (about 6 hours) but the curve pretty much shows what the point im trying to make is. The battery life is great!!
If anyone wants me to test specific combos please let me know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my Dell Streak using XDA App

I'd be interested in seeing CM7, just whatever nightly build you manage to catch.

I don't think that result will give you precise result.
I found that statistic is wrong sometimes.
It is better to measure using "play video loop".
So, find a movie, set to the same brightness and play in loop?

gogol said:
I don't think that result will give you precise result.
I found that statistic is wrong sometimes.
It is better to measure using "play video loop".
So, find a movie, set to the same brightness and play in loop?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately that will not give you how well the rom does while it is idle.

I'm really looking forward to your results. My only issue with this phone is the battery life is terrible. I ordered an extended battery off Ebay 3 weeks ago and have yet to receive it. Never ordering anything from Hong Kong again!

Fuse8499 said:
I'm really looking forward to your results. My only issue with this phone is the battery life is terrible. I ordered an extended battery off Ebay 3 weeks ago and have yet to receive it. Never ordering anything from Hong Kong again!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What were you using before that you consider this phone to have bad battery life? By far this phone has the best battery life of any Android device I've owned. If you want bad battery life, get an Evo. That is horrific battery life.

bratfink said:
Uploading pictures of modaco r10 with it's own original kernel today. Its an interesting result!
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
Uploaded to OP
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am looking forward to the rest of these, however just a quick question. What was your battery use like in that situation with the stock ROM? Just for reference, because I'm thinking I might switch to modaco soon. Thanks!

More soon
Iv got a few more screenies but it seems i may have to end this thread prematurely. Its the SNS or 2.3 but idle battery usage for me is pretty much identical no matter what the kernel or rom (il upload a CM7 + Netarchy 1.2.1 shot top op). This was unexpected on my behalf because with my DHD kernels and roms had a big impact on idle battery consumption. I have noticed however that without a full wipe when changing some kernels such as with M r10 idle battery life can increase drastically. I will continue for the next few days and if i dont see any big changes i may move method to a video loop or something of the sort.

Interesting find
I found out something today that may interest may of you. I was messing around with the sleep profiles on SetCpu with netarchys kernel and i found that its better to leave the range from 100-800 than 100-400 or less. This i believe is because when the phone is asleep and carries out a process it will be forced to clock to the maximum of 400mhz and then stay at that speed for 10 seconds, instead of say going up to 800mhz for 1-2 seconds to complete the same process. So a tip to you would be set your profile to 100-800mhz conservative and see what you get!

bratfink said:
I found out something today that may interest may of you. I was messing around with the sleep profiles on SetCpu with netarchys kernel and i found that its better to leave the range from 100-800 than 100-400 or less. This i believe is because when the phone is asleep and carries out a process it will be forced to clock to the maximum of 400mhz and then stay at that speed for 10 seconds, instead of say going up to 800mhz for 1-2 seconds to complete the same process. So a tip to you would be set your profile to 100-800mhz conservative and see what you get!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This kinda enforces the point that SetCPU is useless for the NS unless you really want to overclock...
Any battery saving tactics used buy lowering screen off profiles are counteracted by the system process;( So i think in the context of battery life you are probably better to not use SetCPU
JD

bratfink said:
Iv got a few more screenies but it seems i may have to end this thread prematurely. Its the SNS or 2.3 but idle battery usage for me is pretty much identical no matter what the kernel or rom (il upload a CM7 + Netarchy 1.2.1 shot top op). This was unexpected on my behalf because with my DHD kernels and roms had a big impact on idle battery consumption. I have noticed however that without a full wipe when changing some kernels such as with M r10 idle battery life can increase drastically. I will continue for the next few days and if i dont see any big changes i may move method to a video loop or something of the sort.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would definitely move to a video loop or some other 'heavy use' task because when you think about it, not too much can really be changed when almost no power is being used in the first place.
You could also just mention your general feeling for the battery life of each rom, because quite often that is what I go by as my usage varies depending on a range of things (school day or weekend etc) .
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

Could you please test modaco r10 with Netarchy's latest 1.2.1 kernel ?
I would love to see the difference between modaco's default kernel vs netarchy's kernel.

On CM nightly 13, I just went 11 hours and I'm at 90%. That's 1/2% an hour. Not bad. That is with stock kernel.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk

Differences in Each Vibrant?

I've been seeing a LOT of posts to the effect of "all Vibrants vary", etc... I'm not talking about Vibrant 3G vs 4G or Bell Vibrant, we all know those differences.
What I'm referring to is how phones that are supposed to be identical act and perform vastly different. This leads frequently to claims of "LIAR" and flames, etc. I for one admit I find myself unable to believe for a second anyone that claims to get more than 10 hours of battery life on a GOOD day with a Gingerbread ROM, but people have posted screenshots of 16-25 hours with supposedly stock batteries.
The things I've noticed that are "different" about everyone's phones:
1) Some wipe the SD Card frequently on updating. Others never do.
2) Some came with no hardware access to download mode, some had it.
3) Some have awesome GPS, others have terrible GPS, which leads to #4
4) GPS fixes that improve one phone actually make the next phone WORSE. This is illogical unless there are actual differences in the GPS Radio...
5) Some get decent battery life on Gingerbread, while others are completely unusable, starting to visibly drain the moment you pull them off the charger. And this has no relation to battery life on Froyo, eliminating possible actual battery or user differences.
I did not include overclocking ability, because that's normal with the tight tolerances on CPU production runs. This other stuff, it's just not normal if everything internally is the same.
It just seems too much to be quality tolerances. As I said, people are coming to blows over some of this stuff. When I see someone claim they get good battery life on Gingerbread, and that all it takes is calibrating your battery, I want to bludgeon them over the head with my phone that drains 65% of its battery just sitting there idle for 8 hours, or 40% drain if I'm using my extended battery... when with Froyo, I get 1 or 2% drain in the same time period. But certainly people are getting "decent" battery life.
Even more strangely, it seems like when the phone was manufactured doesn't seem to matter. But the differences, especially in claimed battery life on Gingerbread, and the tendency to have GPS fixes work on one phone and actually 100% fail on the next, makes me wonder if there isn't some issue that hasn't been identified. Are there perhaps 2 different parts suppliers for some component in the phone, that perhaps Samsung is aware of and has written around, or compromised to, which would explain mediocre stock GPS performance, or what is going on?
Are there other differences people have noticed? I'm wondering that if maybe we can somehow identify the actual differences or some pattern, maybe it will clue in the more experienced developers as to what it will take to fix these issues. Currently though, as each developer typically only has 1 or 2 phones, their own, to test on, they can't easily test on both the "good" and the "bad" vibrants.
For example, if you've swapped a Vibrant on warranty, have you gotten one back before that had markedly different characteristics? Notably faster or more laggy than before, drastically different battery life, etc?
What do y'all think?

I have switched out 3 vibrants and this last one is a bit faster but the gps seams more lagging than my last one also I have noticed screen color and brightness differences as well which in part could be responciple for the battery drain. You would think a company such as samsung would have there stuff together.
Sent from my Vibrant running toxic blue

Well mine is odd i can say that. My stock gps never worked. Once i rooted and started using sgps fix i had no issues. I get great battery life on gingerbread (24hours plus on moderate use) but cannot get a gps lock no matter the fix. I cannot run cm7 either it will drain an entire battery in 3 hours if i do. I can run a stable overclock on gb or froyo at 1.6+all day long with no issues.
My wifes vibrant is about the exact opposite of mine i can run the same roms and kernels but hers will not handle overclock or compare similar in quadrant or running 3d games. So yeah its not just you there is something oddly different in these so called same devices.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

I get 22+ hours on every rom I have ever tried and I have tried almost all of them. My gps has also worked well on every rom including gingerbread. I'm using trigger right now and it easily gives me 20 plus hours with screen on over 4 hours...not that battery matters much. Every one should have an extra battery even if it's a cheapy one and there arter ton of those around.
Sent from samsung vibrant

You also have to take into account that the parts of the phone can be slightly or vastly different.
Just from a manufacturing stand point in general I can say with utmost certainty that no matter what steps are taken to ensure identical parts across a line of anything there will always be differences. The time my circuit board went through quality control may have been the end of a shift and the person may have cared about their job a lot. The line stops next shift comes on and a slacker who just got dumped by his girl checks the very next board that may not quite meet spec. This is just one example.
My other example is that of processor chips. As far as computers go, and I'm sure its the same here, the chips are made from a large wafer. Toward the center is higher quality and the edges are lower quality. All these chips meet the minimum requirements but the ones from the center could probably be meet the minimum requirements of the next level chips.
This doesn't even take into account all the outside factors after manufacturing. Yours goes to Tulsa with Mr. UPS and mine comes to Florida with some temp Meth head that managed to fake his way into a job and decides that since its the basketball playoffs he wants to be Lebron with my package.
I hope some of that makes sense. You and I can take the exact same steps to wipe and flash but because of the far too many factors that can make our phones different we may or may not get the same results. All we can do is try to get everything to an optimal place that it works across the majority of phones.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA Premium App

i think it also depends on when and where u bought your phone from can effect your device, for example on froyo i had good battery life 15 hours with moderate use and great gps, but with gingerbread i get about 18-19 hours on moderate with cm7, my gps barley works and any gps fix has no effect on it, my phone can handle slight UV but anything under -100 it gets unstable but i can clock up to 1.7ghz stable i tried 1.8 but that made it crash, so i guess its also based on luck

I had great results with the s.gps.2.zip file flashed on top of Bionix 1.3.1 on BOTH of my Vibrants (mfg. on 10/10 and 1/11). I've been lucky that they both mirror each other in anything I do to them.
Now you gotta take in consideration that you can't go by what everyone claims here regarding their battery life. I'm not calling everyone liars but there are some that you just gotta throw the bull**** flag on them. I seen post claiming that they got 50 hours of battery life (maybe on standby) but I don't see that happening with "regular" use.
Now wtf would you consider "regular" or "moderate" use? Nobody knows cuz every one's use would be different.That's why I feel you can't go by that claim. I can't tell you how many hours I get on a full charge because I can't clone what I do with my phone everyday to give you a number. There are weekdays I have 70% from 5am-4pm and others I'm changing my battery at 4pm cuz I'm on red. I know for sure though that its a hell lot better that when I was on stock.

Alex9090 said:
I get 22+ hours on every rom I have ever tried and I have tried almost all of them. My gps has also worked well on every rom including gingerbread. I'm using trigger right now and it easily gives me 20 plus hours with screen on over 4 hours...not that battery matters much. Every one should have an extra battery even if it's a cheapy one and there arter ton of those around.
Sent from samsung vibrant
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I was able to get 22+ hours on JVP/Q/R GB *or* CM7 I'd be there in a heartbeat. Unfortunately although I can easily get 30 hours on Froyo with my light usage and the STOCK battery (we won't even talk about my Momax), I am lucky to get 10 hours on any GB...
The thing is, these differences are not "minor", they're HUGE differences that people are experiencing. When I say I'm lucky to get 10 hours on GB, I'm saying I can put my phone onto 2G mode only, lay it on the nightstand, and wake up 8 hours later to find 50% of the battery drained - without having done ANYTHING. And then do the same with Froyo and only drain a couple of % - with the same installed apps.
On the CM7 threads and the JVP/Q/R threads it's typically "Well you won't get as good as FROYO but it's acceptable", and that's just not the case with a good portion of users.
I don't blame the developers, of course... what I'm saying is there's SOMETHING, given all these differences, not just battery drain, that is different about these phones that hasn't been discovered. It's enough to make me want to exchange my phone before the warranty is up in September "just to see" if a different phone would be better.

I think mine is the most "common variation" of the Vibrant
- Received the contract through an authorized reseller first week of October
- Not hardware locked
- Never had mysterious sd wipe issues
- GPS worked (locked anywhere from 2 minutes to 5 seconds depending on settings) but will suffer occasionally from horrible, horrible drifting issues (too afraid to perform hardware fix). Interesting to note, s.gps.zip worked wonders but s.gps.2.zip (or whatever it was called) completely broke my gps.
- Never bothered to test if I could overclock or not, but my phone has had the freeze of death when underclocking to 100 or 200 mhz.
- Everything else worked as it should: odin (never had a failed flash), voodoo (never had the not enough space error), etc. etc..
regarding battery life
- pretty standard, custom rom or not, I was able to go through the day with 1 charge (eclair and froyo). Best was Axura 2.x with JK2 modem (around 26 hours I believe).
- GB. It hasnt been as nice as froyo but I believe the devs have done their best without a Vibrant-specific leak. It could last a day, but thats being very generous with screen on time and usage. I believe the GB roms will be on par with froyo if we recieved a leak of our own..
-

AnTuTu Battery benchmak

Hi guys,
I've been an iPhone user for four years in a row. This year though, I bought HTC One developer edition for me and my wife.
Anyway, I've seen lots of threads on battery usage and stats but they reflect results that are dependent on each particular user. I felt like my battery is not lasting long so I ran AnTuTu battery benchmark test and got 457. I still have a week for the unquestioned exchange term, so if anyone out there had the same test could tell me his score, I would decide whether to return it or keep it. Cheers,
P.S. Skype was running on background during the test. I don't know if this benchmark software is clever enough to calculate that difference, but antutu was measuring cpu-usage/battery-usage so Skype shouldn't effect the test result. Advance users might know better of course. :fingers-crossed:

djan84 said:
Hi guys,
I've been an iPhone user for four years in a row. This year though, I bought HTC One developer edition for me and my wife.
Anyway, I've seen lots of threads on battery usage and stats but they reflect results that are dependent on each particular user. I felt like my battery is not lasting long so I ran AnTuTu battery benchmark test and got 457. I still have a week for the unquestioned exchange term, so if anyone out there had the same test could tell me his score, I would decide whether to return it or keep it. Cheers,
P.S. Skype was running on background during the test. I don't know if this benchmark software is clever enough to calculate that difference, but antutu was measuring cpu-usage/battery-usage so Skype shouldn't effect the test result. Advance users might know better of course. :fingers-crossed:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oddly enough I have the exact same grace period so to speak to return my one also , I have also not had very good results with battery and I am considering returning it also , I even downloaded wake lock detector , gem battery monitor, to try and see what is keeping this phone awake, so far I have not been able to nail down anything, I was hoping not to have to worry about every setting , ie, WiFi,brightness, etc etc , my s3 outperforms my one by at least 30 percent , I'm finding the phone is not really going Into deep sleep the way I think it should , anyway sorry for rambling , when. Saw your post I was like uhhhh yeah me too , anyway before I posted I went looking for antutu battery bench mark and I can't find that app , do you mean antutu benchmark, and that app has a battery score I it somewhere....? I never used that app , although I am quite the flasher , sorry for rambling , but I saw on another thread that someone else was not getting Decent battery results and had to exchange there phone and when he did he got much better battery results , I thin its a software glitch , I was hoping not to have too root, to achieve better performance ..........nope other people chime in , I'm a very light user lately and I'm barely getting 3 hours of screen time and 13 hours total , phone is draining around 4 % an hour while off....

I have the one since friday, after the onex has driven me nuts for a year because of the sh**y battery.
I am absolutly amazed by the battery of the one, getting 4-5 hours screentime (watching hd movies and playing games) and still having 20% left

Philly Jim said:
Oddly enough I have the exact same grace period so to speak to return my one also , I have also not had very good results with battery and I am considering returning it also , I even downloaded wake lock detector , gem battery monitor, to try and see what is keeping this phone awake, so far I have not been able to nail down anything, I was hoping not to have to worry about every setting , ie, WiFi,brightness, etc etc , my s3 outperforms my one by at least 30 percent , I'm finding the phone is not really going Into deep sleep the way I think it should , anyway sorry for rambling , when. Saw your post I was like uhhhh yeah me too , anyway before I posted I went looking for antutu battery bench mark and I can't find that app , do you mean antutu benchmark, and that app has a battery score I it somewhere....? I never used that app , although I am quite the flasher , sorry for rambling , but I saw on another thread that someone else was not getting Decent battery results and had to exchange there phone and when he did he got much better battery results , I thin its a software glitch , I was hoping not to have too root, to achieve better performance ..........nope other people chime in , I'm a very light user lately and I'm barely getting 3 hours of screen time and 13 hours total , phone is draining around 4 % an hour while off....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
here is the link for the app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.antutu.tester
I found one review in which they've done this test and got 574 but that was a prerelease unit so things night have changed since.

djan84 said:
here is the link for the app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.antutu.tester
I found one review in which they've done this test and got 574 but that was a prerelease unit so things night have changed since.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will report back with my score , thanks for the app I'm interested to see where I stand and if you get a chance you might try one of the two apps I use at least they tell you what's using your juice.........
Edit Okay maybe i'm mistaken but in order to run this test i think you need to be at at least 95% and it must take a long time , i've tried several times but no good phone is on charger will try again ....................jeeze lol

[EXPERIMENT] S4 Overheating and how it affects battery drainage [PLEASE PARTICIPATE]

Dear Community,
In this thread I want to gather a sample to investigate to what extent the S4 suffers form overheating and how this affects the battery drainage/life. I urge you to participate as I am collecting a sample to submit a formal complaint to Samsung to raise awareness to an issue that is widespread among S4 users and to push Samsung to address this issue accordingly. In order to provide your sample please follow the instructions below and report back in this thread with the relevant information. Please first indicate which variant you have: Quad/Octa (i9505 or i9500)
Please download BatteryGraph (it's a great app to measure Battery drainage accurately) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.modroid.battery
Run it once after download to initiate logging. Let it run for 10 minutes to allow the graph to built up a bit.
Then please Download Antutu benchmark run the benchmark fully exactly 5 times back to back (continuously). After that please enter the stock dialer (as quickly as possible) and enter *#0228# and post the temperature (external thermistor) after the tests in order to determine the maximum temp that the device reaches under continuous stress.
After that, please enter the app Battery Graph and zoom into the graph to the maximum level. Scroll slowly along the curve at the time when you performed the Benchmarks and tell me if there are interruptions or 'skips' where the battery drops 1 or 2 percent at a time and where the App does not Register a graph for those drops. Sequence/scroll slowly along the graph 1% at a time and make sure that the battery dropped 1% at a time. Please report of the battery has dropped more than 1% at a time. Please make a screenshot of your battery graph in the App and post it here for collection. I will analyze the graphs subsequently and compile it in SPSS to submit our findings.
If there is a drop of 2 or 3% at a time it means that you are experiencing Battery Percentage skips/cliffs which could indicate either a defective battery or defective device which might be the cause for the extensive heat development.
Thank you for your participation. Hopefully Samsung will listen to us and address the issue to give us the perfect S4 that we deserve.
Best,
Thomas from Germany

exxi said:
Dear Community,
...
Thank you for your participation. Hopefully Samsung will listen to us and address the issue to give us the perfect S4 that we deserve.
Best,
Thomas from Germany
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That battery app polls for battery level changes every 5 minutes by default. I think almost every device will experience a drop of more than 1% every 5 minutes under constant stress testing. You can change it to poll every 1 minute in the settings, which you might want to mention, but even so isn't it entirely possible to lose more than 1% a minute with everything turned on (GPS, Gestures, etc.) and ~17 minutes of constant cpu/gpu stress testing? It's a nice idea but it doesn't sound like it would yield very accurate results, unless I've misunderstood your post.
EDIT: Nevermind, I see how you can step through it 1% at a time now.

Meltus said:
That battery app polls for battery level changes every 5 minutes by default. I think almost every device will experience a drop of more than 1% every 5 minutes under constant stress testing. You can change it to poll every 1 minute in the settings, which you might want to mention, but even so isn't it entirely possible to lose more than 1% a minute with everything turned on (GPS, Gestures, etc.) and ~17 minutes of constant cpu/gpu stress testing? It's a nice idea but it doesn't sound like it would yield very accurate results, unless I've misunderstood your post.
I've also noticed that you cannot really zoom in very far and at the highest zoom setting the % is still displayed in multiples of 10. Kind of tricky to differentiate between a 1% and a 2% drop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You might be right, what would you suggest in order to yield more accurate results? I suspect that the heat is directly linked to a very quick drainage of the battery. How can we measure how much it affects the actual battery drainage?

exxi said:
You might be right, what would you suggest in order to yield more accurate results? I suspect that the heat is directly linked to a very quick drainage of the battery. How can we measure how much it affects the actual battery drainage?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not criticizing you or anything and I'm not saying it's a bad idea, It's just that obtaining accurate battery results are tricky as everyone's device is different, has different settings enabled and are running different kernels/ROMs/etc. Batteries also seem to get more efficient as time goes on so newer devices might suffer from higher battery drains.
I'll run the battery temp test now though and see how hot mine gets!

I like your critical thinking, obviously you are right it is very trick but I believe the heat test itself could be very indicative. In the meantime I will try to find a better way to measure battery drainage.
So everyone please try to run the benchmark multiple times and submit the temperature.
The most I was able to get was 52C
Thanks

Pre-test: 29.9°C
After 3 tests: 35.0°C
After 5 tests: 37.7°C
After 7 tests: 38.4°C
After 10 tests: 38.8°C
The temperature increased less and less so I don't know how much higher I could get it.
Also, an easier way to poll the temperature is to do "adb shell dumpsys battery" over ADB. The temp will be displayed as something like 388 which means 38.8°C
Edit: It might be worth noting that the top of the phone, around the camera but more so on the screen side (so the cpu?) got incredibly hot. Almost too hot to touch. Kinda worrying, but I have spent the last half an hour stress testing, I guess

Meltus said:
Pre-test: 29.9°C
After 3 tests: 35.0°C
After 5 tests: 37.7°C
After 7 tests: 38.4°C
After 10 tests: 38.8°C
The temperature increased less and less so I don't know how much higher I could get it.
Also, an easier way to poll the temperature is to do "adb shell dumpsys battery" over ADB. The temp will be displayed as something like 388 which means 38.8°C
Edit: It might be worth noting that the top of the phone, around the camera but more so on the screen side (so the cpu?) got incredibly hot. Almost too hot to touch. Kinda worrying, but I have spent the last half an hour stress testing, I guess
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Click to collapse
Thanks for your contribution Meltus! Really appreciated my friend. Also thanks for the ADB command it does make it easier but I doubt that you've read the correct temp as 38 appears to be quite low compared to what i got. Is your S4 a i9505 ?

exxi said:
Thanks for your contribution Meltus! Really appreciated my friend. Also thanks for the ADB command it does make it easier but I doubt that you've read the correct temp as 38 appears to be quite low compared to what i got. Is your S4 a i9505 ?
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It's also the temperature that dialling *#0228# gave me (I double checked they were both the same each time). And no, I have an i9500, running Omega ROM, if that helps.

Might want to mention the elementary precaution of taking off all case covers except for the stock case before testing to prevent insulation effect of case covers increasing battery temperature...
While you're at it you might want to standardize room temperature to 25 degrees C... I know for a fact that my device would never get hot no matter what it does if running in the freezing cold air-con'd metro...

What about brightness settings and whatnot. Should all be the same, so you have to give a standard.

Pre-test: 36.2°C
After 3 tests: 51.4°C
After 5 tests: 54.6°C
After 7 tests: 56.9°C
dafaq right??? im really annoyed at sammy for this overheating S4... after 7 times testing the Antutu, i stopped and LITERALLY put my S4 in the lower compartment of the refrigerator to get it cooled down quickly cause im pretty sure the heat sensors inside would definitely be having some testing errors and the temperatures would be really really higher than that. even when i swipe between different homescreens the phone gets to 47°C which is really annoying.
can someone pls for the LOVE OF GOD provide any solution to this freaking problem? i have been worrying a lot for spending my $730 on an overheating phone...
i have S4 i9500 Exynos version
---------- Post added at 10:02 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:01 AM ----------
oh and i have half the brightness all the time for everything and auto brightness turned off

Are you talking about the battery temperature? If so something is extremely wrong with your unit, my battery temperature never went past 45 even with high stress.
If in case you are pointing out the cpu temperature then there is no reason to freak out because the cpu can handle upto 90c + and can cool off pretty fast
Edit:
And why on earth you ran Antutu for 7 times continously lol? None of the current generation phones can handle it for 7 times on a row afaik
Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

bala_gamer said:
Are you talking about the battery temperature? If so something is extremely wrong with your unit, my battery temperature never went past 45 even with high stress.
If in case you are pointing out the cpu temperature then there is no reason to freak out because the cpu can handle upto 90c + and can cool off pretty fast
Edit:
And why on earth you ran Antutu for 7 times continously lol? None of the current generation phones can handle it for 7 times on a row afaik
Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can read the CPU temp instead of the battery temp?

bala_gamer said:
Are you talking about the battery temperature? If so something is extremely wrong with your unit, my battery temperature never went past 45 even with high stress.
If in case you are pointing out the cpu temperature then there is no reason to freak out because the cpu can handle upto 90c + and can cool off pretty fast
Edit:
And why on earth you ran Antutu for 7 times continously lol? None of the current generation phones can handle it for 7 times on a row afaik
Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
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Click to collapse
im talking about the cpu temps. i ran antutu cause it was asked to be done for this thread.
and why would it be silly to run any app 7 times on the flagship device? its made to run the apps as much as people want thats why we pay a huge amount of money for these devices dont we? or else we should buy the low end devices
just saying cause i had heating up issues with devices before infact my last device Note 2 used to get a lot hot but not as much as this S4...
i desperately need a solution for this...

Joe0Bloggs said:
You can read the CPU temp instead of the battery temp?
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Click to collapse
Yes we can read cpu temp and battery temp separately, use system tuner app to read cpu temperature.
Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

aami.aami said:
im talking about the cpu temps. i ran antutu cause it was asked to be done for this thread.
and why would it be silly to run any app 7 times on the flagship device? its made to run the apps as much as people want thats why we pay a huge amount of money for these devices dont we? or else we should buy the low end devices
just saying cause i had heating up issues with devices before infact my last device Note 2 used to get a lot hot but not as much as this S4...
i desperately need a solution for this...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are not buying a flagship device just to run Antutu n number of times, do you? yes I accept we do pay huge money but that doesn't mean we can push the limit of a mobile and complain about it from a general user perspective . , it can be only done for experimental purposes and to understand the power /thermal envelope provided that it's done in the right way.
But how does running Antutu 7 times matches a real life scenario? Highly unlikely isn't it?
We are already pushing the limits of raw cpu power for a mobile, raw a15 cores are power hungry and often tend to heat faster than previous generation. Hence arm introduced the big little. The mobile heats up during heavy stress, but but that's expected with these powerful cores right? I'd better utilize the power wisely when needed rather than using it all the time. The cpu indeed gets hotter when stressed, it's the same With my s3 too the cpu temps reached upto 80,there is built in throttling mechanisms which will take of the cpu once the cut off temperature is reached. Have seen many benchmarkers these days using freezer test due to the thermal throttling in new gen devices. Yes the s4 heats up pretty quick than other mobiles but also cools down pretty fast and I think that's the way it is destined to work.
Hei one more thing, did you note how long it took to fallback to normal temps?
Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

bala_gamer said:
Are you talking about the battery temperature? If so something is extremely wrong with your unit, my battery temperature never went past 45 even with high stress.
If in case you are pointing out the cpu temperature then there is no reason to freak out because the cpu can handle upto 90c + and can cool off pretty fast
Edit:
And why on earth you ran Antutu for 7 times continously lol? None of the current generation phones can handle it for 7 times on a row afaik
Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We were doing it to see if there was a correlation between excessive battery drain and overheating batteries. Mine never got any hotter than 40 and I have pretty great battery life. The OP was seeing temps of 50+ and I'm guessing he has poor battery life.
Could there have been a few batches of bad batteries sent out with devices?
Sent from my GT-I9500 using xda app-developers app

Meltus said:
We were doing it to see if there was a correlation between excessive battery drain and overheating batteries. Mine never got any hotter than 40 and I have pretty great battery life. The OP was seeing temps of 50+ and I'm guessing he has poor battery life.
Could there have been a few batches of bad batteries sent out with devices?
Sent from my GT-I9500 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you talking about battery temperature or cpu temperature? Haven't heard any stories so far regarding damaged battery, but may be possible.
Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

Thanks for the Updates > and clear step to analize the issue to fix in next Sw update
Thanks for your efforts ]
Dear Community,
In this thread I want to gather a sample to investigate to what extent the S4 suffers form overheating and how this affects the battery drainage/life. I urge you to participate as I am collecting a sample to submit a formal complaint to Samsung to raise awareness to an issue that is widespread among S4 users and to push Samsung to address this issue accordingly. In order to provide your sample please follow the instructions below and report back in this thread with the relevant information. Please first indicate which variant you have: Quad/Octa (i9505 or i9500)
Please download BatteryGraph (it's a great app to measure Battery drainage accurately) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.modroid.battery
Run it once after download to initiate logging. Let it run for 10 minutes to allow the graph to built up a bit.
Then please Download Antutu benchmark run the benchmark fully exactly 5 times back to back (continuously). After that please enter the stock dialer (as quickly as possible) and enter *#0228# and post the temperature (external thermistor) after the tests in order to determine the maximum temp that the device reaches under continuous stress.
After that, please enter the app Battery Graph and zoom into the graph to the maximum level. Scroll slowly along the curve at the time when you performed the Benchmarks and tell me if there are interruptions or 'skips' where the battery drops 1 or 2 percent at a time and where the App does not Register a graph for those drops. Sequence/scroll slowly along the graph 1% at a time and make sure that the battery dropped 1% at a time. Please report of the battery has dropped more than 1% at a time. Please make a screenshot of your battery graph in the App and post it here for collection. I will analyze the graphs subsequently and compile it in SPSS to submit our findings.
If there is a drop of 2 or 3% at a time it means that you are experiencing Battery Percentage skips/cliffs which could indicate either a defective battery or defective device which might be the cause for the extensive heat development.
Thank you for your participation. Hopefully Samsung will listen to us and address the issue to give us the perfect S4 that we deserve.
Best,
Thomas from Germany[/QUOTE]

bala_gamer said:
Are you talking about battery temperature or cpu temperature? Haven't heard any stories so far regarding damaged battery, but may be possible.
Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Battery temperature. If someone's experiencing temperatures in excess of 50C and bad battery drain it would indicate a problem.

[Q] Need Input from Member's About Phone Stability and Temps

I really just wanted to ask a few members for their input after running a test on their own Galaxy S4. I just would like some people to run the app "Stability Test" (You can grab it HERE) and just follow these steps.
1.) Run "Classic Stability Test"
2.) Keep an eye on the upper left corner for "cpu:____Mhz" and look for fluctuations below 1890Mhz or whatever your starting clock speed is
3.) Run for 2-3 minutes and post here the lowest stable speed you got consistently or if you saw no drop in speed at all
4.) If you'd like, post your setup as well so I know if you are running stock or custom voltages
I'm requesting this because I bought a used SPH-L720 and I have a small window to return it if it isn't functioning properly. When I run Stability Test my S4 can stay near stock 1.9GHz speeds for one test but after that it is throttled back to between 1242Mhz and 1458Mhz. I truly appreciate anyone who could tell me if their phone also acts this way so I don't think I ended up with phone that runs too hot and could fail later on. Thank you immensely to anyone willing to post their experience for me.
Edit: Forgot to mention, I know it is temperature throttling in my case because I have Android Tuner and with the temp monitor in my status bar when Stability Test runs my phone jumps up to 71C and then clocks down after one complete test run.

OK, i tried it. 2 full tests stayed at 1890, 3rd test dropped to 1674, after 4 tests it dropped to 1458 and stayed there through 6 tests. I stopped it after 6 tests. my battery started at 24.2 C and finished at 25.7 C.
Hope that helps you out.

cruise350 said:
OK, i tried it. 2 full tests stayed at 1890, 3rd test dropped to 1674, after 4 tests it dropped to 1458 and stayed there through 6 tests. I stopped it after 6 tests. my battery started at 24.2 C and finished at 25.7 C.
Hope that helps you out.
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Click to collapse
It does, you have no idea. I couldn't face the idea that my phone was running that much hotter than most other people's phones. I only know one other person with an S4 to test in person so I had to ask for community help.
Edit: I got a pm from a member here (thank you Danster840 if you stumble across this) about how running the chipset works and that I ultimately don't have to be concerned about the temperatures rising the way they do. I have since learned my lesson and am now less panicked about my phone running hot. Now I can go back to customizing and tweaking without worry of heat generation. Thanks everyone!
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