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[HOWTO] Improving Battery Life for CM 5.0.7 and other 2.1 ROMS [upd 06/04]

I had seen one too many posts about people asking and complaining about battery drain issues on their G1 phones and it gets tiring to read it every 5-10 posts. So I decided to create this thinktank to pool in ideas from the community and create a set of best practices to maximize mileage of our phones. I'm currently using a HTC Dream with stock battery and my battery life is pretty good with light to medium usage. I would like to contribute to the community by creating this thinktank thread. I hope this can help as a guide for myself and for people who have been having numerous battery drain issues on 5.0.7-DS and variants of this distribution.
This is NOT the ultimate end-all solution for your battery problems. These are just steps to tackle the problem. If you want minimum to no battery drain keep it plugged to socket or plug it in a car battery.
If you would like to contribute your experience, or make any corrections please do not hesitate to post and I'll include them if they seem fit and attach your name as reference. I'll also do my best to give credit where credit is due. Please see the references at the bottom part of the post. Please do not clutter this thread by doing "I'll try this" or "It doesnt work" post. Its more important for all of us to know WHY it work/didnt work. Stick to topic, and be constructive. Be intelligent. Think first.
0. Update your Radio
Updating your G1's radio to the currently-latest version (2.22.23.02) should give you better battery life as well as signal reception (you can always switch back to 2.22.19.26I if it doesn't work out for you)
1. Recalibrate
Take note that BATTERY STATS ARE WIPED whenever you flash a new rom. (since full wipes are required whenever changing ROMS, and /data is where the battery info is.) This usually leads to inaccurate battery readings.
Here's how you recalibrate properly:
- Charge your phone till the GREEN LED shows up. Leave it for another hour.
- While plugged, go to recovery and wipe your battery stats.
- Right after the phone is booted up and settled, unplug and use as per normal till it shuts off. Then charge as per normal.
2. Disabling some basic phone hardware functionality
Turn off GPS, WIFI when not in use. And brightness set to manageable levels. Even loudspeaker. This is self-explanatory. Automation software like LOCALE can be useful, but usually all it takes for you to turn off your ringer, or turn on wifi when you're at a specific area is just a press on the Power control widget.
3. Overclocked kernels
Running on full overclock speed (by default is 528mhz or even higher on some kernels) will drain your battery faster and you'll notice significant heat increase when you're using your phone along with 3G.
Although im using pershoots 576mhz overclock kernel, I do not max it to 576 unless needed. The reason why I use his kernel is due to its UNDERVOLT capability. I have set up my phone using SetCPU
MAXFREQ: 480,
MINFREQ: 176
CPU Governor : ONDEMAND.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Usually I would set my phone to 384mhz if im going to stay on it longer (texting/long browsing etc). On the sleep mode I set it to 122mhz to 384mhz.
4. Tame your widgets, minimize using them.
Widgets that constantly connect to the internet, or constantly refreshing on the screen to update data being shown on the screen at extremely small intervals would also give you battery drain. Minimizing widgets can help minimize applications running in the background (free up memory) and avoiding your phone going on "partial sleep". Also tweak your widgets to update as less as manageably possible. If for some reason you can't see the next suggestion.
Aside from that you might want to disable Background syncing and do manual syncing. Aside from saving your data plan, it also saves battery life. You can disable it by doing the following:
Menu > Settings > Accounts & Sync > Background Data - OFF
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
manually update your facebook widget or contacts/gmail by
Menu > Accounts & Sync > Facebook (or GMail) > Sync.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
5. 3G, 2G, switch off, or automate it.
You'll notice that inside the default settings for mobile networks. Setting to 2G will "save battery" which is actually true. The connection will definitely be slower, but if you like your phone to last longer throughout the day, either switch to 2G or turn it off altogether.
Also, similar to juice defender, I use 2g/3g toggle and toggle data as and when needed.
Another suggestion that I just found out recently is the use of Juice Defender app [d]. It automatically turns on or off your APN settings at intervals. You might want to try to look at that app if you cannot do #4
6. Disable live wallpapers. Auto Updating Sense
Remember that 2.1 isnt actually built for our old phones. and livewallpapers do require cpu/gpu processes. These are also running in the background and may run while your phone is asleep. So turning them off will benefit you.
7. Refrain from using Automated task killers and choose what you kill.
If you see that the app you had been trying to kill a few times keeps coming back. Stop killing it. Everytime you do, and whenever it respawns, CPU flies to 100%. Go back to #4.
8. Disable Market notifications.
- Open the Market application.
- Select the Menu key.
- Select Downloads.
- Select the Menu key again.
- Select Notifications.
- Select the Do not notify me radio button. press [Ok]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
9. Make your phone sleep.
Open your spareparts application, Go to End button behavior. Select "Go to sleep"
10. Under the hood tweaks
10.1 Extending Wifi scan intervals
Edit the wifi scan interval in /system/build.sapphire.prop (or build.trout.prop if you have a G1)
# Time between scans in seconds. Keep it high to minimize battery drain.
# This only affects the case in which there are remembered access points,
# but none are in range.
wifi.supplicant_scan_interval = 45
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Changing this number to just 90 second will half your wifi scans. Obviously larger numbers can mean less wifi scans which means more battery life, though it may take a little longer for your phone to pick up a remembered access point when in range. This is not just a CM/Eclair thing, it can also work for Donut phones.
This setting needs a reboot after editing the file. Edit it with Root Explorer, or nano as root if you have CM5, or pull the file with adb then edit it then push it back.
11. Remove your phone from your pocket whenever you can.
Body heat deteriorates battery life no kidding! there had been already studies to back it. I keep my phone either on my hand or outside of my pocket to keep it cool. Do whatever is manageable in your environment. If you're using your phone as a music player streaming using streamfurious and stuff. dont let your body heat add to the heat already been generated by your phone itself.
References / Updates :
[a] cyanogen recalibrating batteries : http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php/Troubleshooting#Battery_recalibration
thanks to mejorguille for correction on /data and wiping.
pershoot UV kernel: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=666850
[c] SetCPU main site : http://www.pokedev.com/setcpu/ - Thanks also to ShadowCH for tip.
[d] JuiceDefender : http://www.latedroid.com/2010/01/juicedefender.html -
- Thanks to shohid1234 for 3G-2G toggle
[e] Thanks to Jaymzz for tip on disabling market: http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/index.php?/topic/94-i-fixed-my-battery-drain/
[06/02] thanks to Arkain2k for tip #0
[06/04] Thanks to Foo_Blyat's tip for disabling background sync and manual updates for fb/gmail (item 4) http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6670907&postcount=36
[06/04] Thanks to Super Jamie for tip 10.1 extending wifi scans http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6684954&postcount=49

reserved in case something nice comes up

10. Remove your phone from your pocket whenever you can.
Body heat deteriorates battery life no kidding! there had been already studies to back it. I keep my phone either on my hand or outside of my pocket to keep it cool. Do whatever is manageable in your environment. If you're using your phone as a music player streaming using streamfurious and stuff. dont let your body heat add to the heat already been generated by your phone itself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
really? isnt warmth charging batterys? in my old gameboy years i always put my batteries on the heater when the drained completely and after an hour i could play again with the old batteries.

1. Recalibrate [a]
Take note NOT TO WIPE BATTERY STATS whenever you flash a new rom and your battery is less than 90%. This usually leads to inaccurate battery readings. If you already wiped your battery during one of your flashes, here's how you recalibrate properly:
- Charge your phone till the GREEN LED shows up. Leave it for another hour.
- While plugged, go to recovery and wipe your battery stats.
- Right after the phone is booted up and settled, unplug and use as per normal till it shuts off. Then charge as per normal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is true, but since battery stats are stored on the data partition, a data wipe also deletes the battery stats. A lot of rom's require a full wipe, meaning data and dalvik, so battery stats are deleted whether you select the option or not.

Since001 said:
really? isnt warmth charging batterys? in my old gameboy years i always put my batteries on the heater when the drained completely and after an hour i could play again with the old batteries.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi!
Yes Im very familiar with that practice because i do that too. The reason might be because of the composition of the battery (alkaline, non alkaline). Usually we put it under the sun so that the heat will help change the composition of the compound inside the battery in order for it to lower down its resistance. Leading to a "charge".
But now we are using Li-Ion batteries, and I do not suggest putting them under the sun because it will deteriorate your battery capacity holding charge and its lifecycle.
reference: http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm see figure 1.

samaral said:
Hi!
Yes Im very familiar with that practice because i do that too. The reason might be because of the composition of the battery (alkaline, non alkaline). Usually we put it under the sun so that the heat will help change the composition of the compound inside the battery in order for it to lower down its resistance. Leading to a "charge".
But now we are using Li-Ion batteries, and I do not suggest putting them under the sun because it will deteriorate your battery capacity holding charge and its lifecycle.
reference: http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm see figure 1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, that makes sense.
Made me lol to see that there actually is a "battery university"

Thank you! this post is noted
mejorguille said:
This is true, but since battery stats are stored on the data partition, a data wipe also deletes the battery stats. A lot of rom's require a full wipe, meaning data and dalvik, so battery stats are deleted whether you select the option or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Noted. I have edited the guide to reflect your insight.
Thank you very much

how about going to setting - about phone - battery use?
there you can find out exactly whats killing your battery and take appropiate action.
Also, similar to juice defender, I use 2g/3g toggle and toggel data as and when needed. Using these two widgets i have no battery issues.

Post noted and added on top
shohid1234 said:
how about going to setting - about phone - battery use?
there you can find out exactly whats killing your battery and take appropiate action.
Also, similar to juice defender, I use 2g/3g toggle and toggel data as and when needed. Using these two widgets i have no battery issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Noted. Your suggestion is added on top.

change preferred network type helped for me increasing battery life
Hello all,
as describe in post
forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6432560&postcount=1
changing preferred network type worked for me.
default setting: WCDMA preferred drains my battery in a few hours, crazy
within CM 5.0.7-test7 I was able to change to: GSM/CDMA auto and it worked
But now in the final release 5.0.7-DS I can not select this setting. Perhaps it correlates to the this (PRL) info in brackets.
It seems that no "auto" setting want be working so I am trying WCDMA only right now and will see if I have a network in 2G networks too.
Bye morT

Hhmm let me think…
Running a prrocessor that's massively overclocked with software that was never meant to run on our g1's I have an idea.
****** off back to stock or get over it
I mean seriously people come on, we have set cpu for power profile management, basic battery usage which is dim screen, turn off wifi and 3g when not in use blah blah blah same **** written in every guide about battery life for ANY roms from cupcake to eclair.
As I said, get over it or go back to stock.
[highlight]Mod Edit: Please watch your language and don't flame others.[/highlight]

im sorry does turning on "display battery status" in spare parts still effect battery life? TIA

Ive noticed that bluetooth is killlllling battery life, but dont know if its normal. I charged to 100% and turned everything on, leaving screen on the whole time and what not.
While I was actively using the net over WiFi, I had nothing using the bluetooth, and both seem to eat up 20%..
This might be normal, might not be, but thought it was odd that it being on, but not in use, ate up just as much as functioning, in use, wifi.

whats funny to me is as soon as my phone dies i plug it up reboot it a few times and my battery is at 70%
.... i think its not reading correctly .. i mean fully charged play talk text browse till it shuts off .. plug it in turn it right back on then reboot ..
and my battery is back at 70% which is weird ... anyone else notice that???
also wifi, gps is on screen brightness is standard !!!

batteries really seem to be the least developed technology in our high tech phones. feels like a sportscar with a one gallon tank...the fun's over quickly...
turned off my 3G and got a lot of additional battery life. with bad 3G reception (like in the place I live in) the phone was sometimes sucked empty in just a few hours, now I get two days.
another thing that really helped me extend my battery life was turning on airplane mode when I went to bed.

how about dont use overclock or any other cpu speed up tool....maybe the speed they are factory set to is there for a reason...Hmmmmmmm

dcowboys2184 said:
whats funny to me is as soon as my phone dies i plug it up reboot it a few times and my battery is at 70%
.... i think its not reading correctly .. i mean fully charged play talk text browse till it shuts off .. plug it in turn it right back on then reboot ..
and my battery is back at 70% which is weird ... anyone else notice that???
also wifi, gps is on screen brightness is standard !!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should go through a battery recalibration - steps on the first page.

Best Practices for Improving Battery Life for CM 5.0.7 (and variant ROMS) is to use this ROM, Thanks.
Do whatever you like, show or hide battery status in the Spare parts, calibrate or not....the battery remains....for loOng....enough time....

hot/cold controversy
Since001 said:
really? isnt warmth charging batterys? in my old gameboy years i always put my batteries on the heater when the drained completely and after an hour i could play again with the old batteries.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since I have a background in electrical theory and chemistry, let me end this debate once and for all: heat makes atoms (and therefore molecules) move faster. Lack of heat (cold) makes them move slower. In general, fast-moving atoms in batteries mean MORE power, not less. The reason your car doesn't want to start when temperatures are subzero is that the battery acid (electrolyte) molecules are moving too slowly to oxidize (give off e-, electrons) and turn back into positive ions. The same is true for the ol' Gameboy AAs -- put them on the heater, the dry cell warm up, and more electrons are transferred to the anode by anions, the positive ions (cations) are more able to travel to travel back to the cathode (in the case of dry/wet-cell rechargeable storage batteries). Heat acts as a catalyst to produce electricity. Some of you may have even taken your car battery indoors if the electrolyte froze in the winter. Some of your cars may have battery blankets or even battery heaters if you live really far up north. In addition, the process of charging a Li-Ion, Ni-mH, or even lead acid battery will produce heat, because chemical conversion is bi-directional, but anyway . . . you charge the G1, it gets hot. You use it heavily, it gets hot. You know you're spending electrons somewhere when it gets hot period. Keeping the phone cool will not increase battery life or make it charge fast. What lower battery temperatures will do is lengthen the battery's overall life. What happens if you leave meat out in 100F/30C temperatures? It goes bad quickly. Same principle in Li-ion. The rechargeable battery is ideally an efficient, closed system of ion exchange that should work for many (hundreds) of duty cycles, but eventually heat plays a role in deterioration of the electrolyte and chemical catalysts inside.
So put your extra charged batteries (but you don't want a Li-ion or Ni-mH battery to sit very long in an discharged state, so be careful here) in the refrigerator in an airtight bag (rotating on a daily basis) if you really want them to last a long time, but don't charge them frozen (ka-boom!) and remember cold batteries charge slowly. Car batteries in sub-tropical areas are replaced at a rate of about once every 24 months, but in Sweden? Maybe every five or six years. Cold temperatures slow down chemical deterioration just like cold keeps that steak from becoming maggot food.
Again, a hot G1 may weaken its own internal components and batteries over time, but putting it on ice won't give you an extra 6 hours to oogle Miley Cyrus' vBlog
Hope this helps.

For me, unless I'm expecting a text or a call always have my phone on airplane mode. I turn it off every hour or so to see if I got any unimportant texts, and then turn it back on

Battery Problem [CM7]

Hi everybody!
So I am using CyanogenMod 7 Beta5.1 And I'm having huge battery problems...
It's draining abnormally fast (30% lost during night).
It started to happen when I got problems with my Defy and flashed 3.4.3-11
And now updated to 3.4.2-117.
Before these problems it usually drains only 3% during night!!
Also everytime I boot my phone, when it's completely booted I hear the camera sound (when you open camera app,it makes a physical sound).. It never happened before...
I overclocked my phone to 1100Mhz but I don't think it really affects the battery (when screen off it's set to 500Mhz)
Please help me!....

I was having that problem and I turned fast boot off and it solved the problem for me. The phone doesn't really shut down all the way if fast boot is on.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA Premium App

schultzy001 said:
I was having that problem and I turned fast boot off and it solved the problem for me. The phone doesn't really shut down all the way if fast boot is on.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
fast boot? The one from setvsel?

schultzy001 said:
I was having that problem and I turned fast boot off and it solved the problem for me. The phone doesn't really shut down all the way if fast boot is on.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how can u shutdown fastboot? wanna give this a try...

schultzy001 wrote
"Sent from my Desire HD"

um... a new thread? really?
by the way, i have this problem too since beta 1.. i don't know why..
but i still like it because CM7 is so fast without OC.
i try to compare froyo and CM7, with same apps and same apps settings,
CM7 lost the battery faster than froyo, even when in flight mode.
the strange one is, even the memory usage is so low on CM7 (no motoblur crap),
but why battery still drains so fast..
in battery usage statistics,
on CM7, it shows that "Display" is the one who responsible drinking so much juice (60% and the other is just 3-10%).
on froyo, is not the "Display" which responsible drinking most of the juice, it is "Cell Standby".
i thought gingerbread should have good battery management, and the battery should last much longer than froyo.
i'm sure it is a bug on CM7 for Defy.
but whatever, at least we have a Gingerbread on Defy from a great dev like Quarx.
while motorola working so slow on releasing froyo with its motoblur crap.

Hi guys,
I'm having this issue too, and i note since a few days ago. I don't know why, but my Defy is sucking his battery too fast. Could it be a bug ?

it's a little bit difficult to follow the bugs and the solutions in a huge thread like the other one. so i think that this that could be a mayor problem for all of us should be treated in a differente thread.
I use Motocharge since 1 day to follow how it discharge during the day.
I say it in the other thread, the phone loose a lot of battery when i don't touch it. sometimes it loose like 5% in 15mins and i don't touch it. maybe it doesnt sleep well, i don't know..
I hope that Quarx can solve this, because in the other betas of him i don't have the problem. only in the 5.1.

battery draining
I think It´s a bug, because I used before BETA 5.0 and without any battery life was almost 3 days in normal use, bur now with BETA 5.1 only two days or less.
By the way I´d proved with 3 or 4 diferent roms, but the same result.
But I´m sure Quarx will deleted this bug in the next version

same problem for me,but b3 and b4 is ok
Sent from my MB525

apart from low battery life.....i noticed substantial increase in battery temp..normally its 32-34 deg cel.....but wid CM7 it raises to 42-45 deg cel.....waiting for a solution so that i can come back to CM7...

I use Toggle 2G/3G to switch to 2G when phone goes to sleep. I set wifi to never sleep and use it as much as possible over 3G. I also set brightness levels long time on 16 so that in the shadow I always use just a little energy. This way I almost get double battery live.
+ it's better for battery to charge every night, empty or not, and let it go lower just occasionally.
Link to Toggle app:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=739530

yes, this issue is really annoying, 30% battery drain overnight.
something is definitely running unreasonably... hope find it.

I think it depends upon what "type" of defy u have. My battery that only used to last for 12-14 hours in eclair now went for 2 days last 2 charges.
Also depends upon how many widgets and apps u running... hard with mobile phones to judge battery as so many independent variables.
Sent from my MB525 using XDA App

OK Guys, this is an old thread, but I think it should be deleted or at least people should read this before registering this thread in their mind:
The battery drain 'issues' were almost always due to two things:
1- For the beta 6 version or older of CM7- there was a bug with the auto-brightness which was heavily stressing the cpu and making the system lag badly - hence: the battery drain. To fix this: you have to stay on auto-brigthness. So just make sure that the auto-brightness box is checked and ON. Additional info: some users also complained about the 4 action buttons (menu, home, back and search) not lighting up ---> fix: un-check auto-brightness and re-select it: done!
2- Users did not set their Network baseband properly. Fix: use the Defy Baseband Switcher application and select the newtwork that applies to you. If you don't do this, your phone might have signal reception (phone and sms) but it will use more power to communicate and get a proper lock to your phone service provider.
I don't know what is the exact build # that brought the Defy Baseband Switcher (as far as I can remember, CM7 beta 4.1 had it) but all the 'newest' CM7 will have it anyway.
And if you want to further decrease your battery consumption, you can still do it like this:
- use the bootloader cpu settings: OC'ing and governernor type to change the cpu speed. [From CM7 default 1000MHz to the Defy's stock 800MHz] and change the governor type from "interactice" default to "on demand" [OK: I'm not sure about governor change will improve or not but that is the Froyo's default I believe].
- install SetVsel to underclock --> by lowering cpu Vsel upon the 3 cpu frequencies. Do some reading; you might need to uncheck its "[email protected]" option AND also have Milestone Overclock installed for it to work properly.
- USE a recent nightly (post May 29th: there was a possible problem with custom recovery backup restoring prior to that) and you will be able to set your screen display brightness as low as you want [fix the bug described in point 1- above].
- use DroidWall and/or the CM7 built-in applications' permissions control to block some apps' access to internet and networks. BE WARNED though: changing permissions CAN make an application stop working or create problems - don't submit bug reports if you do that.
- Avoid high usage of apps that drain battery quickly (TuneIn radio is power-thirsty one that comes to my mind...) and apps that have to create catalogs and thumbnails (ex: Photoshop, Titanium Backup, Gallery, ...)
- If possible: use 2G network only, disable data synch, auto updates of apps and social networks.
- set your WiFi sleep policy to "Never" [while in Wi-Fi settings, press menu button/ Advanced] and avoid frequent Wi-Fi ON/OFF switching.
- Lower your display brightness and switch that screen off at any chance you got!
There are many other ways I'm sure, but those are the main ones anyway...
I've seen high temps yesterday on my Defy, but I later realized that I forgot to re-set my Baseband after a CM7 nightly install... It 'could' also happen when a (background) service goes "beserk" and overload the cpu: absolutely not necessarily related to CM7 --> faulty apps and bugs happen... Just stop and clear the cache of that app and/or reboot your phone and problem should be gone.
CM7 is now really stable; a VERY FEW little hickups remaining still (like with the camera, but negligeable), but the large amount of new user controls that it brings clearly overcomes the 1 or 2 minor bugs left --> IMO, just having control over each and every applications' permissions justifies forgetting about using Eclair and Froyo. Problems in CM7 are being actively sorted out and new user controls and other useful options are added in almost daily manner through the nightly builds.
I'm categoric: on CM7, I now have more control over where my battery juice goes that I've ever had on Froyo....
So please stop alarming people with high battery usage drainage on CM7 and give it a try by following the right proper steps; I'm sure that you won't regret it.

marhensa said:
um... a new thread? really?
by the way, i have this problem too since beta 1.. i don't know why..
but i still like it because CM7 is so fast without OC.
i try to compare froyo and CM7, with same apps and same apps settings,
CM7 lost the battery faster than froyo, even when in flight mode.
the strange one is, even the memory usage is so low on CM7 (no motoblur crap),
but why battery still drains so fast..
in battery usage statistics,
on CM7, it shows that "Display" is the one who responsible drinking so much juice (60% and the other is just 3-10%).
on froyo, is not the "Display" which responsible drinking most of the juice, it is "Cell Standby".
i thought gingerbread should have good battery management, and the battery should last much longer than froyo.
i'm sure it is a bug on CM7 for Defy.
but whatever, at least we have a Gingerbread on Defy from a great dev like Quarx.
while motorola working so slow on releasing froyo with its motoblur crap.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Display instead of cell standby showing up first in battery consumption means that Froyo (or CM7) uses less battery. The display just stayed the same of course, unless it's tuned brighter, the percentage increased because it's a relative measurement.

[Q] S-OFF... what now?

Hey all
First time poster long time lurker
I finally took the plunge and rooted my phone (using Revolutionary)
Sadly, I'm stuck!
nb. On the boot screen (volume+Power), it says S-OFF
What do I do now, if I want to install a ROM (or revert back to my old build)?
Thanks in advance
ps. I've downloaded and tried to use fre3vo, etc. but can't get my head round it
pps. sorry for the long winded post

Zofu said:
HOn the boot screen (volume+Power), it says S-OFF
What do I do now, if I want to install a ROM (or revert back to my old build)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Christ, that wasn't a long winded post....!
Next step is to install a custom recovery and root your STOCK ROM.
Although if you choose to download and install CWM as part of the revolutionary process you may already have the custom recovery installed. In which case simply download a custom ROM (which all come pre-rooted) to your SD and then flash it, although ensure that you read all the installation instructions first.
If you didn't install CWM as part of the S-OFF process then look at my signature where there are a couple of links
1) adb & fastboot
download this and extract contents onto PC
2) Flash CWM & su via fastboot
follow instructions in this thread to flash both the custom recovery (ensure that you get the version for your device SAGA)
Then I'd suggest you enter CWM and take whats known as a Nandroid backup of your device.
Then you should be able to download any custom ROM you like.
Any questions then ask, you should never do any steps that you are unsure or uncomfortable with as you can do damage to your device!

Cheers for the reply, ben_pyett!
I'll make a start now
I know it's not that complicated a prcoess, but I kinda jumped in assuming it'd take 5 minutes, I guess

I've flashed the Cyanogen 7.1.0 RC by NeoLogix onto both mine and my wife's handsets... and I have to say it's VERY impressive!
Initially it doubled the battery life, and with some clever settings tweaks (which I'm more than happy to post here, menu by menu, if you end up using the same ROM) I've more than quadrupled the effective battery runtime.

ben_pyett said:
1) adb & fastboot
download this and extract contents onto PC
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok I did this
ben_pyett said:
2) Flash CWM & su via fastboot
follow instructions in this thread to flash both the custom recovery (ensure that you get the version for your device SAGA)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I followed the instructions ("fastboot flash recovery recovery.img" -- where "recovery.img" was the Desire S CWM recovery) via my USB with the phone in Fastboot mode (white screen)
ben_pyett said:
Then I'd suggest you enter CWM and take whats known as a Nandroid backup of your device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do I enter CWM?
Do you mean turn my phone on normally and CWM app will be installed?
Seems I seriously need walking through this!
Grr

Here's the way I find best.... switch your phone OFF, but leave it plugged in via USB.
From your command prompt, type "adb reboot recovery"
The phone will then boot to recovery

Zofu said:
How do I enter CWM?
Do you mean turn my phone on normally and CWM app will be installed?
Seems I seriously need walking through this!
Grr
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like you've made huge progress...
I'm assuming that you've also push'd the SU file while in fastboot? if not do that as well.
At this point you should decide which custom ROM you wish to install and download that and all its add-ons and place them on you SD card so that you are able to use them once you're in RECOVERY. You should probably take the time while the ROM downloads to read the install instructions that come with the ROM, that often involve running additional WIPE scripts etc....but each ROM is different.
Anyway back to the question you asked, how to enter CWM (clock work mod) which is your custom recovery.
You should normally boot your phone and then go into Settings->Power->fast boot and ensure that its un-ticked.
Easy Way
Install ROM Manager from the market and then choose the Reboot into Recovery Option (second one down from top) and voila!
Manual Way
Power Off your phone.
Turn on your phone by pressing Power button + Volume Down button together.
You should now see the white HBOOT screen, using the volume up & down buttons to flick through options and Power button as enter you should be able to find the RECOVERY option. go into that.
Don't worry once you have a custom ROM things will be easier as most customs have an Advanced power Menu which has reboot into recovery as an option.

Quick update:
ben_pyett said:
I'm assuming that you've also push'd the SU file while in fastboot? if not do that as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have no idea what the above^ means!
Ok, I got into Recovery manually (black Revolutionary screen with menu)
What do I choose in the menu to install a ROM?
- reboot system now
- apply update from sdcard
etc.
Does the ROM have to be at the root of the SD?
Can the ROM be named anything you wish, or does it have to be named "update.zip"?
Still a little confused!
Cheers guys for your super help so far

Zofu said:
Quick update:
What do I choose in the menu to install a ROM?
- reboot system now
- apply update from sdcard
etc.
Does the ROM have to be at the root of the SD?
Can the ROM be named anything you wish, or does it have to be named "update.zip"?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is the option that you need install ZIP from sdcard
The ROM can be called anything you want, I never bother renaming the ROM files that the cooks call them, so that I can easily identify which is which and it can be position in any location on the SD not just the root directory. Although try to avoid directories with spaces in for now.
Update.zip is something else so don't use that option.
Once you've done this I'd also download and install the CUSTOM recovery EXT4 as its much easier to use....you can do that by simply installing the following APK which you'll find in this post and that will install the new recovery for you.
best of luck...back in two hours.....got to go and watch MANCHESTER UNITED NOW!

Cheers Ben
Have fun!

*edit: fixed issue with ROM install*
I decided to give Cyanogen 7.1.0 RC by NeoLogix's ROM a try and it seems to be working fine
Thanks for the helps, guys!
ps. if wanted to install another ROM, do I need to uninstall the previous one (wipe it again?), or can I just copy another ROM over and install like I did before?

Zofu i suggest you flash virtuus unity! its a great sense 3 rom. i love it! it has brought my desire s to life!!

You shouldn't be swayed by any of our opinions with regards which ROM to choose, I'd suggest that you install all of them one after each and decide for yourself which one suits you most
Although first question is sense or no sense.
The reason why there are so many roms is because we all have such differing tastes
Enjoy
PS
There is no UN install task, but each ROM will have its own install instructions in the first post of the thread which will have it's own wipe recommendations
Swyped from HTC Desire S using XDA Premium

LaKraven said:
I've flashed the Cyanogen 7.1.0 RC by NeoLogix onto both mine and my wife's handsets... and I have to say it's VERY impressive!
Initially it doubled the battery life, and with some clever settings tweaks (which I'm more than happy to post here, menu by menu, if you end up using the same ROM) I've more than quadrupled the effective battery runtime.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just got my Desire S as a gift not 3 days ago and it is my first android phone.
As soon as I realized that there is something wrong with it's rapid battery depletion - I started reading up on it and presently I have red led/green led tried to calibrate battery(i think it helped some), turned off all syncing to manual, changed themes to black and no animations, turned off bluetooth etc...Basically I have stopped everything "smart" on this smart phone following dozens of advice pages on this and other forums...Which then brings me right back to battery consumption of my DISPLAY - still, even after reducing brightness to under 40% it is using around 80% of all battery per charge.
I have rooted the phone today and really need your advice on:
what ROM
kernel
radio
OS
, or anything else in terms of apps and widgets to install in order to try and at least double my battery life so I can be safe without charging for at least 12 hours of i.e.( if I'm in a train to be able to watch a movie, listen to music 3 hrs, surf 1.5 hrs, do 3 or 4 15 minute calls , text and read books for couple of hours and still have battery left in standby) - or is it just a pipe dream of mine lol...
P.S. maybe avoid flashing ROM if there is another way to reduce Display consumption(80%)
Thx much, btw, is Cyanogen is the way to go???

To add to ben_pyett's suggestion... I wouldn't exactly just "install each one, one after another" as there is actually a finite number of times the ROM can be flashed before you start to damage the internal memory (sure, it's a high number, but why cause more wear than you have to, right?)
I'd suggest you read up on the ROMs before you decide to try them out! Take a look at what features they have, what people have to say about them (particularly looking for bugs and potential problems).
Hell, if you're lucky, you may even find an introductory video to some ROMs on YouTube, which will give you a little more insight into what to expect.
As Ben said, the first question is "To Sense, or not to Sense?"
As a matter of personal opinion, I've chosen "not to Sense" in favor of better battery runtime and the "cleaner" GUI.

Bombastc said:
I just got my Desire S as a gift not 3 days ago and it is my first android phone.
As soon as I realized that there is something wrong with it's rapid battery depletion - I started reading up on it and presently I have red led/green led tried to calibrate battery(i think it helped some), turned off all syncing to manual, changed themes to black and no animations, turned off bluetooth etc...Basically I have stopped everything "smart" on this smart phone following dozens of advice pages on this and other forums...Which then brings me right back to battery consumption of my DISPLAY - still, even after reducing brightness to under 40% it is using around 80% of all battery per charge.
I have rooted the phone today and really need your advice on:
what ROM
kernel
radio
OS
, or anything else in terms of apps and widgets to install in order to try and at least double my battery life so I can be safe without charging for at least 12 hours of i.e.( if I'm in a train to be able to watch a movie, listen to music 3 hrs, surf 1.5 hrs, do 3 or 4 15 minute calls , text and read books for couple of hours and still have battery left in standby) - or is it just a pipe dream of mine lol...
P.S. maybe avoid flashing ROM if there is another way to reduce Display consumption(80%)
Thx much, btw, is Cyanogen is the way to go???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I spent days trying to tweak the stock Desire S ROM (and again after the update I applied ~ a week ago) with quite literally no success!
Even with the most riggorous (performance and feature restricting) power management setup, I still couldn't get the thing to pass the 18 hour mark (which I only achieved with the help of Tasker, used to toggle Airplane Mode during my sleeping hours etc.)
Having switched to the CM7 ROM linked previously, and using nothing but a combination of changing its default settings, and SetCPU (to scale the CPU clock for superior power saving with literally NO performance hit), it'll now run for almost 48 hours between charges (more than sufficient, wouldn't you agree?)
I'll post a separate thread in here with a complete battery optimization guide for the aforementioned ROM.
Just to clarify, after more than 4 hours running on the battery (at least half of which with the display on and the phone in use) it has gone from full to just 90%, which in itself averages to about 40 hours of runtime.
Coupled with my SetCPU scaling, this adds ~8 more hours!
This means that, with moderately heavy use (though I haven't yet had time to test absolute runtime with HD 720p video playback just yet) you can expect a screen & WiFi ON time of 24 hours, with a standby time (again, with WiFi on) of a further 24 hours!

La Kraven - can you teach me how to dougie lol? You really quadrupled your batt? :O

Bombastc said:
La Kraven - can you teach me how to dougie lol? You really quadrupled your batt? :O
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes.... and just to give you some comparrative reference:
Battery Use:
Mobile Standby: 74% (that's the GSM radio)
Wi-Fi: 12%
Phone Idle: 9%
Display: 4%
Android System: 2%
EDIT: The GSM registers heavily on "Mobile Standby" because I cannot get any cell reception where I live (AT ALL), so the GSM is idling, constantly looking for a carrier. If you're in a GSM (or better) environment, you can expect the "Mobile Standby" value to be substancially lower, most likely with other feautres such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or GPS leading the consumption values (dependant on what you've got enabled)

LaKraven said:
I spent days trying to tweak the stock Desire S ROM (and again after the update I applied ~ a week ago) with quite literally no success!
Even with the most riggorous (performance and feature restricting) power management setup, I still couldn't get the thing to pass the 18 hour mark (which I only achieved with the help of Tasker, used to toggle Airplane Mode during my sleeping hours etc.)
Having switched to the CM7 ROM linked previously, and using nothing but a combination of changing its default settings, and SetCPU (to scale the CPU clock for superior power saving with literally NO performance hit), it'll now run for almost 48 hours between charges (more than sufficient, wouldn't you agree?)
I'll post a separate thread in here with a complete battery optimization guide for the aforementioned ROM.
Just to clarify, after more than 4 hours running on the battery (at least half of which with the display on and the phone in use) it has gone from full to just 90%, which in itself averages to about 40 hours of runtime.
Coupled with my SetCPU scaling, this adds ~8 more hours!
This means that, with moderately heavy use (though I haven't yet had time to test absolute runtime with HD 720p video playback just yet) you can expect a screen & WiFi ON time of 24 hours, with a standby time (again, with WiFi on) of a further 24 hours!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thx so much, HALF of that would be fine with me lol!

Bombastc said:
I just got my Desire S as a gift not 3 days ago and it is my first android phone.
As soon as I realized that there is something wrong with it's rapid battery depletion - I started reading up on it and presently I have red led/green led tried to calibrate battery(i think it helped some), turned off all syncing to manual, changed themes to black and no animations, turned off bluetooth etc...Basically I have stopped everything "smart" on this smart phone following dozens of advice pages on this and other forums...Which then brings me right back to battery consumption of my DISPLAY - still, even after reducing brightness to under 40% it is using around 80% of all battery per charge.
I have rooted the phone today and really need your advice on:
what ROM
kernel
radio
OS
, or anything else in terms of apps and widgets to install in order to try and at least double my battery life so I can be safe without charging for at least 12 hours of i.e.( if I'm in a train to be able to watch a movie, listen to music 3 hrs, surf 1.5 hrs, do 3 or 4 15 minute calls , text and read books for couple of hours and still have battery left in standby) - or is it just a pipe dream of mine lol...
P.S. maybe avoid flashing ROM if there is another way to reduce Display consumption(80%)
Thx much, btw, is Cyanogen is the way to go???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We are new to Android at some point, this is my first Android device.......but I've had many HTC Sense Windows mobile devices beforehand and most of the same things tend to apply.
I'd suggest as a first port of call you read this thread which is a GUIDE, and sticky for a reason kindly written by wnp_79, I learnt loads from reading this alone.
Don't expect to learn everything in a days....it takes weeks or months.....
just enjoy....and remember that we're all different have differing expectations and uses for the same devices so what suits one of us doesn't always suit the other.
ps
you shouldn't really go off topic like this.....if you need specific help say so and create a new thread or read the sticky threads which contain GUIDES and links to many useful resources. Don't expect to become an expert over night and attempt to learn as much as possible by simply reading before you risk damaging your device!

Is there any solution to the battery drain on ics

i lose around 40 precent overnight everyday
its really frustrating knowing that i have to work with it full day afterwards
so is there any fix for this?

No idea what youre talking about. Mine only drains 20% with wifi and wifi apps running overnight.
Maybe you should look over what you got running, and if you got a custom kernel, reduce the lowest frequency of the cpu. Im running mine at 450Mhz or something.
Ooooor maybe 'overnight' for you is like 26h ?

You could also............
.
.
.
.
.
suspense!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Leave it on the charger over nite! I know. Shocking.

Download "BetterBatteryStats" from here and check which app is causing it. If you need assistance, just head over to BBS thread. Remember to attach your log file so it's easier for them to help you.

Hearmeman said:
i lose around 40 precent overnight everyday
its really frustrating knowing that i have to work with it full day afterwards
so is there any fix for this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First thing, you should get CPU Spy from the market. This will tell you if your TF is going into deep sleep or not.
If you were experiencing the same issue under HC then ICS most likely wouldn't fix the issue anyhow.
Prior to ICS I was loosing about 25% over night which just shouldn't happen. I was rooted but stock otherwise. I unrooted my TF & completely wiped before flashing ICS. One cool thing about ICS is there is an intergrated task manager widget. You can see what programs are running at any current time. There were three programs that were constantly running that I disabled. Those were PixWE, Netflicks, & My Uploads. Netflicks kept wanting me to update but I don't use it so why update it? I simply disabled it and there are a whole host of other programs that can be disabled too.
With all this being said I am only loosing 3-4 percent over night running ICS completely stock.

Try airplane mode
There's an app in the market that simulates airplane mode, but allows wifi still. After I installed it I stopped losing battery overnight. It's basically a wake-lock issue.

2easilyamused said:
There's an app in the market that simulates airplane mode, but allows wifi still. After I installed it I stopped losing battery overnight. It's basically a wake-lock issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 This worked for me too but for a different reason. My TF tends to leave wifi switched on, even when told to turn off when the screen does. It could also be a rogue app as described above. Once you sort it out, overnight drain should only be a few percent at the most.

2easilyamused said:
There's an app in the market that simulates airplane mode, but allows wifi still. After I installed it I stopped losing battery overnight. It's basically a wake-lock issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could please tell me the name?

How to diagnose here
I lose ~20% overnight in flight mode.
If I go Settings > Battery I see it's a lot of Android OS. But widgets must be included in that. So then I go settings > apps > running and see a few apps running, but I can't tell which of these is killing the battery and I don't know which app would tell me ((can I run top on the the commandline?)). I will experiment more and report back. I suggest you do that same.
This should go in the first post of this thread:
To diagnose this charge before sleep, put into flight mode overnight and look in the morning to see if the Android OS has been the culprit.
Perhaps you don't need any 3rd party apps for diagnose but if you need to be available for early morning calls use a profile scheduler.

Get a new Kernel
The main problem is the kernel in ICS, a way to fix this is changing your kernel, I do recomend the Test kernel from Guevor, install from version 11 to up, test it and keep the one you like. My tf is lasting fully with keyboard, around 30hrs.

I use test 13
but on .17 and not .23

I'm on ICS 4.0.3 with 3.0.8-NEO though
werewolferx said:
The main problem is the kernel in ICS, a way to fix this is changing your kernel, I do recomend the Test kernel from Guevor, install from version 11 to up, test it and keep the one you like. My tf is lasting fully with keyboard, around 30hrs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My Nook got stolen and I'm waiting for a DroidPro to arrive so this would be on my main phone. When I've tried to flash just the kernel on it's own I've had problems before. This time I'll give it a go but am I missing something in terms of flashing a new kernel on?
I'm on ICS 4.0.3 with 3.0.8-NEO-3.0-TeamICSSGS-257174-g197c9a1-dirty (build *07)
Other than the possible battery problem it's been good. I just want to check to see if yo uhave anything more concrete to backup your decision... that a different kernel really might make any difference because that Test kernel from Guevor is very much in flux... I'd no idea which one to choose.Up to test15 now.
(thread for reference here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1565519 )
For convienience it would be nice to backup the current kernel first as other than battery it's working well...
update, edit instead of bump:
ok, I lost 1% an hour last night in flight mode (6% over 5 hours) with all background apps and services killed. Does that seem about right? The interesting thing was that not all processes/services/backgrounded showed the same on different task killers...
I bet there's lots of people updating kernels when actually it's an app, or the left over effects of an app or something like that.

Hearmeman said:
Could please tell me the name?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use Auto Airplane Mode by DON this fixed my problem with battery drain from the wifi staying on.After 4 days of use I still hade 35% battery left!

AOSP ROMs Battery drain (staying awake?)

Hello,
I've been flashing a bunch of AOSP roms and with all of them, i tend to get terrible battery life while idling. I've narrowed it down to my phone not sleeping while the screen is off. In the battery chart menu awake seems to be almost the same as the battery up time and the bar graph is almost a full solid blue. while i was searching i came across a post in cm forums blaming this on something to do with the gps and that disabling it and rebooting would fix it but this does not seem to work for me. Does anyone else have this and has anyone found a way to fix it?
I've also discovered a post whereby someone was running advanced task killer on an sgs2 to fix the same issue i'm having but i would rather not rely on a task killer if i don't need to. Any info, ideas, help, links etc are greatly appreciated!!
Your friendly neighbourhood Spiderman.

So, to narrow things down, I started off fresh
- Flashed stock 1.11 hboot from Telus RUU
- relocked then RUU
- unlocked, flashed TWRP 2.4.4
- Wiped SD, Cache, Dalvik, System, Factory Reset
- Flashed PA 2.54/Gapps (my fave ROM)
- Installed few apps. Friendcaster, Tunein Radio and Swiftkey
- Left it at 60% over night not charging
Low and behold, Awake time and screen on time were almost on par. However, I used it on the bus to listen to some tune in radio, browse the web etc and it seems as though one of the apps or maybe multiple are keeping the phone awake more than it has to be and it started draining again. not as bad as before, mind you. Most likely due to there being less apps. So at this point if I want to continue using AOSP ROMS it seems as though I will need to set up a task killer so nothing keeps my phone awake.
Tonight I will set it up and see what happens with my awake/screen on bars. I am fairly certain they will sync up afterwards. I tried to avoid a Task Killer but it seems as though I cannot! I will post my findings after for anyone else in this same boat though it seems very few are!

Get a program like better battery stats or Gsam battery monitor to tell you what your wake locks are
Sent from my VENOMized HoxL