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Getting frustrated with unreliable battery life

Ok. Android phones are not blackberries, and I'm well aware of that. This Thunderbolt is not my first android device, so I am very familiar with setting it up and using it in such a way to make the battery last.
I'm not posting this to complain of the battery life sucking. I'm complaining that the battery is fine one day, and horrible the next.
So here's what happens. Yesterday, i unplugged my phone at 730am like i do every day. By 3pm with light usage, i was down to 40% or so. Charged it up before I left work, no big deal, lasted the rest of the night.
Today, unplug the phone at 730am, phone is completely dead, as in, won't even boot by 11am. Same apps, same usage, same location, same strong 4G signal, same everything. It has happened multiple times on consecutive days when i was rooted on the stock rom, and still on VirusRom. I just dont get why this happens. I am doing nothing different and my phone either lasts all day, or a few hours. It's getting to the point where I am finding it very hard to rely on this phone when i'm out and about. It makes no sense. Especially if i'm not really using my phone, just checking for texts once in a while, there is no reason why it should die. What if i need it? I couldn't even call or text my gf tonight while I was working because my phone battery was ZERO only a few hours after leaving the house with a 100% charge.
Is anyone else experiencing this?

yesterday I had abnormal drain on my battery. I get 18 - 24 hours on a charge normally, but yesterday I went from 100% to dead in 5 hours. Called VZW and they said it was a documented problem and they were working on it.
IDK, they are pretty good about pushing updates. Also, yesterday I kept dropping out of data. bizzare....

I burned through the extended battery in 9 hours yesterday, really hope they figure out some better power management soon,

Switch it to 3G cdma rev.a and see if that helps. The 4G radio is always being searched for. I love the tb so I can deal with no 4G til they get the bugs out.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA Premium App

You have to use current widget and see how much power draw your phone is pulling. Then use system panel monitoring to track apps using the highest CPU.

Definitely an issue and I'm glad that Verizon is aware of it. I've had this unusual drain happen four times now, all on 4G. Last time I noticed it (seeing the battery percentage drop like 2% every five minutes or so), went to the Market and snagged System Panel.
The offending process is "system." Had my CPU spiked at 100% for over an hour before I rebooted, which does fix it, at the cost of another 10% of your battery, of course.
Hope they get this ironed out soon. Love my Thunderbolt, but this is a major issue and seems to be happening to a lot of people.

The best thing to do is dial *#*#4636#*#* and turn the radio to CDMA auto (PRL) mode.
I am already seeing much better battery life, as I am in a non 4g area.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll have to give that a try. I got into the radio settings, and after flashing VirusRom, my phone defaulted to LTE mode only. I put it to cdma/lte auto, to see if that helps. If not, i'll just disable LTE unless i really need it.

No need to dial all of that crap. TeamAndIRC has a toggle app called "LTE OnOFF TeamAndIRC" that allows you to toggle between CDMA and CDMA + LTE/EvDo auto.
I found out two things dealing with my massive nighttime battery drain. One, wifi doesn't seem to work correctly. I've never had the problem before but for some reason it doesn't sleep correctly. What I've done is changed the sleep policy to "15 minutes" which allows it to switch back to 3G fifteen minutes after I turn off the screen. That allows me to have wifi while I'm using it but 3G while it's idle. This has seemed to fix my problem along with... Second, I am on the fringe of 4G/3G here on the outskirts of Cincinnati. At work I am solid 4G but at home it can't make up it's mind. Well, that has certainly played into the battery issue as it is constantly searching. So, what I do is as I walk in the door from work I use the app listed above to switch to "CDMA auto (PRL)" and it sticks to 3G. When I get to work I switch to "CDMA + LTE/EvDo auto".
So, to summarize:
I have eliminated my nightime drain by doing two things:
1) I use the Y5 app to automatically start wifi as I walk in the door but have changed the sleep policy to "after 15 minutes".
2) I use the app above to switch from 4G/3G auto to 3G only.

ridobe said:
No need to dial all of that crap. TeamAndIRC has a toggle app called "LTE OnOFF TeamAndIRC" that allows you to toggle between CDMA and CDMA + LTE/EvDo auto.
I found out two things dealing with my massive nighttime battery drain. One, wifi doesn't seem to work correctly. I've never had the problem before but for some reason it doesn't sleep correctly. What I've done is changed the sleep policy to "15 minutes" which allows it to switch back to 3G fifteen minutes after I turn off the screen. That allows me to have wifi while I'm using it but 3G while it's idle. This has seemed to fix my problem along with... Second, I am on the fringe of 4G/3G here on the outskirts of Cincinnati. At work I am solid 4G but at home it can't make up it's mind. Well, that has certainly played into the battery issue as it is constantly searching. So, what I do is as I walk in the door from work I use the app listed above to switch to "CDMA auto (PRL)" and it sticks to 3G. When I get to work I switch to "CDMA + LTE/EvDo auto".
So, to summarize:
I have eliminated my nightime drain by doing two things:
1) I use the Y5 app to automatically start wifi as I walk in the door but have changed the sleep policy to "after 15 minutes".
2) I use the app above to switch from 4G/3G auto to 3G only.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LTEonoff is just a shortcut to the menu. In essence, it saves no time because you have to download it. If you're flipping it on and off all the time, then yeah, it might behoove you to just dl the app. But, as a one time thing, it's unnecessary.

^You are correct. I switch daily but I didn't see earlier that you were not in a 4G area.
I would highly suggest this to anyone who sees their data connection switch back and forth as I was in my house.

Battery life has been strong the past couple days now. I haven't had any unusual drains since i switched from LTE only mode to EVDO/LTE auto mode. I dont know if this was for sure the issue, but it seems to have made a huge difference. I haven't been plugged in for 2 hours and i still have 92% battery left.

Here's my interpretation of the issue:
There seems to be some kind of problem or bug with the radio which makes it drain an enormous amount of power from some towers (700mA+ is shown on current widget). Even with good signal, I'll repeatably drain a lot of power in certain areas. The "fix" is to disable mobile data or switch to wifi. This lowers the power usage back down to (slightly lower than) normal levels.
For some reason, the radio will not admit to drawing practically 90% of your battery in the battery use menu (nothing does, in fact ... it just looks like normal battery use).
I'm glad to hear that they are aware of an issue that maybe causing this.

I can't stand the battery life either other than that I love the phone
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA Premium App

Yeah i'm still at 83% battery after being unplugged for 4 hours, light usage.
Another thing i noticed is that when my battery was draining stupid fast, the phone would be warm to the touch even when it was just sitting on my belt clip. All seems well for now.

Mine is good
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA Premium App

My battery life has recently become terribly inconsistent. Last week I was actually getting through a 16 hour day with light usage, but this weekened I must have installed something because now the phone is lasting 3-4 hours with hardly any usage at all.
The battery information is pretty worthless because it's not showing anything except display using the battery and the display has only been on maybe 8 minutes.
Checked the partial wake info and nothing seems to be running in the background. The battery is just discharging like crazy all of a sudden. Guess Ill start uninstalling stuff to see what might be causing it

I am also having a weird battery experience today. I am rooted running Adrynalyne 1.9. Last few days I was doing great, moderate usage and was staying charged for 16-18 hrs. Today my phone has died twice during my 8hr shift at work. I KNOW something is wrong there. Hopefully a fix is found soon.

On all my Androids (4 of them currently in daily use), I've found that Words With Friends is often a HUGE battery killer...and I don't mean because you play it a lot, I mean leave it running and put your phone down, walk away a while, come back to the phone and it is HOT to the touch! Obviously killing the battery. Something to look at for sure.
I've got the extended battery and just went over 48 hours, with moderate to heavy use by my standards on a single charge. Pretty amazing and I guess I'm not in a bad radio area.
hammer4203 said:
Switch it to 3G cdma rev.a and see if that helps. The 4G radio is always being searched for. I love the tb so I can deal with no 4G til they get the bugs out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only thing I love about the TB is the 4G...everything else on it, been there, done that. I wouldn't keep the TB if 4G had to be turned off to make it usable in terms of battery life. Hopefully it will be fixed quickly!
Zshazz said:
Here's my interpretation of the issue:
There seems to be some kind of problem or bug with the radio which makes it drain an enormous amount of power from some towers (700mA+ is shown on current widget). Even with good signal, I'll repeatably drain a lot of power in certain areas. The "fix" is to disable mobile data or switch to wifi. This lowers the power usage back down to (slightly lower than) normal levels.
For some reason, the radio will not admit to drawing practically 90% of your battery in the battery use menu (nothing does, in fact ... it just looks like normal battery use).
I'm glad to hear that they are aware of an issue that maybe causing this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for that analysis. With that in mind, if it's accurate, could a Tasker app profile be set up that does your fix if the drain works that high? Would be a nice safety feature for those who aren't willing to have to look at their phone frequently to check battery life.

You have to use the current widget to record your idle power readings, its the only way to know what's going on. Then use system panel monitoring to see which app CPU is highest.

battery drain fix - alternate method!

This is a sister-thread to "Battery Drain Fix" for the g2x that lists a factory reset as a possible fix to battery drain issues.
First, let me say that even if you do not currently have battery drain issues with your G2X, that doesn't mean that you're immune. My battery has been phenomenal at times, abysmal at others. I've done the factory reset and that DID help for awhile, but battery problems arose again.
I believe the problem that plagued my phone was the dreaded 50% cell standby problem. If you're unaware of this problem, essentially the issue is that "cell standby" (found under settings --> about phone --> battery use) is at or around 50% always -- in other words, it doesn't matter that the phone has fine reception, is or is not being used, or even has the signal active (that's right, the problem persists even with airplane mode activated).
While I do recommend the factory reset method (assuming that you haven't had your phone too long, as it can be a real pain to reconfigure everything if you've set it up how you like it over many weeks...), I think this alternate method is something we should all do as well. In brief, you'll want to do the following:
-open dial pad and dial *#*#4636#*#* (If Testing menu doesn't come up than click "Call" and it will come up)
-Go to Phone information
-Scroll down and you'll see preferred network type
-click it and switch it to GSM/WCDMA auto
-click back button
After taking these steps, you should see an immediate improvement to your battery drain problems, as well as much faster battery charge times. Additionally, your cell standby % should decrease dramatically.

Isn't the same effect achievable from the Network Settings? No need to go to the secret menu. Unless I'm missing something.

electric33l said:
Isn't the same effect achievable from the Network Settings? No need to go to the secret menu. Unless I'm missing something.
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I thought the samw but in the hidden menu it is set to wcdma preferred
switched will report tomorrow
thanx for this. hope it works
sent from my G2X with no regrets

I just changed it, hopefully it works. If it does work, thanks in advance
Sent from my LG-P999 using Tapatalk

Interesting. I've had mine set to 2G networks only, so I hadn't noticed. I'll switch it over as well, and see what happens. I've been getting great battery life though, so this is purely an exercise in curiosity. Regardless, the root cause of this problem has already been determined- the drivers are ****ty. CyanogenMod is liable to fix this up immensely.

I changed mine too and I will report back if I notice any improvements
Sent from my T-Mobile G2x using XDA App

The battery reporting is terrible so cell standby could be nothing really.

I believe doing this also fixes the GsmTracker poll failure in one of the threads. At least mine is no longer red but green (in the logs)

I can personally attest to the fact that this does absolutely nothing different. I have had my phone switched between WCDMA, GSM and WCDMA/GSM auto just to see if there was any difference for the past few days. My device has battery life worse than the HTC Thunderbolt that I returned, and being only 7 days in I'm thinking about doing the same to this device. I'm definitely experiencing buyers remorse.

@TheMightiest -- did you do a factory reset first and then try this method?

Erislover said:
@TheMightiest -- did you do a factory reset first and then try this method?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've factory reset my device 5 times, just drained it, for the 5th time and recharging it as we speak. I still lose between 15-30% per hour if data is enabled...just like the HTC Thunderbolt. At least I got 19mb download with the Thunderbolt, I'm getting an average of 6mb with the G2x, which ain't bad, i'm just saying.

Mine was set on gsm only. I've just made the switch so i'll report back if there is a difference or not.

I've read a lot on the whole philosophy of "drain completely and recharge fully to maximize battery life," and from the looks of it, that method doesn't do anything for Lithium-Ion batteries, which have no memory effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery - not that wikipedia is the ultimate authority on things, but hey, it's a link at least).
Your battery sounds WAY worse than others' batteries...you should seriously consider returning it and getting a new one.

Well, my cell standby percentage has not gone down at all, but still my battery consumption is much improved.
As was stated in this thread, the battery readings may be very off the mark from actual battery life, however, that fact doesn't help explain why some of us only were getting 5-6 hours of battery life with moderate (and sometimes no) use. There obviously is a problem, and CM7 may well fix it, but the method in this thread has definitely helped my phone stay on longer...irrespective of battery readings.

Erislover said:
I've read a lot on the whole philosophy of "drain completely and recharge fully to maximize battery life," and from the looks of it, that method doesn't do anything for Lithium-Ion batteries, which have no memory effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery - not that wikipedia is the ultimate authority on things, but hey, it's a link at least).
Your battery sounds WAY worse than others' batteries...you should seriously consider returning it and getting a new one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is not the reason people on these forums recommend draining completely and charging fully. The reason is that in order for your phone to get a semi-accurate idea of what percentage the remaining battery life is at. With this particular phone, however this is probably still a lost cause as the driver will never give an accurate approximation of remaining life.
At any rate, the full drain, full charge is a one time thing. This will also in no way extend battery life (but I haven't seen anyone on the forums claim this either). You can, however, extend battery life by keeping the charge at ~80% and keeping it as cool as possible.
On a side note, great to see yet ANOTHER battery thread

MWBehr said:
This is not the reason people on these forums recommend draining completely and charging fully. The reason is that in order for your phone to get a semi-accurate idea of what percentage the remaining battery life is at. With this particular phone, however this is probably still a lost cause as the driver will never give an accurate approximation of remaining life.
At any rate, the full drain, full charge is a one time thing. This will also in no way extend battery life (but I haven't seen anyone on the forums claim this either). You can, however, extend battery life by keeping the charge at ~80% and keeping it as cool as possible.
On a side note, great to see yet ANOTHER battery thread
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's amazing right - we have dual core 1Ghz processors in our smartphones with 1GB of RAM and high res screens, 4G data, etc. etc. yet battery technology hasn't advanced in years. Whoever improves battery tech is going to be the richest person in the world. Think about it.
Edit: Btw, mine was set to WCDMA preferred although in Network Settings it was on Auto so I changed it to Auto.

mobilehavoc said:
It's amazing right - we have dual core 1Ghz processors in our smartphones with 1GB of RAM and high res screens, 4G data, etc. etc. yet battery technology hasn't advanced in years. Whoever improves battery tech is going to be the richest person in the world. Think about it.
Edit: Btw, mine was set to WCDMA preferred although in Network Settings it was on Auto so I changed it to Auto.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought 512MB of RAM?
Can someone explain to me what WCDMA is? I am in a 2G only area. Should I select GSM only?

Erislover said:
I believe the problem that plagued my phone was the dreaded 50% cell standby problem. If you're unaware of this problem, essentially the issue is that "cell standby" (found under settings --> about phone --> battery use) is at or around 50% always -- in other words, it doesn't matter that the phone has fine reception, is or is not being used, or even has the signal active (that's right, the problem persists even with airplane mode activated).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay. I read the original thread and it sounds like the 50% is refering to the "Time Without Signal" value when you actually click on Cell Standby. Not the value of Cell Standby itself.
My G1 running FroYo last month had at least 50% Cell Standby with only ~1% Time Without Signal and the battery lasted about 2.5 days with moderate use.
I'm not an EE so obviously, I could be wrong about this.

You sir have just received a thanks, because this could also be the cause of some of our data issues and how the phone picks up on 3G vs 4G signal. Im doing some testing regarding APN and now with this hidden menu. Have noticed my speeds are a little bit better then they were. Battery drain was not a problem for me before.

Thank you! i did this to mine and my husbands g2x's last night. seems to have fixed the switching issue

Battery life after 12 days

I know there is a bunch of threads about this but I am considering about a replacement at this point.
My battery is draining pretty fast doing same task as with my Galaxy S 4G. Web, few games, texts, few calls.
My battery life is around 5-9 hours and gotta recharge twice a day at this point. I though it would get better with time, had the phone since launch day.
What are your experiences?
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

Any advise?
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

moshe22 said:
Any advise?
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
I get 12-16+ hours heavy use
I'm in a 3g only area so I'm guessing people that live in a 4g network see worse battery drain.... I'd honestly stop all synching and do a full charge with battery wipe
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA Premium App

Any one with same experiences?
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

I already tried with about 3-4 factory reset, deleting battery stats with battery calibrator and clock work mod.
Still horrible
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

nate420 said:
I get 12-16+ hours heavy use
I'm in a 3g only area so I'm guessing people that live in a 4g network see worse battery drain.... I'd honestly stop all synching and do a full charge with battery wipe
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think 3G/4G makes a difference on battery usage. It's HSPA vs HSPS+, both are 3G, just one is a bit faster. It's not like Verizon where you have 3G and LTE 4G, and one sucks up more juice than the other.

lol yeah, it's pretty funny how all T-Mobile has to do is put a "4G" icon in your notification bar and people think the phone is running on a different network. The only thing that's different than, say, a N1, is that the G2x has a higher top end. Wireless companies have really effed everyone in the head with this 3G/4G BS.

mapin0518 said:
I don't think 3G/4G makes a difference on battery usage. It's HSPA vs HSPS+, both are 3G, just one is a bit faster. It's not like Verizon where you have 3G and LTE 4G, and one sucks up more juice than the other.
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i just guessed
but this device is know for having driver issues/mega bloatware running unless frozen or removed
and its a android phone... its not going to have a lot of battery left after powering all the bull spit that is running on it/screen/tethering/gps/mms & texting let alone all the other stuff people do with this phone....
talk to tmobile maybe you can get a new battery sent after saying yours is bogusly sucking.....
other than that wait for the drivers to be fixed.... a stable rom like BIONIX that krylon is baking in the oven and a UV/OC kernel MorFic is putting in the steamer as well....
its been less than 20 days this phone obviously has some issue's since LAUNCH
but to just give up like some people are doing and going to the HTC crapsation with 3.0 sense and a locked (not encrypted thank god) bootloader that will most likely have some issues as well is just flat out idiotic....
(i dont mean people dumping the phone are stupid... just expecting too much out of a 2 week old phone)

moshe22 said:
I know there is a bunch of threads about this but I am considering about a replacement at this point.
My battery is draining pretty fast doing same task as with my Galaxy S 4G. Web, few games, texts, few calls.
My battery life is around 5-9 hours and gotta recharge twice a day at this point. I though it would get better with time, had the phone since launch day.
What are your experiences?
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
all battery's like that....(hd2, nexus s, nexus one, g2x)

My battery goes from full to 99% in about 6 hours when I sleep and wake up. The phone is not turned off btw. I am now using "Juice Defender Ultimate". Paid $3 and change when you get the free version and upgrade it from that free app (otherwise I think it is around $6). I have it at the "extreme" profile which shuts all wifi and data. I disable it and then turn on either wifi or data when I need to use it (Use Switchpro to toggle on and off easily from my home screen). I also the free Advanced Task Killer with only ATK and Juice Defender running. In 12 hours of using the phone a few times, texts, and even surfing the web, and watching 20 mins of video I still have about 80%. It makes a big difference.
I just make sure to use my ATK before I turn the screen off on my phone.

Oh yeah I also rooted my phone and removed all bloatware.

Well, when I had a G2x, it wasn't too bad at the start, but after I tried the HDMI output, the battery life went to hell in a heartbeat, i.e. full to dead within 8 hours with no network connectivity, and the phone always using the battery even when off. I think the HDMI output got shorted somehow to always on, and thus never stopped drawing power for nothing. Besides, my G2 was never anywhere near as bad as the G2x in power usage, even back at stock unrooted Froyo, so to give a blanket statement of "all Android phones suck down batteries like nothing" is simply an over-generalization.

wildone81 said:
Well, when I had a G2x, it wasn't too bad at the start, but after I tried the HDMI output, the battery life went to hell in a heartbeat, i.e. full to dead within 8 hours with no network connectivity, and the phone always using the battery even when off. I think the HDMI output got shorted somehow to always on, and thus never stopped drawing power for nothing. Besides, my G2 was never anywhere near as bad as the G2x in power usage, even back at stock unrooted Froyo, so to give a blanket statement of "all Android phones suck down batteries like nothing" is simply an over-generalization.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im not saying all android phones batteries suck..... but take into consideration what these phones are doing.... and you cant really compare the G2x to any other android phone except the Atrix and o2X because its a dual core...... so comparing it to a galaxy s 4G or a nexus s isnt really giving this phone the credit it deserves

nate420 said:
im not saying all android phones batteries suck..... but take into consideration what these phones are doing.... and you cant really compare the G2x to any other android phone except the Atrix and o2X because its a dual core...... so comparing it to a galaxy s 4G or a nexus s isnt really giving this phone the credit it deserves
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will try once again and see hoe much it last before it is down to 10%. Wiped battery stats last night and realized that i had unfreeze my account. So i just froze it again and recharged the phone.
Don't get me wrong though i really like this phone alot better than my other two smartphones.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

I have the answer
*** TO GET STRAIGHT TO THE POINT, SKIP TO THE BOTTOM BOLD POINTS****
*** READ ENTIRE THING TO GET DETAILS AND COMMENTARY, I TALK TOO MUCH****
All:
I've always had Motorola Droid phones. They have excellent battery out of the box, but I truly bumped it up with a few steps.
First off if I buy a phone that has GPS, WIFI, Bluetooth, etc. I plan to keep those functions ON and running ALL THE TIME as I don't want to get in my car and say, ohh yeah let me renable bluetooth etc. No, that's now how I operate. So all the tips below greatly extended battery life without disabling functionality. I do however disable autostarting of apps like Skype, Fring, and Qik. I mean let's face it how often is someone video calling you randomly?
This phones are turning into computers, think about how long it takes to install windows, load all your applications, configure and tweak your settings, register your software etc etc. But just like the more apps you install in Windows the more sh1t wants to autostart when you boot into Windows and load up your task tray (taking resources) is the same way the phones are working.
I recently returned a G2X, not for battery life but for other reasons. I actually was able to improve the battery life using the methods below.
First off, everyone always talks about a task killer. This is a must have. BUUUUT! You have to use it properly and this isn't the main thing that will help you save your battery.
Another must have but NEVER talked about app is AUTOSTARTS. **Root Required**
Autostarts let's you disable items that always enable themselves on certain actions. For example, why does an app you killed relaunch itself randomly? Why does it load on start up? Well autostarts let's you see all apps set to load on startup, also when certain criteria is met. For example, some apps are set to start on "click" of a button for example.
Autostarts let's you disable those apps from EVER starting unless you specifically start it. Let's face it, most apps we download only need to be used when we launch it.
Task killer let's you kill unnecessary apps running in the background, or an app you're down with that you want to kill versus it running in the background using CPU cycles and battery life.
THE KEY IS, YOU MUST NOT KILL OR DISABLE A SYSTEM SERVICE. Most system services are obvious GMAIL, CORP EMAIL, BLUETOOTH SERVICE, WIFI SVC, GOOGLE SERVICES, AT&T/VERIZON/T-Mobile/SPRINT (etc) SERVICES (with the exception of bloatware services).
Task killer will let you see what's running, and place certain items on the IGNORE list so you don't accidentally disable it in the future. Then you need to set your options in task killer to HIDE IGNORED items to further take it from your view.
Those are the first steps. I don't know why AUTOSTARTS isn't more popular. For you computer geeks, it's like MSCONFIG in windows where you disable services that load automatically for no reason.
Also believe it or not WIFI seems to use much less power than AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint's 4G network. And let's face it, neither of the aforementioned carriers are really giving us much with their 4G. Wifi still beats them in speeds, and of course Verizon LTE sh1ts on them. So keep your WIFI on when in an WIFI area like home, work, etc. You'd be amazed at just how much battery life that alone can save.
Next, I followed the steps below taken from another thread started by spencersir2, many of the steps I had never done before on previous phones, but I did on a G2X and Atrix and it actually did help even further. I only listed the steps I used that helped, he recommended installing a lot of other software that in my opinion only adds to the problem.
All the steps work for any Android phone, but some of the steps are specific to T-Mobile (i.e. wifi calling option)
Root The Phone. There is plenty of links and help if you don't know how or have questions about rooting.
(Root Needed) Set CPUand it does nothing but save battery. I currently have it set on 216 - 1000 for when the screen is on and the only profile i have is for when the screen is off and it is at 216-216.
(Root Needed) Battery Calibration. I'm still skeptical if this helped but it can't hurt. Because I did everything at once, I didn't individually test this to see if it made a difference. It doesn't hurt so just do it.
Wifi Never sleep. Supposedly according to some if you change wifi to Never Sleep it will stop some loop in the programing which in turn will save battery. - TRY AND SEE IF THIS HELPS, I THINK IT DOES HELP THE G2X NOT SURE IF IT HELPS OTHER ANDROID PHONES
T-Mobile specific - Wifi Calling. If you didn't decide to freeze/uninstall this app. Make sure that this is OFF, because whenever you have wifi on it will constantly flip between Wifi Calling and normal radio towers, which once again is bad for your battery life.
RECAP:
- Root Phone
-Download SetCPU from market. G2X users, select NVIDIA Tegra 2 at launch of app. Other users select one best appropriate for your device. Create a profile that says SCREEN OFF MIN=216 MAX=216. You may need to adjust the max to wake phone up faster depending on your phone. You shouldn't need to bump the max up to more than 400 something. This only reduces CPU speed when screen is off. Helps with battery!
- Download Autostarts from market, look at all that's running under each column, disable anything you don't need to autostart
- Download Taskiller (it's the red guy, not the green one). Hide system services by long pressing on icon, then select IGNORE. Then go to options and say HIDE IGNORED ITEMS. This so you don't KILL an important system app. (Read above for details on what is a system app)
- Use WiFi whenever possible. Uses much less power than 4G. Not sure about 3G but 4G is a battery killer. If you have Wifi, use it. It's faster anyway.
- Change Wifi settings to never sleep (test for a day see if helps or not, if not change it back to default setting). It helped G2X not sure if it helps other Android phones.
- Disable Wifi Calling (T-Mobile only)
- Download battery calibration from market, not sure if it helps but it def didn't hurt anything. and it's very simple.

I've tried all the tricks listed before (freezing apps, doing the secret menu, etc), and still had TERRIBLE battery life. I tried installing an app (switch pro), and had a toggle switch for data on and off thinking it might help. It helped just slightly. What did work, was putting a 2g-4g toggle switch on, and it has made a night and day difference. This, and I used the battery calibration program a few times, and in clockwork. Normally, I wake up at 6:30am and by the time it's 4pm I was normally down to 35ish %. Now, I'm at around 85% when I leave work. I'm thinking it has to do with the 2g, but it doesn't make sense that when I toggled data off, I got terrible battery, and just switching to 2g makes that big of a difference. Either way, I'm SUPER happy with battery life now.

i really have to question people saying they get 20+ hours of battery life, i mean if i stop all sync, disconnect 4g and only use 2g, not use the internet, shut off wifi, no bluetooth and do all the tricks that people have suggested. I still don't get a full day's use. but what the H is the point of having a super phone that i can't use it's functions i might as well get a clam shell phone that lasts 3 days without charging. I really like this phone but at this point the battery life is killing me i have to take like 3 different chargers everywhere i go!!

Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk

I don't see how you guys are still having battery problems. One a full charge, i'm able to get at least 12+ hrs with moderate to heavy use. Facebook and 3 email sync is set at 1 hr. About 100+ text and 10 emails a day. Wifi is on the whole time. Wifi calling as well. My screen brightness is set to auto. GPS is also always on.
I have to admit, the first few days, the battery life was about the same as my hd2 running android, but its gotten better now and its amazing.

Solution: buy a new battery.

Batter Saver

Hello, everyone. I have a Photon Q and I LOVE it except for the fact that I go to work with it fully charged and by the time I get out of work, I'm out of battery.
So tell me, forum, what settings have you tweaked to get optimal battery performance?

I turn off wifi, bt, gps, and sync. I am on a factory floor for 12-13 hrs a day & I generally have over 50% left at the end of the day w moderate use.
If you are in an area w poor reception might help to turn off mobile data, or put it in airplane mode temporarily.
-Saint

+1 on this. I agree with saint. I turn off mobile data and syncing until I need it. I talk on the phone for almost 6 hrs a day and the battery still lasts about 19hrs.
Sent from my XT897 using xda premium

I don't disable syncing completely, but I have the Green Power Premium app and have it set to turn data on and sync once every hour or so.

I leave data on, but i turn auto syncing off. bt/wifi/gps are all off as well. I also have it set to underclock when my screen is off.
Check your brightness settings as well. I dont typically leave it on auto because that's a lot higher than i need it to be. Check your battery usage and see what's using the most and it'll help you determine what you need to check.

sixxt9 said:
Check your brightness settings as well. I dont typically leave it on auto because that's a lot higher than i need it to be. Check your battery usage and see what's using the most and it'll help you determine what you need to check.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me, in 'battery usage' it's almost always 60% screen usage. I'm on auto, I guess I'll try some lower screen settings to see if I can improve that...

sixxt9 said:
Check your brightness settings as well. I dont typically leave it on auto because that's a lot higher than i need it to be.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed, I keep mine roughly around 10-15% which is fine for me...the only caveat is I have a Smart Action rule to bump it to 100% when in the vehicle dock (mainly because of daytime issues with glare/sun/etc where I need it to be higher, but its getting charged at the same time so its fine then).

I notice a big difference if I stay logged out of facebook. And I cant really give specifics on this, but I have noticed that after installing certain apps, my battery will start draining faster, so I uninstall those if that happens. Also take it off of LTE mode so it is on CDMA only, unless you are sitting in an area where it stays connected to 4g already. I get the best battery life out of my phone when I have a verizon PRL loaded so that its not looking for any other signal but the one I tell it to. Of course you cant do that all the time, I am just giving an example of how much better battery is if the phone isnt looking for something that you know it cant get where you are. Try to think of apps like facebook though that are always checking online for updates. Email programs, and programs like I mentioned that drain the battery, for whatever reason that may be.

Facebook is a hog, and there are so many different things that will auto update or notify you about, I spent a good 30 minutes going through the options looking for all the settings so I could turn them off.
Sent from my XT897 using xda app-developers app

whitelightnin3006 said:
I notice a big difference if I stay logged out of facebook. And I cant really give specifics on this, but I have noticed that after installing certain apps, my battery will start draining faster, so I uninstall those if that happens. Also take it off of LTE mode so it is on CDMA only, unless you are sitting in an area where it stays connected to 4g already. I get the best battery life out of my phone when I have a verizon PRL loaded so that its not looking for any other signal but the one I tell it to. Of course you cant do that all the time, I am just giving an example of how much better battery is if the phone isnt looking for something that you know it cant get where you are. Try to think of apps like facebook though that are always checking online for updates. Email programs, and programs like I mentioned that drain the battery, for whatever reason that may be.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I havent messed with any PRLs yet, but i get a strong signal where I'm at. Home and at work for the most part actually. Its crazy cuz my signal strength is a lot better than on my last phone, which likely has to do with the radios. We have plenty of WIMAX coverage around here, but no LTE yet, so I just keep it on CDMA and roll with that.

Found this on the portal, might help w auto brightness: http://velisthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/10/velis-auto-brightness-manual.html?m=1
-Saint

Unsolve battery drain

Hi everyone,
I need some advice from the community. I've had my XT925 for almost 2 years now, and in the last 6-8 moths I've been having weird battery drain that I couldn't solve. It started back on JB a while ago, and I thought "oh hell, KK is around the corner, it'll go away when I wipe everything". I was mistaken: I first tried the soak test leaked KK, and had the same erratic behaviour. And when the final release became available, I reflashed a full stock JB then flashed the zip OTA posted in general. I'm now on 4.4.2 stock moto kitkat.
I hardly last a full day, without a heavy usage. Many SMS (10-50), maybe 1-2 MMS, wifi ON most of the time at work, phone forced to 3G (4G cover is sporadic and when I turn it on I have a lot of 3g/4g switches). In the last week, I've frozen nearly every app I had with TB, to (hopefully) isolate the ones that drain too much battery. No luck so far.
Today I've decided to take a series of screenshot so maybe someone can help me troubleshoot what's wrong. They are attached to this post. I don't see anything out of the ordinary, but I'm no expert, so maybe someone can elighten me on any abnormality. I had roughly 40 min of vocal call today, which is a lot compared to my usual usage (average, maybe 3-5 min a day of voice call). This may have contributed to drain slightly more today, but there is not so much difference at the end of the day.
Basically, I recall lasting easily 1..5 days with the phone stock out of the box. Now, it's hard to reach >12h. I thought maybe the battery was dying (although *#*#4636#*#* said it was in good shape) so i replaced the battery by a brand new Moto one last week. There was absolutely no change at all.
So... here you go: any idea on what could be causing the drain ? Obviously I've cleared cache and wiped data many times already, and I'd like to avoid doing it again and again and again. Note that on the screenshot, there is many apparent time with bad signal. I have no idea why it shows like this since I'm always 3-4 bars at work. This is weird, and came with KK (JB sowed green signal at the same place).
Thanks for your help!
edit: just swa my thread title is missing a "d"... but cannot edit.

CoinCoin88 said:
Hi everyone,
I need some advice from the community. I've had my XT925 for almost 2 years now, and in the last 6-8 moths I've been having weird battery drain that I couldn't solve. It started back on JB a while ago, and I thought "oh hell, KK is around the corner, it'll go away when I wipe everything". I was mistaken: I first tried the soak test leaked KK, and had the same erratic behaviour. And when the final release became available, I reflashed a full stock JB then flashed the zip OTA posted in general. I'm now on 4.4.2 stock moto kitkat.
I hardly last a full day, without a heavy usage. Many SMS (10-50), maybe 1-2 MMS, wifi ON most of the time at work, phone forced to 3G (4G cover is sporadic and when I turn it on I have a lot of 3g/4g switches). In the last week, I've frozen nearly every app I had with TB, to (hopefully) isolate the ones that drain too much battery. No luck so far.
Today I've decided to take a series of screenshot so maybe someone can help me troubleshoot what's wrong. They are attached to this post. I don't see anything out of the ordinary, but I'm no expert, so maybe someone can elighten me on any abnormality. I had roughly 40 min of vocal call today, which is a lot compared to my usual usage (average, maybe 3-5 min a day of voice call). This may have contributed to drain slightly more today, but there is not so much difference at the end of the day.
Basically, I recall lasting easily 1..5 days with the phone stock out of the box. Now, it's hard to reach >12h. I thought maybe the battery was dying (although *#*#4636#*#* said it was in good shape) so i replaced the battery by a brand new Moto one last week. There was absolutely no change at all.
So... here you go: any idea on what could be causing the drain ? Obviously I've cleared cache and wiped data many times already, and I'd like to avoid doing it again and again and again. Note that on the screenshot, there is many apparent time with bad signal. I have no idea why it shows like this since I'm always 3-4 bars at work. This is weird, and came with KK (JB sowed green signal at the same place).
Thanks for your help!
edit: just swa my thread title is missing a "d"... but cannot edit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i would get gsam battery monitor with the root companion (second app) so you can get a better idea of whats going on. some shots of the app view screen, then change the view to view time held awake, then a couple shots of the details on the highest ones.
you can then get an app called unbounce that can limit the wakelocks, but it requires some reading so you dont break anything.
if you could take shots in English that would be great, otherwise i wont be able to help much with the diagnosis.

I was trying not to rely on wakelock limiting apps, as there's no reason for the drop from 1.5 (2) days to 12 h, with all custom apps frozen. I didn't know unbounce but the same goes for Greenify. I'll try the widget you mentioned and report back.
edit: yup i'll switch to english for the shots next time.

Oh and I forgot to mention this: from time to time, the drain won't be so apparent (e.g. 40% remaining after 12-15 h) and in a matter of minutes, the phone will drop to 10-12%. However it hasn't happened sicne I last turned off 4G, so maybe it was due to constant 3g/4g switches.

CoinCoin88 said:
Oh and I forgot to mention this: from time to time, the drain won't be so apparent (e.g. 40% remaining after 12-15 h) and in a matter of minutes, the phone will drop to 10-12%. However it hasn't happened sicne I last turned off 4G, so maybe it was due to constant 3g/4g switches.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no doubt, in weak and especially no signal areas, it will burn through battery like crazy.

Here it as, after a nearly complete discharge. Phone unplugged around 10am, 12h15 later I'm at 10% remaining, with not so much usage. Screenshots are attached. What's weird is that in the last 1h30 the phone has been off wifi (slider "Wi-Fi" is off in settings) but battery status still shows a connected wifi. However you can clearly see a huge drain due to wifi being off and 3g being on (it's the only part of the day it's been using cellular data: I was at the restaurant therefore no wifi). Possibly locatin services using the wifi even though it was disabled ? Anyway I'm not sure this could cause such a quick drain...
edit: as far as the signal bar color in battery status, I've found that grey-yellow stands for "signal 3/4", so it's rather good (solid green is signal 4/4). So it's probbaly not that either...

Ooops forgot the "time held awake" shots. It's definitely Google services messing around, but what... (details of Google services in previous post)

CoinCoin88 said:
Ooops forgot the "time held awake" shots. It's definitely Google services messing around, but what... (details of Google services in previous post)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
some of those push the limits of what i would like to see personally, but none appear out of control to me.
im really not sure how you would go about taming some of that down though, without using a couple apps you dont want to use.
imo, you would need to control some of the wakelocks, and/or disable some of the receivers you done use.
the couple "nlp" wakelocks from google are going to account for a good bit of its waking. nlp is nothing more than google using your location information to build a database from it.
here is whats known about some of the more common offenders, and the testing results from limiting them.

That's what I feared... I'm usually not that bad with messing with the phone, and couldn't see anything obvious either. I've disabled "using wifi to locate" in wifi settings, I'll see how this drops the nlp wakelocks, for starters.
If anyone has a better idea, please don't hesitate
Sent from my RAZR HD using XDA Free mobile app

CoinCoin88 said:
That's what I feared... I'm usually not that bad with messing with the phone, and couldn't see anything obvious either. I've disabled "using wifi to locate" in wifi settings, I'll see how this drops the nlp wakelocks, for starters.
If anyone has a better idea, please don't hesitate
Sent from my RAZR HD using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i have use quite a few of the more popular battery saving apps over the years. i just came across this one yesterday. its shaping up to be the best i have used to date. i wasnt using my phone except for a few minutes this morning, and it went 5 1/2 hours and was still @ 100%.
i also use greenify with root + exposed.

did you disable FAST DORMANCY? I have done it while on JB ? IT did not cause any prob.

Haven't disabled it, mostly because I've never been able to determine if it was being used by carriers in France or not. I've read somewhere that it wasn't, but the source was hardly documented. I've tried to disable it in JB however, and did not see any improvement.
Right now I've disabled Google Now and location history things. I'm trying to reduce the wakelocks as much as I can using settings available from stock rom (and understand at the same time what was causing them). Battery drain is still high, but I'm testing things every 10 min or so, so it's not really representative. I'll update here when I have a better idea of what's going on.

Another thing of interest is xposed with new module called Unbounce. There is a thread for it. All about minimizing wake locks

A few thoughts so far. I haven't tried Greenify or Unbounce yet, this will be the "final stage". For now I'm trying to minimize wakelocks as much as possible without installing third-party apps.
Here are a quick review of what I've found (NB: in the following I translated the menu names myself from french to english and didn't check their actual name... but it shouldn't be too hard to figure out which ones I'm referring to if the name is not exactly right):
1) Disabled Google Now and all "Google Location settings" (i.e. "Update location" and "Location history", found within "Google settings" in the drawer).
2) Set location settings to "minimize battery", that is with network and wi-fi.
3) In wi-fi advanced settings, disabled "search always available"
4) Locked the phone to 2G/3G only, because 4G coverage from my carrier (Free Mobile for the frenchies here ) is erratic at best, and caused many 3G/4G switches
5) Some "light" de-bloat (froze all Google apps I'm not using). At first I froze all my apps to mimick a fresh stock system, but there were really not that much difference.
Note that all the tests were ran (mostly) in the same location, on different days, so signal quality should be rather constant (and good) and therefore is not acting as a confounding factor in my tests.
Whats happening when 3G and Wi-Fi are both off ?
Obviously, disabling 3G and wifi gives a very good battery life. I'm talking about something like 2h screen-on and probably 30-40% after a full day (9am to midnight, roughly). I'll double check the exact values for this and update this post with a screenshot asap (= in the upcoming days). With this setting, wakelocks actually correspond to screen-on time. So it's probably the best one can achieve.
edit: 1h of voice communication, 1h15 of screen-on time, 10-15 sms, 1 received MMS (had to enable 3G a few seconds for that of course) => see Screenshot_2014-10-27-23-22-14.png
The decrease at the end corresponds to wifi+3G when I got back home and started using the phone "heavily". Roughly, 40% decrease in 12h. That is what I call a good battery life. Notice how the wakelocks closely match the screen on periods.
Whats happening when 3G is ON and Wi-Fi is OFF
We've discussed a bit the "fastdormancy" thing earlier here. Spending a whole day on 3G made the "modem fastdormancy" process drain a high share of battery (10-20% ? Can't remember exactly, but it was in the top-5 list of draining apps, and had a big wakelock time). Further proof that my carrier doesn't support it. I've therefore edited my build.prop to set
ro.mot.ds.fastdormancy.disable=true
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After that, the process was not found anymore in high-draining apps, and battery life was a little better (again, no values here, I'll update in a few days after I run the tests again and double-check everything).
Can't say much about Google location, but I'd say most requests were not executed.
Whats happening when 3G is OFF and Wi-Fi is ON
Wi-Fi at work did not cause any interesting drain. The phone sat there and was connected all day-long. There were probably a few Google requests to determine its location, with some nlpwakelock, but not really interesting.
What was really interesting was the behaviour outside my workplce (e.g. on the street). I have in my "known networks" some wi-fi hotspots (FreeWifi) that are enabled with my DSL provider: they provide me with codes from my contract that I can use in the street if any other of their customer has a wi-fi enabled on their modem (their is a dedicated SSID broadcasted from their modem). The phone connected automatically whenever it detected this SSID (which was... really often), but the captive portal (to enter credentials) was not filled, because the phone was in my pocket. This caused HUGE wakelocks and drained the battery incredibly fast. I'm talking about draining 50% in an hour or so. I could even feel the phone warming up in my pocket.
So, conclusion here: I think Wi-Fi could be a major cause of battery drain if you have some fav SSID that require credentials through a captive portal.
I'll update in a few days if I find anything else, and to add values to what i've stated here.
Hope that helps!