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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.
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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.
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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

[GUIDE] Battery Management for noobs

Hey guys,
So after many months with the XT720 and alot of flashing and trying to get the most out of my battery, i've come up with a few conclusions about battery life in general and how to extend it. I thought I'd share here. This is mostly aimed at people who are new to android and have not experimented like some of the more advanced users we have on this forum. Hope you find this helpful and please feel free to make additions.
General Battery Info
The XT720 was my first android phone, and I came from a long line of typical nokia phones whose batteries would last for ages. I had no idea the kind of power an android device would use. When I started out using it, i was surprised at how quickly the battery would die. You'd think with advancing software we'd have better batteries but sadly batteries are lagging behind in technology. Generally speaking you can expect the following battery life from your XT720.
Heavy use: 10-14 hours
Moderate use: 16-20 hours
Light use: 1 day - 1 day 12 hrs.
Note: New batteries improve with each charge cycle. It is recommended to go through a few complete charge cycles when you buy a new phone. After that, complete discharges are not recommended and its smart to start charging your phone when it hits the 20-25% mark.
How to improve battery life
1: Battery Calibration
If you've ever flashed a new ROM, you must have noticed a sharp decline in battery performance. This is partly due to old battery statistics left behind from your old ROM. Android is a smart OS and collects information over time. The more you use it, the more accurate it gets. In the same way it collects information from your battery usage and reports your battery percentages according to that. When you flash a new ROM, sometimes android thinks that your battery is 100% when its really lower than that and that causes relative reduced battery performance. To deal with that it is recommended that you use a nifty free app called Battery Calibration from the android market. What this does it removes the old battery stats and allows your new ROM to create its own battery stats. Charge your battery to full, use the battery calibration. Drain once till phone turns off by itself and charge to full again. You will notice a sharp increase in battery life.
2. Battery Managment
We all know that android has its own battery management built in but it usually doesnt give complete information about the phone. For that you need to dive deeper into the settings. Usually if you experience battery drain its because of a rogue app and believe it or not some common apps you wont think off drain unnecessary battery. To see your complete Battery Stats input this code into the dialer.
Code:
*#*#4636#*#*
This will take you to a bunch of options. What you're interested in is Battery History. When you tap that it will show you two drop down menu's.
1) Other Usage
2) Since last unplugged
Other usage shows you how long your phone has been running and how long it has been asleep. Also shows you how long your wifi has been on and running and how long your screen has been on. It is important to see how long your phone has been running. For example if your phone has an uptime of 20 hours and its been running 5 hours out of that. Your run time is 25%. Which is very good. Sometimes an app can run even when your phone screen is off. This will represent a longer run time even when you have your phone lying on a desk or something. See this setting and correlate with the amount you have used your phone. Does it seem normal? If no then use the first drop down menu and select
Partial Wake:
Partial wake is basically, any app which takes your phone out of sleep mode to use the CPU even when youre screen is off. These are apps which need to sync or use the phone resources. In this you will see a list of apps and how much they have caused a partial wake lock. See anything unsual? For me one app that caused unsual drainage was latitute. Yes, i had simply signed into it and i didnt know it was updating my location every 5 minutes. Extreme battery drain for me even when my phone was idle. See which app was draining your battery and either tweak the settings or remove altogether.
GPS, Sensors, CPU:
You can also see these in the first drop down menu. Certain apps like screeble use the sensors alot, and hence cause drain. Obviously games, camera, will stress the CPU. See if anything is causing drain in that and adjust accordingly.
Miscellaneous Information
After you have dealt with rogue apps that you don't use that drain youre battery your battery life will depend on how you use your phone. But hopefull these tips will help you with increasing your battery life. I do have some more information on different settings and supposed battery saving applications.
Autosync: When you enable auto sync, you allow google and other accounts to sync on a regular basis. This is important for people who need to use push email etc. It does not drain battery IF you tweak what you need synced. In google for example you can have your contacts, calendar, google+, google reader, gmail all to sync by default. If you just need email, please untick the rest. This will help you save battery life. Increase your update times for facebook and google+ if you dont recieve many updates all the time or turn them off altogether. If you have many services syncing at the same time you will get battery drain.
Wifi Sleep Policy: This is sort of a hidden menu. If you go into wireless & networks >> Wifi settings >> settings key >> advanced >> wifi sleep policy. This has three settings. Never close down wifi, never close when charging, or close with screen off. If you choose never your wifi will always be on, which will in turn crunch the **** out of your battery. If you use it off with screen off, remember it takes about 5 minutes to turn the wifi off. I personally use the never with plugged in. Its an intermediate. So when im plugged in wifi always stays on and when im not it follows the screen off protocol.
Wifi Vs Mobile Data: Having mobile data on all the time, does not drain battery. The only time the battery gets drained is when the data connection is active i.e you have many apps on autosync youll see your battery going down. If you arent doing anything and your phone is connected to Edge or 3G your battery will drain regularly. 2G networks drain less than 3G keep that in mind. If you are actively using your connection, wifi will take less battery because speeds are faster and you will be using it for a little time. Also your signal strength has alot of effect on battery. If you have crappy 3G signals your radio will actively be searching for a connection the same goes for wifi. That is important to keep in mind.
Control Background data: By selecting this option you can allow or disallow apps to connect to data without any permission. Some apps require this like the android market. If you uncheck this apps wont be able to sync automatically in the background.
Milestone Overclocking: This is fairly obvious. The higher you overclock with higher vsel the more battery drain you will have. Some use set cpu with profiles but I found that if i set the setcpu too low while idle It takes time for the cpu to charge up when i recieve a call or turn the screen on. Ringtones lag etc etc. I let android do my CPU management and its fine. and comfortable setting would be 850 MHZ, 56 vsel but you can change according to your phone usage.
Juice Defender/ Screebl / Task killers:
In my personal experience with juice defender ultimate I found that with the above precautions juice defender didnt make much of a difference and actually used more battery. First off theres an extra process going on in the back. Second activating and deactivating the connection everytime the screen goes off uses more juice because your radio has to search for the signal hundreds of times as compared to not having it in the first place. Screebl is good if you dont want your screen to annoyingly turn off while youre doing something but it surely doesnt save battery life. Task killers are a no no for android. They kill tasks which start up anyways, its better to use autokiller memory optimizer which tweaks androids internal memory settings and allows for more free ram without killing processes without reason.
System Apps:
Some system apps run uselessly in the background specially with stock ROM's this is called bloatware. Remove all unused system apps with titanium backup to stop them from running in the background for no reason at all.
A final word
Finally after all this tweaking, just use your phone as normal. Dont worry about the battery all the time checking how much its drained, itll mess your head up and make you enjoy your phone less. Battery temperature also changes battery life. Keep your phone out of the sun or in hot places.

Thanks, good article.

Very detailed and useful
Sent from my Milestone XT720 using XDA App

Thanks for this interessting article!
Could you make a list of the bloatware that can be safely removed?

I figured this would just list all the usual stuff I've heard. I'm glad to say I was wrong! A bunch of useful info here I now plan to put to use. Many thanks
Might want to mention the display being the biggest drain of battery on this phone. Setting it to automatic brightness or lower will increase battery life. I love the screen at full brightness so I don't really follow that, but for those looking to squeeze some extra time and don't mind less brightness...

Thanks guys, glad you people found it useful.
syrenz said:
Might want to mention the display being the biggest drain of battery on this phone. Setting it to automatic brightness or lower will increase battery life. I love the screen at full brightness so I don't really follow that, but for those looking to squeeze some extra time and don't mind less brightness...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes! Can't believe I missed that one out. In the start id use the lowest brightness setting, which would be fine indoors. But outside it was impossible to see the phone because of its insanely reflective glass. Since we have an ambient light sensor I use it on automatic and it does a good job. Full bright strains my eyes abit thats why I dont keep it on full bright So for people really wanting to save the juice you can keep your brightness on the lowest level. Also when you take the phone out of your pocket and use it, its better to put the phone to sleep with the power button than let it timeout by itself. Those 10-15 seconds for each time you use phone count towards many minutes of unused display time in the end and does make a difference.

This is a very gd post with lots o useful info!! ok i have a qn, is using the phone a lot while the charging good for the battery? And if u let the battery charge even though its already 100 percent for an hour good? srry if it is noob qn...

androidlover123 said:
This is a very gd post with lots o useful info!! ok i have a qn, is using the phone a lot while the charging good for the battery? And if u let the battery charge even though its already 100 percent for an hour good? srry if it is noob qn...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Using your phone while charging does not affect your battery life, and is neither good nor bad. It is perfectly normal to use your phone while charging and is sometimes recommended while doing battery intensive tasks for example navigating while driving, wifi tethering, playing memory intensive games and finally outputing video through HDMI.
2. Overcharging was a phenomenom is older lithium ion battery. New batteries have bypass circuits. So when your phone reaches complete charge, it does not charge any further. So you should not be worried about overcharging your XT720.
Hope this helps.

Excelent article and good quality info. Thanks and best regards!

awesome article! Great information. Thanks a lot for putting that together. I have already started using a few of the tips mentioned.

u da maaan dude, thanks for a very detailed and informative article

Android System consuming battery

I have been obessing over my battery stat page and am trying to figure out what exactly "Android System" is. It is usually consuming the highest percentage of battery power. I have tried everything to figure out what action exactly makes Android System get added to the battery stats page. I have disabled everything, every radio, syncing, deleted all widgets. I hardly have any apps as it is. It just seems rather inconsistent because sometimes Ill check the page after making a call and will find that Voice calls has consumed a small percentage of battery and Android System isn't even on the list. Other times I will take it off the charger and make a 30 minute call, but when I check the stats page 70% battery was used by Android System and only 3% was Voice Calls.
Can anyone tell me exactly what triggers Android System so I can make sure I cut down on its battery usage in any way possible
Sent from my Microwave

I assume you are looking in the settings > about phone > battery. You can select android system also and it will tell you more info.

Agoattamer said:
I assume you are looking in the settings > about phone > battery. You can select android system also and it will tell you more info.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see that but under more info its not very clear about what's using the batt.
Sent from my Microwave

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v673/seh6183/screenshot-1312932238053.png
Sent from my Microwave

Anyone have any comments on this?
Sent from my Microwave

Did a battery calibration and now android system isn't the number 1 thing consuming battery as usual. Weird:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v673/seh6183/testshot.png
This seems to be more in line with what normal battery usage should look like in my opinion.
Sent from my Microwave

I had this problem too until I did a calibration. Now cell standby consumes over 50% of my battery regularly, with android system consuming only 2%.
Sent from my HTC Inspire 4G using XDA App

Yea I did a calibration and all is well
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v673/seh6183/screenshot-1313102466360.png
Thank you
Sent from my Microwave

Aaaaaaaaand were back LOL
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v673/seh6183/screenshot-1313118381659.png
Sent from my Microwave

Its still occurring
What would you guys do?
Android system will occasionally use CPU as well, as shown in the following screenshots. Also! My good buddy let me see his Droid x recently. He had 42% battery life left and android system had only taken up 4% of that.
I'm pretty upset about this.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v673/seh6183/screenshot-1314312490137.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v673/seh6183/screenshot-1314312473018.png
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Sent from my Microwave

If you asked me I would say all your values are a little screwy. Do you even turn the screen on, on your phone and use it? If you use your phone the Display should be by far the most used. To me it looks like you physically use your phone very little. That is why Phone idle and Android System seem to be the higher numbers.
Guessing you have many accounts syncing in the background. One of the biggies for Android System. So its not that Android System is using so much, the rest of the processes are using so little.

Oddly enough the same thing started happening with my phone recently too.
@Agoattamer
The system wouldn't eat most of the charge in less than 8 hours in normal circumstances. Also about your question concerning accounts, while I'm not seh6183, personally I only have my email account synchronizing and the very same thing happens.
Something is causing the CPU to remain awake, in my case stuck at 800MHz.
The factory reset will most likely solve it, but it'd be best to find the culprit to just try and rectify a specific anomaly rather than reinstalling the whole system.
Has recently any core Google apps been updated? Email, Maps, anything?

I do agree that in 8 hours of non physical use your battery should not be going dead. So I couldn't sleep last night and I did some google searching. Here are some things I found out.
Do you have Googles Goggles installed? Seems it may have a bug where it keeps the camera on even when the phone is supposedly asleep.
Seeing that seh6183 always has his wifi active maybe it has something to do with wifi. I found this from Juri's TechBlog
couple of days ago I finally got the eagerly awaited system upgrade to Gingerbread on my Nexus One. The update went pretty well, although some Nexus One users reported about problems with the updating process. The only thing I noticed is that Dropbox didn't work after the upgrade.
A re-install solved the issue. All-in-all Gingerbread is great. Beside UI enhancements it feels also faster than Froyo. However, after trying it for two days now, I noticed a substantial increase in battery consumption. By looking at the system battery stats (Settings -> About phone -> Battery use), Android System was listed to consume 23% of the battery .
Apparently the problem is a bug in Gingerbread version 2.3.3 (you know there is 2.4 as well) on how the system handles the Wifi adapter. If you go into your Settings -> Wireless & Networks -> Wi-Fi settings, press the menu button and click on "Advanced", you'll see a menu entry "Wi-Fi sleep policy". Gingerbread seems to have a problem when that option is set to "When screen turns off". While that may sound to be the most energy-saving option, the bug turns it into a battery killer. If you switch the option to "Never", the Android system will only consume ~3% in the battery stats.
Obviously, in addition to this, the best battery saver is to just turn Wi-Fi off when you don't need it . Caution, if one of the future updates fixes this problem (which I strongly hope), you have to set the option back again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Something I didn't see but killed my battery on my windows mobile phone was instant messengers. Do you use any apps that are for instant messaging.
Found this thread also talking about the same bug with wifi
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=15057
So it seems that if you (cmdr001) also are a full time wifi user, you may be affected by the same bug. Check your wifi sleep policy and adjust your settings to "Never".
Install a battery monitor app from the market or spare parts to see what is using your battery. Install Juice Defender to stop all that excessive useage.

Excellent find!!!!!
Just switched the sleep policy to "never" (which ironically I've always used until very recently). Ill return with results after about 5 hours. The only thing is that I'm on android 2.3.5 not 3.3 so we will have to see if the bug was affecting me.
I also don't have Google goggles. And to the above poster, my phone regularly went into deep sleep so it wasn't my CPU that was staying active.
Oh and I've been using watch dog to look for rogue programs for the last 24 hours. I haven't got a single alert.
Sent from my Microwave

I guess the first question should have been what ROM were you using and to try a different one then. Needless to say it still has 2.3.3 components in it. And if you recently changed that setting then my bet is thats the issue. Goodluck.
Watchdog may alert you if you are using too much cpu at one time but I don't think it will let you know what is constantly using the cpu.

Ok there's a glitch somewhere in the battery tracking. I just checked it and android system was consuming 12% battery. I placed one 17 minute phone call and re checked it, I then had 57% android system consumption.
No way.
I'm using a cm7 nightly and I'm about to flash the stable version with a different kernel. Ill do a full wipe as well.
Sent from my Microwave

You could check your wakelocks.

After recharging my battery to 100% and wiping the battery stats, my android system consistently uses 2% of the battery, while the display sucks up around ~40%.

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............
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suspense!
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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!

[Q] Which Kernel should I use to reduce battery drain? [CM 10.1]

Hey everyone!
I flashed CM 10.1 yesterday (cm_p500-userdebug-cm-10.1 from jenkins. androidarmv6.org/job/android/ and I'm amazed how smooth and perfect it is working (A huge 'Thank you!!' to the developer )
The problem is that my battery drain is awful. It took less than 8 hours today to completely discharge, though I hardly touched it.
I used Battery Calibration and also installed "WakeLock Detektor" to see where the problem is, and it stated that my phone isn't asleep 99% of the time though the display is turned off most of the time :crying:
The main reason is a kernel-related thing named "suspend_backoff" that keeps it awake.
I wanted to install a different kernel, but I got no clue which one... I actually planned on installing the recent DorimanX-Kernel, but then recognized that this is only available for the Galaxy SII
Can anyone recommend a Kernel that keeps my system running smooth but the battery drain at a minimum? I basically need my phone for Messaging (SMS, WhatsApp, E-Mail), Calendar and once in a while as navigation system. So no need for spectacular game performances or so.
Are there other Ways to improve my battery life on that phone (I've read all the general tips for improving battery life)? Maybe some OC things I can change manually?
I'm grateful for any help. Thanks!

Helbelinc said:
Hey everyone!
I flashed CM 10.1 yesterday (cm_p500-userdebug-cm-10.1 from jenkins. androidarmv6.org/job/android/ and I'm amazed how smooth and perfect it is working (A huge 'Thank you!!' to the developer )
The problem is that my battery drain is awful. It took less than 8 hours today to completely discharge, though I hardly touched it.
I used Battery Calibration and also installed "WakeLock Detektor" to see where the problem is, and it stated that my phone isn't asleep 99% of the time though the display is turned off most of the time :crying:
The main reason is a kernel-related thing named "suspend_backoff" that keeps it awake.
I wanted to install a different kernel, but I got no clue which one... I actually planned on installing the recent DorimanX-Kernel, but then recognized that this is only available for the Galaxy SII
Can anyone recommend a Kernel that keeps my system running smooth but the battery drain at a minimum? I basically need my phone for Messaging (SMS, WhatsApp, E-Mail), Calendar and once in a while as navigation system. So no need for spectacular game performances or so.
Are there other Ways to improve my battery life on that phone (I've read all the general tips for improving battery life)? Maybe some OC things I can change manually?
I'm grateful for any help. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I found SweetnSour's version 11 kernel quite good with cm10.1.
However, the ROM needs some help to get good battery life:
Install 2xBatterysaver. It will turn off data and WIFI when the screen is off (turn them on periodically to allow syncing). There are various apps like this one.
Control WIFI. Use Y5 battery saver or Whiz WIFI manager. Y5 is tiny and effective but crashes on cm10.2. Both check for favorite hotspots, leave WIFI on and turn it off when leaving the hotspot.

Thanks for your quick response!
Just tried to flash Sweetnsour's Kernel, but it won't work. I flashed this one --> versionFINAL-CFS.zip
Is that the correct one or rather one of those? -->" version11-CFS-TWRP.zip" or "version11-CFS.zip"
Edit: What actually are CFS respectively TWRP? Searched the forums but couldn't find an answer

[solved] or rather [solvished]
After days of trial and error, cutting and re-enabling all connections from WiFi to 3G and hibernating, un- and re-installing basically all of my apps and trying loads of other roms I didn't love as much as this in the least, I found the source for my phone being awake basically 100% of the time.
The changelog of the mod stated that there's still this WiFi-issue that keeps the phone awake.
Well, though I've tried before, It now works: switching off the WiFi connection finally gets my phone to sleep.
I think I'll just be running on my mobile data for the followin days or weeks until this bug has been fixed.
Btw: A little hint for the developer (I'm posting here, since I'm a noob and can't post in the developers forum): When switching the WiFi options to turn out WiFi whenever screen goes dark, it won't connect afterwards. I always needed to reboot my phone when I wanted WiFi to work again. (This bug also caused my mobile data not to work. It apparently thought WiFi was running, though it couldn't connect.)