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This is not a guarantee of battery life extension or performance. These are merely steps (in most cases) to possibly help prolong and restore battery longevity.
First lets understand something about battery charging. The most common mistake is to overcharge a battery. While one is inclined to charge when they see the low battery message, overcharging is detrimental to the battery. This is not good for the life expectancy of your cell phone battery, especially if you are expecting longer life from your battery. Over charging heats the battery, and drains its life expectancy.
Second, it would appear that after flashing (ROM’s, Kernel’s etc.) multiple times, your battery might not hold a charge all that well. Trying these steps may help improve battery life.
> Turn the phone on. Plug in the charger (not the USB to computer) and charge completely> Disconnect the charger and turn off the phone> Once completely shut down, plug the charger back into the phone. Let the phone completely charge, while phone is off. In some cases the phone may give a tone when charged. You can check its status by touching the volume up or down> Once again unplug the phone from the charger> These next steps are curcial. 1.Turn the phone on (give it time to boot completely) 2. Power it off again. 3. Connect to the charger once again. 4. Let charge to full one more time. Unplug the phone!
In most cases, this procedure need only be done once. Remember turn off bluetooth, intranet and other applications when not in use. These accessories pu a tremendous drain on a cell phones battery life. This is why they should be turned off, when not in use.
The old battery recalibration trick?
tomween1 said:
This is not a guarantee of battery life extension or performance. These are merely steps (in most cases) to possibly help prolong and restore battery longevity.
First lets understand something about battery charging. The most common mistake is to overcharge a battery. While one is inclined to charge when they see the low battery message, overcharging is detrimental to the battery. This is not good for the life expectancy of your cell phone battery, especially if you are expecting longer life from your battery. Over charging heats the battery, and drains its life expectancy.
Second, it would appear that after flashing (ROM’s, Kernel’s etc.) multiple times, your battery might not hold a charge all that well. Trying these steps may help improve battery life.
> Turn the phone on. Plug in the charger (not the USB to computer) and charge completely> Disconnect the charger and turn off the phone> Once completely shut down, plug the charger back into the phone. Let the phone completely charge, while phone is off. In some cases the phone may give a tone when charged. You can check its status by touching the volume up or down> Once again unplug the phone from the charger> These next steps are curcial. 1.Turn the phone on (give it time to boot completely) 2. Power it off again. 3. Connect to the charger once again. 4. Let charge to full one more time. Unplug the phone!
In most cases, this procedure need only be done once. Remember turn off bluetooth, intranet and other applications when not in use. These accessories pu a tremendous drain on a cell phones battery life. This is why they should be turned off, when not in use.
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Click to collapse
i feel like i do this every time i recharge my battery because every time i charge to 100% then turn it off and plug it in, it takes another 5 min to charge to 100 while its off. Literally, every time i bump charge it.
cumanzor said:
The old battery recalibration trick?
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Click to collapse
Mhmm, an explanation of the bump charge. Been written here before, but eh. Maybe someone lost theirs. I lost my txt file with the instructions a while back lol.
The way I see it these instructions only help to provide a more accurate battery count. Whether the battery is displaying correctly or not, juice in the battery is juice in the battery. Nothing more nothing less. This whole battery issue is ridiculous.
I think it'd be a good idea to remove the battery icon from the notification bar all together.
ninjuh said:
Whether the battery is displaying correctly or not, juice in the battery is juice in the battery. Nothing more nothing less. This whole battery issue is ridiculous.
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Click to collapse
No. Your phone has software in it to detect how much battery life is left for a variety of reasons; it turns more battery-intense functionality off at 5%, the camera for instance, and keeps enough battery power so that it can run its shutdown procedure, instead of just dying and losing whatever's in memory at the time.
You also don't want your phone thinking that 19% battery is 1% and turning off or telling you to charge it, as charging a battery that isn't fully discharged is a great way to lose long-term battery life. Additionally, how much would it suck if your phone software thought that 75% was 100% and stopped charging? You could then be leaving for the day with 3/4 of your battery, thinking it was full.
There are plenty of reasons to want this to be as accurate as possible. Unless you just don't give a crap if your phone is usable or not
delugeofspam said:
No. Your phone has software in it to detect how much battery life is left for a variety of reasons; it turns more battery-intense functionality off at 5%, the camera for instance, and keeps enough battery power so that it can run its shutdown procedure, instead of just dying and losing whatever's in memory at the time.
You also don't want your phone thinking that 19% battery is 1% and turning off or telling you to charge it, as charging a battery that isn't fully discharged is a great way to lose long-term battery life. Additionally, how much would it suck if your phone software thought that 75% was 100% and stopped charging? You could then be leaving for the day with 3/4 of your battery, thinking it was full.
There are plenty of reasons to want this to be as accurate as possible. Unless you just don't give a crap if your phone is usable or not
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The "software" won't ever be off by more than 10%.
delugeofspam said:
...as charging a battery that isn't fully discharged is a great way to lose long-term battery life.
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Click to collapse
Not true with lithium ion batteries. They don't have charge memory.
ninjuh said:
The "software" won't ever be off by more than 10%.
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[citation needed]
I was having all kinds of issues with my battery draining too fast. I unplugged at 7:30AM and by 10:30AM it would be at 60%. I tried the bump charge and all that, but then I realized "It's the apps, stupid!" I started running a task killer after I unplugged it, and now I'm making it to noontime and I'm only down to 80%.
TLR: Keep your apps in check, they are what eat your battery.
ninjuh said:
The "software" won't ever be off by more than 10%.
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Click to collapse
A few days ago my phone shut off after draining the battery - before it shut off the battery was less than 1%. i let it sit for ten minutes or so then turned it on. - it showed 16%.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
i do this ALL the time!
If you are running a custom rom it is also good to delete the battery charge stats when booting back up after step 4. If you have CWM just boot into recovery, go to advanced, then clear battery stats.
There is a way to clear it if you don't have CWM, but I don't remember what it is and I think most people have CWM anyways.
I check my apps frequently. One day my weather widget was going nuts and was using GPS non stop. I pulled my phone out at lunch and the battery was in the yellow. Granted I haven't seen that happen again it has made me reconsider even using apps/ widgets with GPS
widgets kill battery. I had several pages of widgets and I had to wipe by phone, remarkable how much "better" the battery was after that. Weather widgets look great but it costs to run them.
majortool said:
widgets kill battery. I had several pages of widgets and I had to wipe by phone, remarkable how much "better" the battery was after that. Weather widgets look great but it costs to run them.
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I've a feeling it has less to do with the actual widget and more to do with their constant updating when there is a poor or nonexistant connection.
Sent from my custom ROM'd Captivate
BigJayDogg3 said:
I've a feeling it has less to do with the actual widget and more to do with their constant updating when there is a poor or nonexistant connection.
Sent from my custom ROM'd Captivate
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Click to collapse
Don't download the anaimation sub-app. update on the hour (or 2) instead of 15 -30 min.
I would love some advice as a noob here. I've only had my Cappy for a little over 2 weeks. I've done the battery calibrate trick, but still don't see very good battery life. I unplugged from the charger at 100% at 10pm last night and left the phone on all night. Wifi and GPS were turned off. Beautiful Widgets is set to update weather every hour. The phone received 7 sms messages during the night. When the alarm went off at 6:30am I was at 70%. It's 10am now, so it's been off the charger for 12 hours. Here is what I show:
Voice Calls 34%
Cell Standby 23%
Phone Idle 16%
Display 15%
Android System 4%
Beautiful Widgets 3%
Android OS 3%
Android Core Apps 2%
antivirus 2%
Battery currently shows 51% left
I'm running stock Eclair JH7, build 1101
Would anyone suggest Advanced Task Killer or Juice Defender?
There are some good tips for prolonging and caring for your Battery here: (Can't post links, google search: site:arstechnica.com battery life ask ars)
However, cell phone batteries rarely run over $30 (I have seen capivate batteries as low as $13), if you just always fully charge it you will still see a good 8-12 months out of it, and then just buy a new one. $30 a year is worth it to me to just let the thing fully charge so that I can use it for longer.
kb0npw said:
Would anyone suggest Advanced Task Killer or Juice Defender?
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Click to collapse
PLEASE DO NOT INSTALL ANY OF THESE BEFORE READING
http://www.xda-developers.com/android/the-view-on-task-managers-for-android/
If you fully charge and run the battery, done several times, the battery will eventually run better. Surprisingly, there is a "break in" period for the battery.
I appreciate the advice on the task killers and such. I don't use one, and after reading that stuff, I won't. I pulled my phone off the charger yesterday at about 1pm. By the time I played some games, did some web browsing, made some calls and did some texting, it was still at 70% when I went to bed at around 10pm. This morning at 7am, I was shocked to find that it was still at 67%! I don't have a clue what was different. It typically hogs up 25-30% overnight, but this time it only did 3%. I wish I knew what was different. This is so weird!
my last g2x battery lasted like 4 hrs on a full charge what is the best way to charge the new one? do i let the battery run out then charge it?
When you first get a phone, you should let the battery die before charing it. Then charge it completely after it dies, this will maximize your battery life. If you charge it right out the box, you're actually reducing the amount of juice the battery can hold.
rashad1 said:
When you first get a phone, you should let the battery die before charing it. Then charge it completely after it dies, this will maximize your battery life. If you charge it right out the box, you're actually reducing the amount of juice the battery can hold.
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Click to collapse
That's not really accurate. Lithium Ion batteries have no memory effect like older batteries so charging them from halfway full does not reduce the maximum capacity.
What happens is the phone needs to learn to measure the amount of mAh from the phone and recognize what battery % that means. By taking the phone through the full discharging and charging cycle, the battery drivers pick up on this and will better report the battery level. With a poorly calibrated battery, you do not get less battery, but instead you just will not see accurate information about the charge level. For example, my first discharge went quickly to about 10%, and even quickly below 5%, but stayed on for hours between 5% to eventually shutting off.
The battery still will not die faster, but my phone thought it was much lower than it was, giving it the appearance of dying faster. Point is, you can do the charge/discharge cycle whenever, not just the first time, and it won't effect your long term battery health.
1) do factory reset
2) drain completely
3) charge completely
thanks!
thanks everyone for your advice!
I think it really depends on who you ask. lol Some people will say let it drain first then charge it fully. I have read info on battery maker sites that suggest when you get their battery that you let it charge fully for at least 8 hours, then let it discharge fully. They say to do this the first 5 charges to increase battery life.
When I get a new phone or battery that's what I do. as soon as I get it I charge it up overnight, then let it discharge completely for the first 5 charges. I can only speak by my experience and my experience tells me it makes a difference. Here is my reasoning: me and my ex gf went one day to get new phones. We got the same phone. She started using hers as soon as we left the store. I waited. I charged it up overnight fully and did the conditioning procedure. Our phones were pretty much mirrors of each other app and software wise. Her battery would die out a couple of hours before mine. Battery usage also didnt report any HUGE differences in consumption .
Also every once and a while I go into Clockwork recovery and wipe battery stats(after it's been fully discharged) and re do the conditioning process. It might just be a mental thing, but for me this seems to work
supposedly from htc.....
1) Turn your device ON and Charge the device for 8 hours or more 2) Unplug the device and Turn the phone OFF and charge for 1 hour 3) Unplug the device Turn ON wait 2 minutes and Turn OFF and charge for another hour Your battery life should almost double, we have tested this on our devices and other agents have seen a major difference as well
I heard/read somewhere that you should never let a lithium ion battery fully discharge. It supposedly shortens its lifespan every time you fully discharge it. Instead, you are suppose to just top it off and not let it remain on the charger, for extended periods of time, once its reached a full charge. YMMV
*Omnipresent* said:
I heard/read somewhere that you should never let a lithium ion battery fully discharge. It supposedly shortens its lifespan every time you fully discharge it. Instead, you are suppose to just top it off and not let it remain on the charger, for extended periods of time, once its reached a full charge. YMMV
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Click to collapse
This is "more" true for everyday normal usage. Yes, you shouldn't constantly fully charge and fully discharge every time you use your phone. But for battery calibration it is necessary/beneficial.
I also hard that during the first charge after turning the phone off you have to strange on your head for ten minutes, then only use your left hand for the rest of the day and you will double your battery life
rashad1 said:
When you first get a phone, you should let the battery die before charing it. Then charge it completely after it dies, this will maximize your battery life. If you charge it right out the box, you're actually reducing the amount of juice the battery can hold.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I did it this way too. I get good batt
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA Premium App
Hi everyone,
I've had my Sensation for about 14 months now and for the past month I've been having battery issues. Primarily, it's very quick to lose charge and will lose charge even while charging from the wall. First I bought a replacement battery but was still having the same issues. I've started using Better Battery Stats and Battery Monitor Widget but I don't have anything out of the ordinary running. In fact, not a lot is running at all. BMW has allowed me to see how the charging is going though which has been nice. During this period I have used Elegancia, Bruce's CM10, and am currently on ParanoidAndroid. All experienced the same issues.
Last night, for example, I put the phone on the charger at 16 percent. It charged up to 22 and then started the downward slide to death and I ended up waking up 35 minutes late.
Where do I go from here so I don't have to constantly be paranoid about my battery levels?
Sounds like you might need another battery. In better battery starts did you notice any unusual wake locks? This could drain a battery. But since it looses charge even when charging I'd think it was the battery. I personally was experiencing some battery issues myself finally I broke down and got a mugen 3800mah battery from mugen. It was expensive but really worth it for Me.with really heavy and constant use I get 20 hours out of my battery, with normal use I get two days. I'm also running paranoid Android rom. For me the big battery solved my issues. Only one draw back, it does make your phone thicker. New back included with battery. This didn't bother me much because of the excellent battery life I receive. Now I finally don't. Worry about battery. However it's expensive at about 95 dollars. But I was so fed up with poor battery life it was worth it for me. You have to be careful when buying inexpensive batteries because there are a lot of fakes going around. And the mah is not really what it says it is on the packages. You can test the battery and make sure it is what it's advertised to be. If you don't want to go with that large of a battery you can also try anker extended battery. It's a lot less expensive and is a good battery. I personally needed more juice so I went with the big battery. I know you said you replaced the battery but sometimes the bargain batteries go bad quickly. It makes me suspicious of the battery because it's even dropping while charging. This is strange. If you ruled out any apps or wake locks that might be draining the battery I would buy a good reliable battery. The draining while charging is a red flag. I'd say the battery is going bad. I don't at all regret my purchase of the big battery. It for me, solved my issues. I do Hope this helps and I wish you the best. Hopefully you will get your issue resolved soon.
Sent from my HTC Sensation using xda premium
its either an issue with the battery or the battery reporting.
Only thing you can really try is to charge it up to 100%, wipe battery stats in recovery, then let it empty totally and charge it up again, see how its behaving. There is a chance that its the reporting that is off.
otherwise this looks like the battery is on its way out im afraid
realsis said:
Sounds like you might need another battery. In better battery starts did you notice any unusual wake locks? This could drain a battery. But since it looses charge even when charging I'd think it was the battery. I personally was experiencing some battery issues myself finally I broke down and got a mugen 3800mah battery from mugen. It was expensive but really worth it for Me.with really heavy and constant use I get 20 hours out of my battery, with normal use I get two days. I'm also running paranoid Android rom. For me the big battery solved my issues. Only one draw back, it does make your phone thicker. New back included with battery. This didn't bother me much because of the excellent battery life I receive. Now I finally don't. Worry about battery. However it's expensive at about 95 dollars. But I was so fed up with poor battery life it was worth it for me. You have to be careful when buying inexpensive batteries because there are a lot of fakes going around. And the mah is not really what it says it is on the packages. You can test the battery and make sure it is what it's advertised to be. If you don't want to go with that large of a battery you can also try anker extended battery. It's a lot less expensive and is a good battery. I personally needed more juice so I went with the big battery. I know you said you replaced the battery but sometimes the bargain batteries go bad quickly. It makes me suspicious of the battery because it's even dropping while charging. This is strange. If you ruled out any apps or wake locks that might be draining the battery I would buy a good reliable battery. The draining while charging is a red flag. I'd say the battery is going bad. I don't at all regret my purchase of the big battery. It for me, solved my issues. I do Hope this helps and I wish you the best. Hopefully you will get your issue resolved soon.
Sent from my HTC Sensation using xda premium
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Click to collapse
Argh. I hope it's not the replacement battery too. I got a replacement HTC battery. The problem I'm having getting anything useful from Better Battery Stats is that rarely am I off the charger. In the settings it says I can log while charging but it may mess up the stats so I've shied away from doing that. I'm not against getting a bigger, better battery but I would hate to do that and have it actually be something else hardware-wise where I would need to get rid of my phone.
Hawke84 said:
its either an issue with the battery or the battery reporting.
Only thing you can really try is to charge it up to 100%, wipe battery stats in recovery, then let it empty totally and charge it up again, see how its behaving. There is a chance that its the reporting that is off.
otherwise this looks like the battery is on its way out im afraid
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll give this a try if I can get it back up to 100%. Is the reporting in Recovery always correct? The battery never has issues charging while it's in Recovery mode. If that's the case then I'll charge it to 100% in recovery and then wipe and start fresh.
Thanks
I don't think it's the battery. This phones have errors in battery readings. I feel your pain man. Mine is from T-Mobile (Sensation 4G) and it discharges if I use it even at lowest brightness when it's charging too.
If I reboot, I get the battery boost. I have tried EVERYTHING I read here and nothing worked. I even have 4 batteries. All of them in good condition.
I even tried three times discharging it fully and without turning it on, charge it in the night and when I wake up 7-8 hours later, it's still charging. I tried wiping stats, changing ROMs, changing the usb cable and the charger. Everything... I believe it's a hardware issue. (Thank HTC for that) I'm not buying another HTC when I have to upgrade.
KerberosKomondor said:
I'll give this a try if I can get it back up to 100%. Is the reporting in Recovery always correct? The battery never has issues charging while it's in Recovery mode. If that's the case then I'll charge it to 100% in recovery and then wipe and start fresh.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting...so if you were to charge the phone in recoery how long do you think it would take to get to 100%?
I would definitely do what you said, charge in recovery then wipe battery stats and go from there.
If you're interested in having something to compare to, it takes my phone about 3 hours to charge to 100% (by the way I'm using an Anker extended capacity battery), with a peak current usually around 800 - 900 mA. Fully charged I have somewhere around 4100 mV. If you haven't already, I'd suggest adding a Battery Monitor widget with mA, mV, and % available being displayed and it will be pretty easy to get an idea what's going on.
KCuadrado said:
I don't think it's the battery. This phones have errors in battery readings. I feel your pain man. Mine is from T-Mobile (Sensation 4G) and it discharges if I use it even at lowest brightness when it's charging too.
If I reboot, I get the battery boost. I have tried EVERYTHING I read here and nothing worked. I even have 4 batteries. All of them in good condition.
I even tried three times discharging it fully and without turning it on, charge it in the night and when I wake up 7-8 hours later, it's still charging. I tried wiping stats, changing ROMs, changing the usb cable and the charger. Everything... I believe it's a hardware issue. (Thank HTC for that) I'm not buying another HTC when I have to upgrade.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm leaning towards hardware issue too. That's why I figured I'd post and see if there was anything else that I can try. It's also why I don't really want to buy an expensive battery since who knows what it'll fit next. I know what you mean about the reboot battery boost. You can almost gamble and bet on percentages when you reboot. I've seen 50% swings before.
goatee84 said:
Interesting...so if you were to charge the phone in recoery how long do you think it would take to get to 100%?
I would definitely do what you said, charge in recovery then wipe battery stats and go from there.
If you're interested in having something to compare to, it takes my phone about 3 hours to charge to 100% (by the way I'm using an Anker extended capacity battery), with a peak current usually around 800 - 900 mA. Fully charged I have somewhere around 4100 mV. If you haven't already, I'd suggest adding a Battery Monitor widget with mA, mV, and % available being displayed and it will be pretty easy to get an idea what's going on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In recovery I would guess that it wont take very long to charge to full. I have battery monitor widget installed and while plugged into the wall with my 1.0A charger, it will typically pull 100-200mA but sometimes it'll spike to 700-900mA. No rhyme or reason. When idling and functioning properly, without a charger plugged in it drops 9-100mA. Sometimes though while charging it'll sit at negative 100-200mA.
HA! Just rebooted my phone and it went from 68% to 100%. So I rebooted into recovery, it also said full so I wiped stats.
KerberosKomondor said:
In recovery I would guess that it wont take very long to charge to full. I have battery monitor widget installed and while plugged into the wall with my 1.0A charger, it will typically pull 100-200mA but sometimes it'll spike to 700-900mA. No rhyme or reason. When idling and functioning properly, without a charger plugged in it drops 9-100mA. Sometimes though while charging it'll sit at negative 100-200mA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I normally get 2 to 3 mA drain with the phone sleeping. When charging you may not necessarily get close to the 1 A current delivery of the charger straight away, typically it will ramp up over time and reach peak charge current as it gets closer to 100%. Once at 100% it wants to just "trickle" charge to maintain 100% charge until the charger is disconnected, so any wakelocks etc. that cause a current drain during that "trickle" charging will actually decrease battery charge until the charger ramps up to compensate for the drain. Random spikes in charging current would suggest a hardware problem where the electronics are struggling to properly govern the charging process, as would a large negative current drain with the charger plugged in. Silly question but what's the actual plug connection to your phone like? Nice and solid, pins all OK?
How long should I let the battery run down before I charge it again?
After I've installed all the apps I want and need, I charge my phone to a 100% then I let it run untill it shutsdown due to lack of power.
After that, I charge whenever I feel like it. Sometimes, if I suspect something is wrong with my battery, I repeat the process. I think that's maybe once in two/three months. Usually a bad flash, or some program with a bad update.
There is no need to drain the battery. If I don't need to I don't charge my battery at night (not with more than 40% and a charger at work).
In fact, completely killing li-ion batteries will reduce their life.
Killing batteries completely and charging them back up applied to NiCD etc batteries - older batteries... not modern ones.
Don't kill li-ion batteries, it is not good for them!
You can't kill them. Not in these phone's. They're always protected, which is also why they shutdown. Your phone will boot at least 10 times after a forcefull shutdown (I tried ). So no need to worry, the battery protection in Motorola's work just fine.
After flashing a new ROM you should always recalibrate your battery by using one of many free apps (I use "Battery Calibration") that will wipe the battery stats. If you start to notice big dips in your battery % for no apparent reason or your phone stays on much longer than it should have with only 1% battery then you're probably needing another calibration.
Basically you'll charge your phone to 100% then take it down to 0 then charge back to 100% without interruption.
I have noticed my meter is much more accurate if I do this after each flash (though I'm too lazy to as I am on nightlies so I do it about once a week).
Hello. I've read some posts, tried some apps but never found what exactly I need. So there's a thing: let's say my phone's battery capacity is 2900mAh. Is there a way to calibrate my battery to put, let's say, 200mAh to reserve? So when the battery is charged to a 100%, it would actually be charged only to 2700mAh and would stop charging. This way battery would get less voltage that damages it and would have longer lifetime.
I know that I can download apps that notify me when battery is charged to wanted percentage, but it's not always the most comfortable choice on many occasions.
All the topics, apps about battery calibration are to calibrate 100% to 100%, when I actually want 80-90% to be shown as 100%.