Ok. My first post, so hello everyone, I'm the new noob on this forum If you don't know what I'm talking about - see the damn movie, noob
To the gist:
1) I noticed a couple of similar topics on phone-specific forums, went through them (unbelievable how much flaming and bs is there on this forum, by the way), but it seemed like most of them were purely guessing as to what may be the cause of drainage. If I missed something I'll be grateful for links
2) I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S2, but I post it here since I noticed other phones with Android (including those with new Gingerbread) have the same issue - the battery is being drained enormously when the phone signal is poor, so I think it might be an OS issue rather than a particular device
I had SGS2 for almost 2 month now and only today did I notice a huge drop in battery life. From 5 to 6 days (this is not the thread for battery life tips. Send me a PM if you want to know how and what I did to get it last so long or I can post another topic on the SGS2 forum and explain everything I've done to my phone, just don't spam this thread) to around 1 day (it's been 22,5 hours and the battery level is 27%)
The only thing that changed is my phone signal - I live in the centre of a town so usually the signal strength is good, but I had a really windy weather and I guess something got destroyed, as I had to try around 5 times even to send a text message. Anyways, this is where the guessing part comes in - with usually 5, 6 days on a battery I can pretty much rule out everything else than phone signal since I don't use anything else (hubs social, music, etc. uninstalled, voice search and voice command uninstalled, StreetView uninstalled, etc. All via TitaniumBackup)
Spec (not sure what might me useful, posted what think may be the basics):
- Android 2.3.5
- Baseband: I9100XXKI4
- Kernel: [email protected] #20
- VillainRom 3.0
- Free version of LauncherPro
- I have wifi, gps, bluetooth off, I turn them on only when I need them; same with data network mode, but I hardly ever use it and I didn't turn it on today anyway
- no fancy widgets, no fancy processes in the background
- I used my phone as I usually do - some calls, messages, some music, bit of market and web browsing on wifi
The question is not about battery life itself or battery saving tips but about how the Android system handles signal searching and what does it do when the signal is weak. I assume similar battery drainage would occur in every-day situations, f.e. while using the tube, tunnels or living in some mobile-network ****-hole
Any ideas on a specific cause? Any on how it may be improved? I'm not thinking about software-side, like turning on "Flight mode" or some apps (though I'll be grateful for any ideas). I mean more of an OS solution, maybe something will help to improve Android further
My first post and end
Related
All,
I have noticed a significant decrease in overall battery life since upgrading my C2125 to SP5m ROM with AKU2. I'm assuming this is due to push email. I remember reading a very good, in depth, article about tweaking the exchange server settings to make the best use of radio/proc time. I just can't seem to find that article. I am in the unique situation of managing the Exchange server, so that shouldn't be a problem.
Anyone seeing the same?
I did find a Microsoft KB Article that contains the possible reg entries that can be tweaked, I just don't know which ones will have the desired affect on easing battery consumption on my device. Any help either finding that article, or with the settings on the server side would be greatly appreciated.
--brice
Hi,
I have DirectPush working 24x7 on my i-Mate SP5 whilst not totally flawless, it's 95%+ there. But I have great battery life, at least enough or a whole second day if I forget to charge, so I suspect your power drain is coming from another reason, most likely the screen backlight. i-Mate have a power management update on their website that enhances the options. Hope this helps. br/
No problems here. Have Push Email running 24x7 too without any noticible change in battery life. Still do 4 days or more without charging with regular use.
Bosseye:
Do you know what that power management enhancement does?
I have a T-Mobile SDA, and am looking to extend the standby time. Is there any chance you have a link or a copy of the file, I could get?
It would be really appreciated.
think I may have figured it out. I am on some fairly heavyweight mailing list, but have all that email going to a folder I am not syncing. It seems my device could be trying to sync even when there is nothing new in the folders I do sync. Anyone else see this type of activity?
**EDIT**
After some testing, I no longer think this is the case... Sorry
The file is named: CDL_Power_Management.cab but I don't have from i_mate's site a description of what it does. Visibibly it adds an app that provides more complete control of the screen timeout, backlight timeout, keypad timeout etc. The file can be found here:
http://www.clubimate.com/t-device_sp5_utilities.aspx
I'm not sure how device specific this may be as I don't know your specific variant of the hardware.
Out of interest, you don't have Pocket Internet Explorer running in memory do you, as I've seen similar posts that say this chatters away and drains the battery. No concrete facts to back that up thought, I just remember discussion on it months back in the BlueAngel forum (I think).
Hope this helps.
br/
i went on a few drives today to test out my gps, the odd thing is i couldnt get it to misbehave in a significant way. i am using eugenes ginger clone and da_g's update.zip using his own jupiter.xml. i chose his control plane version. i also used some files from jj4 not because i thought they were better but because i was experimenting with the jm9 "FIX" files but wanted to revert back and grabbed the wrong ones from my computer.
my lbs test settings were:
Sesssion Type: tracking
Test Mode: s/w Test
Operation mode: Standalone
Start mode: Hot start
GPS Plus: OFF
Dynamic accuracy: OFF
accuracy: 50
Logging: OFF
supl settings:
server: supl.google.com
port: 7276
secure socket: off
agps mode: control plane
"use wireless networks" in setting>location and security, was not selected
i ran several my tracks trying to recreate the situation described by Da_g where the gps position jumps around and locks are lost when mytracks is in the foreground and lbs in the background but is accurate in the opposite situation. i wanted to see if any "fix" would help this situation, be it a modem file or gps library from other rom but could not create the unstable situation observed by others. this bugged me because i have had serious trouble with google maps acting erratically while all my stationary tests come out fine. the problem is i never used the gps on this rom and did not know if it suffers from this problem in the first place.
it appears this rom does not have that particular problem or the problem is not predictable or can not be caused at will.
i ran a few my tracks with jm9 files. the results were mediocre at best, did it help? nope
did it hurt? maybe, not sure but probably not.
then i ran the test with jj4 files. did it help? maybe but probably not, tests did appear slightly better but were not free of imperfections
did it hurt? nope
on each test i ran one my tracks with mytracks in the forground and lbs in the background then another with lbs in the foreground and my tracks in the background.
observation: phone did not lose gps signal upon starting any app or switching to any app like others reported. tracking results were too close to call. i used similar routes with clear skys and the accuracy was similar when compared on the same road. with lbs up front i could watch the reported accuracy, it mostly jumped from 10 to 30m occasionally hitting 5, and spending more time at 10. average was about 15meter accuracy.
then for s's and g's i ran my tracks behind maps navigation to see if navigation would aggravate the bad behavior. well it didn't. perfect results! this is both reassuring and disapointing. while i can be a little more confident in my gps which in the past has been good except when using google navigation it also make me wonder if maybe the gps is just plain unstable and cant be predicted.
did samsung get it right in the base rom that eugene worked from? did using control plane fix it? did i just get lucky today with different results tomorrow? does touchwiz somehow cause the problems(not likely but who knows)? eugene did a pretty good job of removing touchwiz from samsung sources, not true aosp but it would fool most.
did i stumble on a unique combination thus fixing my gps? im sure the answer is no. it is either in the control plane settings with da_g's mods or in the rom itself.
the jl3 modem seems to get a slightly better signal but is certainly not a "fix"
will you have similar results? dont know, try it. but be warned that the rom is giving me some funny battery reporting and the standard recalibration isnt really working. i also had some random shutdowns when i used juice defender(maybe a bad install on the app) it also is not likely to work with samsung widgets and the video player wont play those weird media hub files.
i do believe that axura was built off the same base rom (im really not sure about this, just a hunch) but i had no luck with gps on that rom, i didnt use axura long enough to try fixing it but others report it as being very good.
i wonder if anyone has looked into available ram as a cause? eugenes rom seems to have a small memory footprint and i often have over 200mb free! could minfree be killing a service when ram runs low? could a setting in other roms be killing a service when exiting some gps apps for the sake of ram/battery usage?
im not a dev and would have no idea where to start on this. i also know that much files that control gps are proprietary and cant be fixed by the community, we can only hope to identify the problem and employ a workaround to prevent problematic situations assuming that the proprietary files are infact more or less functional. will samsung employ a fix? well i think with the number of identified problems with the gps that the galaxy s was released prematurely. samsung likely rushed the release to get a bunch of ooohs and ahhhhs without doing enough testing. it appears that they are incrementally improving gps performance over several builds and it may continue to get better, maybe over several updates. untill then ill use eugenes rom. i also think that if froyo builds did not help you then you may have an antenna issue!
ill attach the my tracks file when i have time.
i would like to thank clshortfuse and especially Da_G for there efforts. Da_G i hope you find a solution that we can all use regardless of rom, or maybe you can cook up a rom yourself, people would definately use it..
Whenever i say that new smart phones aren't really phones, but actually entertainment devices that make calls, everyone nods and agrees. But what if there was a way to reverse that so they only made calls and pretty much nothing else? I'm looking to find a "safe mode", in which lots of services and drivers aren't even loaded.. ever. A good example of its use would be when i needed to drive 4 hours away for a funeral. I had no need for twitter and angry birds, I just needed to freely communicate with relatives. Another example is being stranded on the highway cause of dead car battery. Most Evo users would be clinging to dear battery life. Sometimes we want to be saturated with features, and other times we would be just fine with a classic green screen phone that only needs a weekly charge.
Would it be possible to dual boot into a very minimalist rom? If i knew my phone had a mode for emergencies, i wouldn't be searching every inch of the web for juice saving tips. Is this possible? If so, which rom would accomplish this? Thanks.
Sent from my HTC Evo 4G [rooted] Sprint 2.3.3(stock Sense, came preinstalled) Freedom-Aggressive kernel 0.8.5 hardware v.4
I have an option on my DroidX and it might work for you. I think it is generic for Android phones.
From the dialer do *#*#4636#*#* and go into the phone menu and you can change the network or disable the data connection altogether. On my phone it makes and receives phone calls and text messages but nothing else.
There is sometimes a delay when I make a change, a few seconds, so be patient.
I have a feeling you could do some damage in this menu so make a note of anything you change.
Since you are rooted, you could also install Droidwall or something similar and be very selective about what applications you allow to have a data connection.
You can theoretically create a custom CM7 or AOSP ROM with only the essentials- the phone.apk, contacts.apk, mms.apk, settings, and their corresponding supporting files/ framework.
Mind you, the screen would still be the biggest battery drain. And there comes a question of dual booting (which should be possible in my phone at least, with Magldr...).
Swyped from my HTC HD2 running CM7 (Gingerbread 2.3.5)
Hello All,
With the new 7.5 release, does anyone think it'll be possible to eventually have an app similar to phoneAlarm Pro or even get the simple setting of peak times? I know that the newer 7.x phones are a lot more restrictive than previous WM phones when it comes to what a dev is allowed to do.
Here's the thing, because there isn't (to my knowledge) a way to quiet the phone at night for all notifications except a real phone call, I leave my phone in another room. Bottom line I'd hate to have an emergency call come in at night and miss it because I don't want to keep the phone on the nightstand.
Thank you,
Well oddly enough I was searching for a possible answer today (as my search in XDA forums yesterday didn't show any results), and found this older post concerning notifications. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=11432995#post11432995
So it appears the only way to keep the phone active for emergencies and turn off notification on email, sms, etc. is to just turn off cellular and wi-fi. Sorry MS, but this is stupid as hell...
Even with 7.5 windows phone still has the smoothest UI but is behind in important features. Unfortunately seprate notifications must not be a issue with ms
I'm an experienced programmer, but a complete novice when it comes to android development. I also hope I'm posting this in the right place...
I have recently bought a OnePlus Nord (AC2003) which I'm *fairly* happy with, and a Samsung Galaxy Watch3. I'm having an issue with it in that the watch and phone will fairly randomly disconnect from each other, even when they're in close proximity to each other. I have read extensively about the possible issue*, and reset both the watch and the phone, and cleared the bluetooth cache, which appears to have made a difference, at least in the long term. The disconnection now only happens about once a day, rather than the every half an hour that was happening originally.
* One school of thought is that the watch is absolutely at fault, as the users have no problems with other bluetooth devices. Another school say it's definitely the phone, as they have no issues when they use the watch with a different handset. Go figure.
My programmer's hunch (which I've learned to trust over the years) is that a service or app in the phone is stopping and starting, and I'd like to get a log of when the phone is stopping and starting apps and services. I've enabled developer mode, and I can see the option for 'Basic Log' and 'Power Consumption Exception' log in the OnePlus logKit.
My question is - Has anyone looked at the logs for this sort of data before, and is there anything in particular I should be looking out for, with particular attention to when the battery management on the phone decides that a process can be stopped or hibernated.
(Obviously, if anyone has anything to share about any Eureka moments regarding smart watch disconnects with this phone, I'd love to hear those too )