GPS Test App running all the time, drain = Wifi exactly? - Captivate General

I just upgraded to stock GB 2.3.5. Everything seems fine (I did a Factory Reset to kill the Tethering Manager error and haven't seen it since).
I re-installed GPS Test app from the market, which I had before.
I've used it a few times. Every time, I end up exiting out and exiting the program thru Task Manager. So right now it is NOT running and doesn't show up in the list of running Apps.
Yet according to my Battery Usage screen, both Wifi and GPS Test are among the top users of battery, EACH at 24% of usage (don't pay too much attention to the high % as this is over the past 2 hrs where only 3% of total battery has been used, as the phone has been sitting on my desk resting). The thing that is weird is that they stay in Lock-Step with each other all the time (ie both always report the same usage percentage). I have Wifi set to "NEVER SLEEP" because I have read that this is actually better for battery life, although here in my office it is not hooked up to wifi. So I understand that Wifi might use battery if it's searching. But WHY does GPS Test use any battery if the program isn't even running? And it does this REGARDLESS of whether I actually shut off the GPS or turn it on in the settings.
Any ideas? I'm about to just uninstall GPS Test but wondering why this might be happening, as I'd like to have the app on my phone in general.

Related

Will keeping GPRS EDGE connection constantly on drain battery?

Hi,
I'm running Crossbow Reloaded 1.5 ROM on a G3 8125. I use T-Mobile (USA) 's GPRS data with Windows Live, however I have noticed that when Windows Live is set on the homescreen my Wizard attempts to stay connected to GPRS constantly. If i disable it from Comm manager, it simply reconnects automatically in a few seconds. Now, I have no problem with GPRS being on constantly, but I just wanted to know if it would have a significant effect on battery drain?
I know Wi-Fi does for sure, but wasn't too sure about GPRS. My question is, if I kept GPRS on 24/7 would my battery die faster? The majority of the time the connection is connected but idle, I only need it to check mail every few hours. Also, I walk around a lot from place to place. Would this cause my GPRS to disconnect/search /reconnect constantly, as with wifi (cause this would drain the battery really fast). Thanks.
I've never really tried looking at battery drain between having it on all the time and not, but before I put the fix into Crossbow Reloaded 1.5, it would disconnect and not be on all the time. I really have not noticed a difference in battery life between the two versions, so my gut is that GPRS does not drain the battery (definetly not like keeping WiFi on). I leave Bluetooth active 24 hours a day and don't notice extra battery drain with that either. YMMV.

[REF]ELFin battery drain stays high after data channel disconnected

Hi all,
I also posted this in the Onyx thread.
Not sure if anybody's experienced the same problem, but I am running Onyx Jr 4.1.4 on my ELFin, and had absolutely no problem with the battery life. I didn't use Outlook at all to check email, because I didn't have a data plan, and just did some light web browsing with Opera Mini. My battery could easily last through a 10 hours day and I would have over 50% battery life left even with moderate use.
Recently I got a data plan, and setup Outlook to poll email every 30 min, and that's when I started getting serious battery issues. My battery cannot make it through a work day, and after ~ 6-7 hours I'd get a low battery warning with 15% battery left. I cannot make it home without charging my battery, or turning my phone off towards the end of the day.
I was surprised by how much additional power email polling drains, even when it's as infrequent as every 30 min, so I installed acbPower Meter, and ran some tests on it. My finding is ...
Phone off, BT off, EDGE off ~ 120 mA
Phone on, BT off, EDGE off ~ 132 mA
Phone on, BT on, EDGE off ~ 132 mA
So I think that's pretty expectable numbers. It shows turning GSM on only drains a bit more power, and BT on/off makes almost no effect. I'm not really using any BT service at this point, obviously.
Now, as soon as I turn EDGE on I see a whole different story ...
Phone on, BT on, EDGE on ~ 326-360 mA
Phone on, BT on, EDGE on, Outlook polling ~ 450-550 mA
So as soon as the data channel is on, even before any data is being transmitted or received (I also use spb wireless monitor to check throughout rate), the drain shoots up from ~ 130 to over 300. And when data is being received, it goes up to 450-550mA!
Fine, even then, an Outlook update only takes ~ 3 min. I setup a program (PhoneAlarm) to disconnect my data channel within 5 min of inactivity, and I thought that should fix the problem.
But it didn't.
So doing a bit more homework, I find what happens is PA DOES turn EDGE off within ~ 5 min of inactivity, but somehow the battery drain stays high (above 300mA) even though EDGE is already off.
I double-checked on SPB Wireless Monitor to make sure EDGE is off, and no data is being transmitted or received. However, battery drain remains above 300mA.
Worse, over time, the 300mA battery drain heats up the battery, to ~ 34-36C, which kills the battery even more. All this without any actual wireless data being transmitted or received.
It seems like the ROM continues to drain the battery even after the data channel is disconnected ... has anybody experienced similar issue?
I ran similar test with WLAN and same result - with WLAN connected, and data received, battery drain goes up to over 400mA. But even after I turn off Wifi the battery drain stays high.
I am not sure if it's a ROM issue, an Outlook issue, or if it is caused by some application on my phone? Has anybody else seen this issue?
You have noticed a very significant difference between Blackberry device and WM, that's why WM is never good at it, no matter comparing the data amount flow as well as the battery usage, it is just not up to the expectation.
The AS is a battery killer, ever since the WM 6.0 and I do not see there is any improvement over the WM6.5 either, hence a even less hope for the WM7, by then, the Android and Symbian will have something to knock it off anyway.
Well, is AS really the problem here though? I have ASynckiller installed and it closes AS when the USB port is not connected.
Not to mention, AS has always been in the picture even before I started using Outlook to check email regularly, and battery usage was perfectly fine, so not sure about that theory.
If Outlook is the problem, I could switch to another email application (say, Flexmail) ... I just don't know if Outlook is the problem here. If Outlook is constantly polling in the background, despite I've set it to update only every 30 min, I should see a higher CPU / memory usage by Outlook, but that's not the case. CPU usage is well below 10% most of the times when it's idling, and memory usage is minimal too, yet the phone continues to drain 350+ mA. It seems like more of a ROM thing to me than anything else.
I have almost the same story as number16's.
I m using onyx, too. though its WM6.5 and that's generally very much of a battery eater.

[Q] Battery life with Wifi/2G/3G toggling

Hello there guys ..just wanted to post a quick question / add some findings i've seen with respect to the effect of toggling edge/wifi / 3G
I've had my phone for just around 10 days now, and have been noticing how quickly my battery life drops..
Until now, I had kept 3G + Wifi switched on (wifi toggled automatically with Y5-battery saver app), and, no matter how hard I policed background applications, my battery life would automatically fall at the rate of about 1% every 5 minutes (even if I were not using the phone, and it was just lying idle)...
Today, I tried switching off Wifi altogether, and forcing my network data to 2G ...my (probably flawed ) logic being that push notifications can happen even over edge/GPRS, and when I need to use more internet heavy applications, I could switch wifi/ 3G back on for the duration I needed it ..
I have been seeing pretty decent results over the past few hours ... battery has dropped just about 4% in the last 2 hours...i've attached a (crude) image of my battery usage screen, and on it, you can see the usage curve changing to a lower rate from about the same time I turned wifi off completely..
Could anyone with more knowledge about wifi/edge/3g battery usage pls let me know if this is a genuine improvement, or if its just some placebo effect
I'll continue monitoring it over the day and keep you guys posted
I believe battery usage from most to least goes:
3G
EDGE
Wifi
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
Thx hfm ... i think that's generally the order in which battery is consumed as well - EXCEPT when wifi reception is spotty..
I think what was happening until now was that the 'Y5 Battery saver' app was recognizing my 'home' as a location with a known wifi connection..and was constantly switching on / searching for wifi connections whenever I'm at home..
but the problem is that in some parts of my home, wifi reception is a bit spotty...so all that 'scanning' would happen for no good, and no connection would be fixed..
the battery saver didnt really save much battery then

WiFi constantly RECEIVING (no apps running)

Basically I am on Nexus S JellyBean 100% STOCK and this issues is happening with work WIFI.
How I noticed it...when I am at home I drop 1% battery on Wifi per hour. 10hours = 10% (sometimes less).
I go to work on the Wifi, I DONT USE ANYTHING ON THE PHONE and the battery is DRAINING LIKE CRAZY!!! 5%/h or more!!!
( I am in airplane mode in both place)
So I was thinking, WTF with this work wifi, i am not doing anything at all on it. Then I look at my wifi icon I have a constant RECEIVE icon. And I bet my phone does not go to sleep or something.
So why in the world my work wifi is draining my battery and the one at home is not. I will check tonight but I dont think I have traffic like this. I am registering 5-6kbytes/s for nothing. There was an explanation given in one of the links below about existing wifi traffic that goes through my phone but I do not agree with it fully. YEs sure there are several pings and beacon emitted back and forth but i do not think it is enough to cause 5-6kbytes/sec . The wifi is not in Monitor mode and it only receives the packets destined to my phone.
This is madness!!!! BTW When I had a different kernel back on ICS this behavior stopped. I will try to monitor again. So there is definitely some kernel switch that can force the wifi to idle.
Here are the links where they discuss this somewhat.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1738171
http://forums.androidcentral.com/verizon-galaxy-s-iii/188929-your-wifi-constantly-downloading.html
kalinusa said:
Basically I am on Nexus S JellyBean 100% STOCK and this issues is happening with work WIFI.
How I noticed it...when I am at home I drop 1% battery on Wifi per hour. 10hours = 10% (sometimes less).
I go to work on the Wifi, I DONT USE ANYTHING ON THE PHONE and the battery is DRAINING LIKE CRAZY!!! 5%/h or more!!!
( I am in airplane mode in both place)
So I was thinking, WTF with this work wifi, i am not doing anything at all on it. Then I look at my wifi icon I have a constant RECEIVE icon. And I bet my phone does not go to sleep or something.
So why in the world my work wifi is draining my battery and the one at home is not. I will check tonight but I dont think I have traffic like this. I am registering 5-6kbytes/s for nothing. There was an explanation given in one of the links below about existing wifi traffic that goes through my phone but I do not agree with it fully. YEs sure there are several pings and beacon emitted back and forth but i do not think it is enough to cause 5-6kbytes/sec . The wifi is not in Monitor mode and it only receives the packets destined to my phone.
This is madness!!!! BTW When I had a different kernel back on ICS this behavior stopped. I will try to monitor again. So there is definitely some kernel switch that can force the wifi to idle.
Here are the links where they discuss this somewhat.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1738171
http://forums.androidcentral.com/verizon-galaxy-s-iii/188929-your-wifi-constantly-downloading.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
for now what u can do, is to set your wifi to go to sleep when the screen is off

Smart Connect and Facebook eating my battery...

Hi guys.
I'm having problem with app called Smart Connect from Sony.
The problem started when I bought NFC Tags and start to use them.
But the best thing is that I don't even use that app for tag's due to not recognising them.
For a period 3 and a half hours my battery went down from 100% to 41% even when I didn't use my phone.
I only used it for 20 minutes to check facebook, e-mails etc. Also NFC so on for a period of 1 minute or two ?
Just to make change's at phone when touching to tag.
I'm on stock 2.17 without any customization, stock kernel, rooted, bl unlocked. Also don't know why but Smart Connect is showing at the list that uses 40% and Facebook which is another problem is 30%...
I even didn't have problem with Facebook app till yesterday... It always work and even it didn't eat that much. It never goes more than 3% of use a the battery stat's. Phone is active for all the time, even when wifi is turn off. No I don't use network data. I'm having full network signal also I don't use stamina but maybe the problem is in app called Snapdragon BatteryGuru ?
I really stupid, haven't made any changes at phone and battery it goes a lot.

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