What's your best Rom/Kernel combo? NS4G - Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I'm looking for a rom/kernel combo that's good on both battery and performance. 2.3.x is preferred but 4.0.x will do. Thanks in advance!

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do a serach. In the past month there have been about 15 threads with the nearly identical title!
Last one was closed because there is NO BEST rom/kernel.

How hard is it to experiment? Seriously.

chronophase1 said:
How hard is it to experiment? Seriously.
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Not too hard.

betoishly said:
I'm looking for a rom/kernel combo that's good on both battery and performance. 2.3.x is preferred but 4.0.x will do. Thanks in advance!
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Click to collapse
if you want better battery life, get a bigger battery. all those tweaks might get you 5-10% more battery life and some cause instability. they also tend to have a hit on performance, so I'm quite sure you won't find anything that covers your needs. The best battery savers are: You not using your phone constantly, not having installed any misbehaving apps, being in an area with good network coverage, apps not syncing or trying to access your location every 5 seconds.
So if you want something stable that works, get a ROM that's close to stock (OR CM) and use the kernel with the fewest tweaks, don't OC, don't UV (both useless IMHO). Otherwise flash ubersuperOMGItweakztheshitsoutofthisphonROMv17 with air kernel.

Aktifit said:
if you want better battery life, get a bigger battery. all those tweaks might get you 5-10% more battery life and some cause instability. they also tend to have a hit on performance, so I'm quite sure you won't find anything that covers your needs. The best battery savers are: You not using your phone constantly, not having installed any misbehaving apps, being in an area with good network coverage, apps not syncing or trying to access your location every 5 seconds.
So if you want something stable that works, get a ROM that's close to stock (OR CM) and use the kernel with the fewest tweaks, don't OC, don't UV (both useless IMHO). Otherwise flash ubersuperOMGItweakztheshitsoutofthisphonROMv17 with air kernel.
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I beg to differ with your first statement. On GummyNex I could pull in the 6 hours with 3G with the settings in my signature. Same settings on Paranoid get me just in the 5 hour mark while using 2G. That's hardly 5 or 10 minutes. On every other ROM I've tried o struggle to get in the 5, even 4 hour mark.
Also my performance is pretty good, can't complain. Gaming with incredibly heavy games is iffy, but light heavy games are fine. Max Payne would be wonky at times but Shadow Gun is smooth.
(When I say with 3G or 2G on, I mean that's the type of data I would use. Not that I had it constantly on. I do use it a lot though. I'd say 4/5 of the phone's usage.
But yes. The things you listed afterwards are very true.
And getting an extended battery would be best.
Nexus S (GMS i9020a)
Paranoid (1.6 - 4.0.4)
Matrix Kernel (CFS - 20.0)
Ondemmand (800/200)
Deep Idle (Off - Noop)
Live OC - 100 (400/800)
BLX - 98 (Inverted Apps)

6h is quite a long time . But I believe you... what I wanted to say is that most of the time, battery life is limited by the hardware and your usage. Most tweaks do more or less nothing, and the ones that do change something don't work on all devices because they push the hardware to their limit. If those tweaks work for you that's great, but they don't have to for others. My phone is limited to 4-5h of screen on time, I guess mostly because my phone can't handle UV and I have an SLCD, which means I won't save power on using inverted apps etc.. But I can easily get through the day so I can't be bothered tweaking the **** out of my phone .

NYYFan325 said:
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do a serach. In the past month there have been about 15 threads with the nearly identical title!
Last one was closed because there is NO BEST rom/kernel.
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+1
This
Sent from my Nexus S using xda premium

Related

[Q] Question about Kernels

Hi, my Triumph should be arriving in the mail in just a few days and i was wondering which is the best kernel or ROM and Kernel combination that is best for battery life? I've heard that battery life on the Triumph is not so good. Maybe it's false but i would still like to know.
jerenater10 said:
Hi, my Triumph should be arriving in the mail in just a few days and i was wondering which is the best kernel or ROM and Kernel combination that is best for battery life? I've heard that battery life on the Triumph is not so good. Maybe it's false but i would still like to know.
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Click to collapse
I would go with CM7
That's what i was planning on. Does your Triumph give you battery problems?
jerenater10 said:
That's what i was planning on. Does your Triumph give you battery problems?
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The battery life is a lot better now with the latest builds of CM7 and MIUI.
I just use CM7 and leave wifi and bluetooth off, no juice defender or anything like that and I can easily go all day with no charge, typically about a day and a half and my battery is getting low but it really depends on what you are doing like games, wifi, videos and whatnot.
Before I think there was a problem with the battery draining while in idle but things have cleared up since then, There are also third party kernels you can OC and everything, but you can use them to undervolt as well to save some battery if you know what you are doing. over on androidforums there is a lot more chatter about this phone, just so you know.
ketjr81 said:
The battery life is a lot better now with the latest builds of CM7 and MIUI.
I just use CM7 and leave wifi and bluetooth off, no juice defender or anything like that and I can easily go all day with no charge, typically about a day and a half and my battery is getting low but it really depends on what you are doing like games, wifi, videos and whatnot.
Before I think there was a problem with the battery draining while in idle but things have cleared up since then, There are also third party kernels you can OC and everything, but you can use them to undervolt as well to save some battery if you know what you are doing. over on androidforums there is a lot more chatter about this phone, just so you know.
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Click to collapse
Thanks. I got my phone today and im loving it so far. Do you know which of those third party kernels are good for battery life and that i can install over stock? I'm not quite ready to install a ROM yet but i already did the HTC Thunderbolt Build.prop tweak and obviously im rooted.
It's usually not the kernel but whatever governor you have it set to use. Even the stock can get improved performance if you switch the governor to such--”performance”--but I'm probably not the guy to tell you about which one is best.
I also have the silly feeling a lot of misconceptions abound here...in the form of ”I changed this setting and now my device lasts longer..., oh btw I no longer play with it 24/7.” In other words, use drastically impacts battery performance. JuiceDefender is an amazing tool but it won't do you a bit of good if you're testing out your phone's Adobe Flash capabilities regularly.
Sent from my Wildfire S
The Savagezen and interactive (not sure if interactive is on any of the kernels for this phone.) gov isn't that great. At least not in my experience. I had SmartassV2 on my girlfriends phone and it got ~3600 on Antutu benchmark at 1.5 and when I used Savage at 1.5 she got ~1700. The interactive gov made my friends Dinc2 noticably slower. Just switching home screens it lagged to the point it was hard to get into the app to change the gov.
CM7 + TheOC kernel allows adjusting voltage & overclock or underclock. You really should flash a CM7 ROM. Having it just rooted can be dangerous because you're not using a custom recovery to make a backup image, and if something messes up, you don't have a backup ROM to restore. Going to a different ROM forces you to make a backup, then there's a backup to restore if you mess things up.
Governors just tell the CPU how fast to ramp up to a certain frequency, & how long to stay there. It's hard to balance fast ramp up (less lag), and low battery drain (spend more time in the lower frequencies). I like interactive/x, find that smartassv2 spends too much time in the mid frequencies (~500) even for light work. Using the app CPU Spy helps a lot to see what's going on. Also it tells you whether your phone is sleeping properly when screen is off, which is a big factor for battery drain.

[Q] What kernel would you recommend

Okay I'm planning to buy this phone and decided I am going to use CM9, just wondering what kernel I should use stability and performance is key, I don't mind battery life I can cope with charging every night as I do this now with the worlds worst phone (iPhone 3G) fully charged this morning (8:00) now 30% (17:15) all I've used it for is a little browsing and at most 2 and a half hours of music at mid volume and sent a few texts. So to wrap this up what kernel would you recommend stability ranks higher than speed but speed is important battery mind I can cope with as long as it is better than my iPhones :') If anybody already has CM9 post some screen shots :')
either franco or glados will give you the best of all worlds (performance, stability, battery). i'm not partial to either, i just flash whichever was updated more recently.
Trinity kernels
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
I'm sticking with Franco's since it's done wonders for me on GB.
Using it on ICS now and it's stable and fast.
Greetz
i haven't try ICS yet, but in GB i suggest FRANCO , it's damn good
about battery , it happens to all smartphones ...
only you thing you can do for hard usage is buy an extra battery or extrenal power , thank god our phone's battery is replaceble not as iPhone which is UNreplaceble...
I like mathkid. I used franco on gingerbread but i feel mathkid 11.5 ics is better on ics
ehiggins said:
I like mathkid. I used franco on gingerbread but i feel mathkid 11.5 ics is better on ics
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Hmmm, what's it like on the performance & stability side?
i think franco's kernel is good ..
Franco Kernel hands down.
He frequently updates his kernel usually on a weekly basis as of now and contains all of the power saving tweaks (Lazy Govenor, DEEP IDLE, BLX, TouchWake Live OC ... this guy is good) created by the creator of the GlaDOS kernel Ezeekel.
He does not have any debugging tools running in the background (as other kernels do) for optimal performance.

[Q] Best rom + Kernel for battery life??

Hey, Just wondering what would you guys say is the best rom for + kernel for battery life that also isn't stupidly slow.. Oh and by battery life i don't mean like upkeep time i mean like basing it on screen on time like what roms can get 4+hours screen on time?
Cheers
stock rom 4.04
Oh and what kernel is better for Rascream rom Trinity or Matrix cause i don't really know much about rascream as i just started using it.
I'm able to squeeze over four hours of screen on time from most ROMs providing I don't reboot and minimise my modem usage. I'm currently using Pete Alfonso's Gingerbread kernel and Blandriid 2.3.7.
But I keep trying alternatives...
Yeah Atm i'm using latest Rascream with TEUV kernel and not sure atm but battery seems okay?
The biggest battery eater is the screen so try brainmaster's black cm9. It's about the only thing you can do apart from obviously keeping your screen brightness at minimum is put your phone in airplane mode when feasible. Nothing else will make much difference.
For GB i have to say, Oxygen 2.3.2 with Matr1x 11.0
As for ICS, i've yet to come across one, I do, however have fond memories of aosp+
To supplement bedalus' post: to base battery life on kernel+rom combination alone does not tell much of a story. I got the most out of my battery when I - used a pure black and static wallpaper, turned off auto brightness and manually tuned down to 10%-ish, kept apps and processes at a minimum (reduced app drawer to a single page, mostly stock). To reiterate, kernel+rom alone give few tangible differences when comparing battery life, from personal experience.
I use Matrix Kernel v19 and CyanogenMod v7. 24 hrs with light use, 12 hrs with heavy use.
used to use milestone 4 with air kernel.
use the latest version of both rom and kernel and set 200-1000.
you will see the difference and if you want to save more battery after following as above, then reply me.
I haven't really noticed a difference between ROMs. As stated a few posts above, the kernel and ROM themselves will only give a few minor boosts. Black vs white screens makes a world of difference. I use the inverted browser a lot and a majority of my apps tend to have dark themes which I personally prefer. Daily use, 3 or so hours of screen on time with the phone off the charger for 12-14 hours. It all varies on how I use my phone though on that particular day.

CM 10 performance settings

I just got upgraded from CM 9 stable to CM 10 stable and I love it. Only problem is battery life. I feel about a 10-15% reduction with the new upgrade. I've had CM 10 for about 4 days now. I don't want to touch the performance settings without knowing what I'm doing. Is there a way to change my performance settings to extend the battery life? Also has anybody played with a different kernel with CM 10 stable? Thanks
abehbeh said:
I just got upgraded from CM 9 stable to CM 10 stable and I love it. Only problem is battery life. I feel about a 10-15% reduction with the new upgrade. I've had CM 10 for about 4 days now. I don't want to touch the performance settings without knowing what I'm doing. Is there a way to change my performance settings to extend the battery life? Also has anybody played with a different kernel with CM 10 stable? Thanks
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Don't worry about changing the cpu and governor settings. There is an option to set at boot. Make sure that is disabled, so if you have any problems a reboot will go back to default settings. I use the conservative governor, and have my minimum cpu speed set to 192. I've read that that speed is not entirely stable for many people, but seems to be working fine for me. That has been pretty good for battery life for me. I believe the default governor is interactive now, and the minimum cpu speed is set to 384 by default.
Do you just "feel" a battery difference, or do you have any actual numbers to back up that assertion? Keep a close eye on Settings / Battery and use Better Battery Stats to record solid numbers and identify what's actually eating your battery.
Also turn off google now location settings if ur not using it. They are really hard on the battery.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda app-developers app
Disable Google now and battery should be back to normal here is some pics. Cm10 default kernel,stock clocks, no UV, on demand governed, and deadline as scheduler
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda app-developers app
Thanks for the replies.
It seems to be my screen that is responsible for eating up my battery. Have had the phone disconnected from the charger for 4 hours now and all I've done is 20 min with screen time doing a little bit of texting and facebook and my charge is at 75. I have the automatic brightness setting off and put my setting at pretty low.
The cell stand-by battery usage is 8% during these 4 hours. Should I maybe try another radio or is this normal? It lost signal for about 10 min today.
Just turned off google now and selected the conservative governor. Let's see if this makes a difference.
I used to be able to go all day with my phone with CM 9 and I even have the nexus battery.
Thank you for all your help
That's most definitely not normal, at least in my experience. Are you using the vanilla CM10 or some variant?
Some things to try:
Install Better Battery Stats (find the free version on XDA via a search) to see if any apps are causing wakelocks. This is a must.
Use CPU Spy or something similar to see if your phone is entering Deep Sleep. This is a must.
Turn off Google Now unless you actually use it
Turn off all unnecessary radios (WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS) unless you're actually using them
Turn off all auto-refresh settings in every app you have -- all social apps and weather are the biggies
For me, turning off the default auto-refresh in Facebook, Google+ and Twitter are massive savings alone, then Settings / Battery & BBS will help you locate the remainder of the headaches quite easily.
You might want to consider swapping kernels too, or at the very least reconsider your CPU governor and scheduler settings.
I would stay away from conservative governor you won't get much performance out of that, stick with what comes stock and use on demand.... even the default interactive sucks my battery down
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda app-developers app
abehbeh said:
Thanks for the replies.
It seems to be my screen that is responsible for eating up my battery. Have had the phone disconnected from the charger for 4 hours now and all I've done is 20 min with screen time doing a little bit of texting and facebook and my charge is at 75. I have the automatic brightness setting off and put my setting at pretty low.
The cell stand-by battery usage is 8% during these 4 hours. Should I maybe try another radio or is this normal? It lost signal for about 10 min today.
Just turned off google now and selected the conservative governor. Let's see if this makes a difference.
I used to be able to go all day with my phone with CM 9 and I even have the nexus battery.
Thank you for all your help
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Click to collapse
Don't use conservative, your phone is gonna be very slow and suck
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2
I'm currently running the vanilla CM10
Turned off google now location access and set the govern to on demand early this morning and it is performing a little better most def.
I have noticed that my phone lost signal 4 times during the day for periods varying 5-10 min. I am currently on the I727UCLF6 radio. I'm thinking maybe I should try another one. Could that help with that battery maybe?
I have been thinking about switching kernels but I am a little doubtful because I don't want to mess up my phone too much since I so heavily depend on it. I loved the hotcakez kernel that came with AOCP, maybe i'll give it a shot this weekend.
Thanks for all the help people! Def the best forum by far on the web.
abehbeh said:
I'm currently running the vanilla CM10
Turned off google now location access and set the govern to on demand early this morning and it is performing a little better most def.
I have noticed that my phone lost signal 4 times during the day for periods varying 5-10 min. I am currently on the I727UCLF6 radio. I'm thinking maybe I should try another one. Could that help with that battery maybe?
I have been thinking about switching kernels but I am a little doubtful because I don't want to mess up my phone too much since I so heavily depend on it. I loved the hotcakez kernel that came with AOCP, maybe i'll give it a shot this weekend.
Thanks for all the help people! Def the best forum by far on the web.
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Click to collapse
Just do a nandroid backup of the entire phone first before installing a new kernel and your risk drops to zero. If you install it and it all goes to hell, just boot back into recovery and restore your backup.
As for radio ... if you drop signal that often and your phone is constantly searching for one, I suppose that could impact the battery, sure. Are you certain you're in an area with solid coverage, though?
Learn more about the different governors and schedulers: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1950084
Yea I might have to play around with some kernels this weekend. Luckily it is a long weekend so I'll have some time if I mess up
My phone will go from 4 bars and a good signal at -78 dBM in my apartment and then randomly I'll lose signal for abut 5-10 minutes. A restart usually does the trick or I can just wait until it regains the signal which can be frustrating. I never had any problems with my signal at home running CM 10 so that leads me to think that there might be some problems with the radio.
Just want to confirm that these are the 5 radios I can use for AT&T even though I'm running JB.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1754473
I've been using a UCLI3 modem I found on XDA a couple of weeks ago, it has been incredibly stable and strong for me. But as many people far wiser than me have said elsewhere, everyone's mileage with radios varies and it really just takes some testing to see what works best for you.
so I should be able to run the 5 ICS radios I found eventho im running jb right?
thanks for your help
abehbeh said:
so I should be able to run the 5 ICS radios I found eventho im running jb right?
thanks for your help
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Yeah if they are for the skyrocket.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

[Q] Viper XL Battery Life

Im running Viper XL and the reason i flashed it is because i heard it has above average battery life, but im getting maybe 10-13 hrs max. I've heard cases of 24 hr battery life, and I cant seem to achieve it. I am running Beast Mode Kernel and have the powersave governor. I am running Stock CPU frequency and have one core active. Am I missing something, because i got better battery life on paranoid android which kind of suprised me.
You really have to drill down on the tweaking and settings. Took me a bit to get what I wanted as well. I completely shut off Google Now, you can toggle off LTE and surprisingly, I raised my min cpu frequency to 594 and ondemand. Shut off HTC powersaver as well. Try a reboot after you tweak up all your settings. I think battery life was better on 2.4.1 but it's pretty well on 3.1 too.
Sent from my HTC One XL using Tapatalk 2
Viper Xl
Alphacall2 said:
Im running Viper XL and the reason i flashed it is because i heard it has above average battery life, but im getting maybe 10-13 hrs max. I've heard cases of 24 hr battery life, and I cant seem to achieve it. I am running Beast Mode Kernel and have the powersave governor. I am running Stock CPU frequency and have one core active. Am I missing something, because i got better battery life on paranoid android which kind of suprised me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm assuming you're running ViperXL 3.1. In that case, I'm surprised you're seeing such poor battery life. But, usage and settings are everything. Things like Google Now and GPS are major battery hogs. Facebook, Google+ and other push applications can also hamper battery life. Check your background sync frequencies! How long is your screen running? At what brightness? etc.
That being said, what strikes me is your kernel. You should not be using Beat Mode Kernel (last I checked it's not even optimized for the latest android version). I recommend you use the stock ViperXL kernel or Elemental v1.5.
I've ran ViperXL 3.1 yesterday with elemental v1.5 for more than 24 hours, 3 hours screen time while syncing 3 e-mail accounts. YMMV but with proper set up it's definitely possible.
Give us more information about your usage!
Alright, thanks for the information on the kernel, its a shame because i heard good about it. But as my screen time i run low brightness and im pretty heavy on texting, I used LTE for about 40 mins total today. can you tell me the way you disabled google now? I've been tweaking the settings a bit and i guess i just havent found my sweet spot.
Edit: And im running 2.4.1 actually sorry should of put that in first post.
Complaining about 13 hours of battery life. O__o
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD
Not a complaint! I'm Just saying i've heard of better
Battery life is a very elusive thing. There are simply too many variables. For every ROM, radio, etc. where people will say they have much better battery life, you will almost certainly find others that have worse. Its just a fact of life with modding phones.
I've gotten about a day and a half on a single charge ever since the phone was released, and over 48 hours with later firmware versions (stock and custom ROMs) as of 2.2X and newer. Some folks can't even get through a half a day.
Alphacall2 said:
Not a complaint! I'm Just saying i've heard of better
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CleanRom 5.1 might get a little better, but I've had about the same battery life using Viper XL 3.1. A lot of the other things to look at are certain apps that seem to cause a lot of drain (depending on options). The most frequently mentioned are: Google Now, Facebook, and Maps. Other than that, lower brightness and shutting off LTE are the next biggest contenders.

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