[Q] Battery % going up without charging - Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hey fellas.
So, for a long time now I've noticed this weird behavior of the battery % going up without ever recharging the phone for awhile.
I've seen this happening with plenty of ROMs and kernels over time, and I can't figure out why.
Attached image is the very recent one, which finally made me open a thread regarding this problem... usually it spikes by small percentage upwards, but take a look at around 3/4 of the graph (~2 am), it basically "charged" itself from like 6% to almost 20%!
Now let's be honest, if the phone just lies down on the table without me using it for awhile, there's no problem really.
The real problem might probably be with constant using, I could totally drain the phones battery to 0% while obviously "in real life" it has a lot more juice to give??
For years I kept reading battery related threads, and how calibrating them helps, and how calibration actually does nothing. Everyone keeps changing their minds.
What should I do?
Thanks?
tl;dr soz
p.s. currently running on Cataclysm 5.1 Beta and ElementalX 2.11

Battery stats are purely estimation via calculations, there is no way to calculate the exact physical percentage remaining.
When it detects it has been calculated incorrectly, it readjusts itself slowly, so it looks like it's going up. Really, only the displayed value is going up—the actual charge obviously is not.

Elluel said:
Battery stats are purely estimation via calculations, there is no way to calculate the exact physical percentage remaining.
When it detects it has been calculated incorrectly, it readjusts itself slowly, so it looks like it's going up. Really, only the displayed value is going up—the actual charge obviously is not.
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Click to collapse
But dude, nothing of what you said answers my question at all -
I was asking Why it happens (what causes it to make such huge changes? faulty battery, faulty motherboard?), and What do I do to prevent it?
I didn't ask how does the % estimation system works, mainly because it's obvious?
And as I already said, I don't really have a problem with this happening while the phone is idle on the table let's say, the real problem is with real-time constant use (like surfing a lot, doing work stuff, playing) when I use it for a long time and the phone just turns off since it didn't have the time to re-evaluate its real battery status.
To make it simple, the phone doesn't realize it has more juice to give before it turns off on a non stop usage.
Back to my main question then -
How do I fix that?
Thanks.

NuclearBastard said:
But dude, nothing of what you said answers my question at all -
I was asking Why it happens (what causes it to make such huge changes? faulty battery, faulty motherboard?), and What do I do to prevent it?
I didn't ask how does the % estimation system works, mainly because it's obvious?
And as I already said, I don't really have a problem with this happening while the phone is idle on the table let's say, the real problem is with real-time constant use (like surfing a lot, doing work stuff, playing) when I use it for a long time and the phone just turns off since it didn't have the time to re-evaluate its real battery status.
To make it simple, the phone doesn't realize it has more juice to give before it turns off on a non stop usage.
Back to my main question then -
How do I fix that?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did answer your question: "When it detects it has been calculated incorrectly, it readjusts itself slowly, so it looks like it's going up."
It simply calculated it wrong, so it's adjusting itself. There is nothing wrong with any of your hardware nor software.
It is not a problem, and therefore it requires no fix.

NuclearBastard said:
What should I do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's good news. You can forget about where you put your wallcharger.

Elluel said:
I did answer your question: "When it detects it has been calculated incorrectly, it readjusts itself slowly, so it looks like it's going up."
It simply calculated it wrong, so it's adjusting itself. There is nothing wrong with any of your hardware nor software.
It is not a problem, and therefore it requires no fix.
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Click to collapse
Oh man. you're totally not catching my drift.
I realize WHY the percentage is going up, what I don't understand is WHAT causes it to eventually misread the actual mA that's left.
And again I say - ofcourse it's a problem. and OFCOURSE that something is going wrong.
Take it to a more extreme scenario - I could use the phone non stop from 100% to 0, only to truly figure out eventually that the battery has atleast 30-60 minutes left in it.
The phone misreads the actual amount of power it still has. even if it only corrects itself by +1% it's still a problem.
Clearly that's not the case, when you see I got a +~11% in about an hour. it's a much worse problem. An easy ~20 minutes of use before the phone shuts itself down, WASTED.

NuclearBastard said:
Oh man. you're totally not catching my drift.
I realize WHY the percentage is going up, what I don't understand is WHAT causes it to eventually misread the actual mA that's left.
And again I say - ofcourse it's a problem. and OFCOURSE that something is going wrong.
Take it to a more extreme scenario - I could use the phone non stop from 100% to 0, only to truly figure out eventually that the battery has atleast 30-60 minutes left in it.
The phone misreads the actual amount of power it still has. even if it only corrects itself by +1% it's still a problem.
Clearly that's not the case, when you see I got a +~11% in about an hour. it's a much worse problem. An easy ~20 minutes of use before the phone shuts itself down, WASTED.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What causes it to misread/recalculate could be one of many things.
For example:
Lets say the defined average battery usage calculation for when data is on is a value of "10 per minute" (for explanation purposes).
If you had a terrible data signal, it would use more battery, and if you had a perfect signal, it would use a bit less.
Lets say you had an absolutely perfect signal, that actually really only used 5 per minute. The calculation would then be incorrect as the device realistically used up less battery than calculated, possibly causing it to readjust itself after a while.
Of course the above is just an example, and it could apply to many other things together (screen, CPU, GPU, signal, WiFi, usage, GPS, etc). This happens on every single device and there is no way around it. If anything, it is causing you to get MORE usage out of your battery, not less, since it is increasing the percentage value as per recalculation. If it did not recalculate, and your device realistically used less battery than the calculation thinks, then your device would shut off earlier, no?
This also applies vice versa: if your device used MORE battery than calculated, it will drop the percentage when recalculating to make sure it shuts off before the battery would be damaged or even completely dead/unusable/un-rechargeable by being physically drained to 0%. Your device is also purposefully shutting itself off a slight bit prematurely to prevent this (this is also why you should not constantly attempt to turn on the phone when it shuts off at "0%").

Related

Fuze Pathetic Battery Life

I know this has been covered in many other threads but they seem to be fragmented into some suggestions for specific problems. Researching, following and applying the information, tips and software some have suggested I am still getting nowhere. My battery dies in a very short period of time - something like 4-6 hours.
I have installated, executed / implemented many of the suggestions and procedures here and on fuze-mobility to extend battery life. These are representative. I think there have been probably more but I cannot remember them.
HTC Power Management
SD Card Battery Saver
Taskmgr - to kill / stop Activiesync (replog.exec) from continuously cycling
Advanced Configuration Tool to turn on and off 3G
Registry Edit modifications on both the Fuze and associated laptop related to Activesync Update cycles
Activesync - added new server, made timing manual, deleted server.
Charging processes - Letting battery run all the way down to below 10%
Lowering brightness on my screen
I have ordered and am waiting for an extended battery for the Fuze.
The only thing I see is when viewing what is executing via the Taskmgr CPU Usage panel, I see that most of the time the Idle process is executing. (75+%). Although I have read some threads where folks have said this is good because nothing else is draining your power, just because the process says "idle" does not seem to me to be doing nothing..it is still cranking through and using cycles to go through its designated activities.
Is there a way to indicate the interval when the idle process cycles?
Anyone have this same situation? Any suggestions?
That sounds very bad. Most complaints are about it being less than a day, noy 4-6 hours.
Have you contacted HTC/your supplier to get a replacement battery?
Also, idle is not a process, it's the absence of a process...
I'm not an expert on the ARM architecture, but idle processes are processes that use the CPU when all other processes are waiting for something or when there are no other processes running. They don't necessarily do anything constructive (they essentially just 'mind' the CPU until another process needs it), but they often feed the CPU with power-saving instructions. In conclusion, ignore it - it's not causing any problems and there's no point in fiddling with it.
That sort of a battery life is absolutely ridiculous, and you've clearly had a good go at increasing it, so I my best guess would be that it's defective.
Thanks for the quick responses.
I would still like to investigate the "idle" process angle. As long as something accesses the CPU, cycles are being executed and power is being used. Depending on what the "idle" process is doing with the 75+% "time" it has control of the CPU lots of power could be being used / drained.
Not sure how to go about this yet but I'm sure there is a way to find out what is going on during the "idle" process time holding the CPU.
If anyone know please share.....
Wow, it seems like the battey life on these things just keeps getting worse and worse. I remember going from the Hermes to the Kaiser and thinking how much worse the battery life was on the Kaiser.
The features keep increasing and batteries are having a hard time keeping up, I think.
there is alot to blame here. the good news there is a fix for almost every culprit.
1st....touch flow 3d. this thing demands alot of battery life. Not too mention its always running. Att has also seem to have added a few things to the touch flo interface that may have had an impact on this as well.
2nd....the applications these days seem to be getting bigger and bigger every few months. its not uncommon to see an app eating up 7 to 10 mb of ram. jivetalk...opera...the new aim??? the thing about this....the more ram an app takes up, the more batt power is consumes.
by the way...this is not a problem native to windows mobile...take a look at Google's g1....the batt life on that phone is even worse than your stock fuze...and after i've been digging through the phone....i found out all the apps are over 5 mb....madness! Also, the iphone has had this problem....and still does. but the iphone doesn't allow for background processing....so large programs running in the background aren't really that much of an issue.
3rd...att! in a noble attempt to cram the fuze with everything under the hood and give it the title it truly deserve (a phone capable of doing everything) they've weighed the os down with crap ware.
4th...the att radio that ships with the phone....its horrid. you'd never belive how much better some of the other radios are vs. the shipped att radio. its almost ridiculous that att would ship the phone with such a poor radio.
5th....htc. The batt in the phone is no bigger than the one offered in the tilt. But lets keep in mind, the same size batt now has to power faster processor....more ram...and a brighter more high res screen. Why they didnt up the power of the batt? who the hell knows...i guess to keep the phone nice a small...but its def a trade off.
I want you to try a cooked rom....try romeos 1.4 or the new proven.....change your radio to the shipped orange....make sure you spl before doing both.
and post back. im sure you'll have a different experience.
wrjp said:
Thanks for the quick responses.
I would still like to investigate the "idle" process angle. As long as something accesses the CPU, cycles are being executed and power is being used. Depending on what the "idle" process is doing with the 75+% "time" it has control of the CPU lots of power could be being used / drained.
Not sure how to go about this yet but I'm sure there is a way to find out what is going on during the "idle" process time holding the CPU.
If anyone know please share.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm going to save you a ton of wasted hours in your life....or at least give you something else to waste those hours on. Stop the witch hunt on the "Idle" process. Open up the task manager on your desktop/laptop and look for the Idle process on there. If you pay attention (and do a little guessing), you'll see that the idle process consumes the remaining percentage of the CPU after the other applications have had their cut, however if you look at the total usage, you'll see that it doesn't include the Idle process.
There's a reason for this. It's lying to you....
There is no "Idle" process, it's just a way for the operating system to indicate how much processing power is not being used by applications. There's certainly something going on during those empty cycles, but it's operations that the core of the operating system is doing. Another poster mentioned that one of the things it's doing is sending power-saving instructions, which is basically true (but it's more in the form of telling the processor that there's nothing to do and letting it decide to save power).
The idle process cannot go away, and the closer you get it to 100% the better (relatively speaking, as it means you're doing nothing with the phone and removed any cool features it had). As long as the phone is on there's going to be at least a trickle of power going through the processor so the core of the operating system (i.e. Kernel) can perform it's necessary actions...just like the brain or heart does in your own body, even at rest they are still working a little bit.
Truthfully, I think you're barking up the wrong tree with your battery issues. I've got a Fuze also, and the ONLY time that I saw the battery die in 6 hours was when I was talking on it for about 3 1/2 or 4 hours in one afternoon. Otherwise, that thing, even on the stock rom, has given me nothing like the trouble your describing. I've flashed NATF's rom onto it (didn't like ROMeOS that much, just felt a little too laggy for me) and the new Austrailian radio .20M1 and the battery life seems even better. I don't think you're doing something wrong, I think you've got a lemon phone. Return it to the store complaining about the battery life on it not matching that of any of the other Fuze's you've seen anybody else using, then get a new one and try that out.
4-6 hours? Consider yourself lucky. I can get that if I don't touch the phone and no one calls. If I use the phone as a normal person might, I can get 2 hours. I don't even consider it a mobile phone. It's stays plugged into something all day.
momojopoe said:
4-6 hours? Consider yourself lucky. I can get that if I don't touch the phone and no one calls. If I use the phone as a normal person might, I can get 2 hours. I don't even consider it a mobile phone. It's stays plugged into something all day.
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Click to collapse
You have a faulty battery or you don't know how to set up the phone. I'm also using HTC Raphael, and battery lasts 1,5 days with lots of usage. I think that you should search xda for battery tips&tricks, like lowering backlight, turning off WIFI, BT and other. Also, there might be a problem with the ROM and Radio you're using.
The battery was exchanged...twice...the poor battery life was present with nothing but stock apps and all the tips and tricks you suggest were tried, and then some...the problem is endemic with the fuze...I figure as much as I paid I shouldn't have to jump through all the hoops with 3rd party new roms etc. just to get my phone to work like it should...the battery is piece of crap
Hmmm, in that case it could be faulty device - there are plenty of people on Raphael subforum that are using Fuze and battery lasts for most of them 1-2 days.
Whos got Extended battery on there Att Fuze ?
Is it worth the bulk
& which one to get ?
18,00 / 2,000 diff kinds i see
with diff company

Why does my Nexus S seem to gain battery without being charged?

This happens sometimes... For example, I usually leave my phone on airplane mode during the night while I'm sleeping, but when I wake up sometimes I seem to have one more percent than I had before going to bed.
And it also happened just now, I checked my battery about an hour ago which was at 60%, and when I got home it was at 61%.
What gives?
Are you living under a huge power line?
Just joking... but really, low temperatures can decrease battery voltage.
Do you live in an area that's cold outside right now?
I guess Android is starting developing its own consciousness, and found a way to violate thermodynamics laws. You should destroy it before we get dominated by machines!!!!
Lol, I was expecting serious answers haha.
But anyways, it's cold outside now, but this also happened when it was hot too. So it has nothing to do with that...
I think I've heard of there being a file on the phone that takes care of the battery stats or something like that... Maybe it needs to be reset? I'm on an unrooted Nexus S so I'll likely have to factory reset for that...
it is not a big problem, if you want,you can do a calibration to fix it. There's software in market
i've seen this happen after my phone crashes, usually from tinkering with voltages. but the change is usually rather significant, ~10-20%. very odd
It must be that Android's latest update installed a bunch of neutrinos into the core time clock and because of neutrino's faster than light speed your phone itself is experiencing spacetime shift and going back in time.

A unique battery issue

I have searched the interwebs high and low for this one, but I haven't found another with this issue.
Phone: One XL, ATT - 4.0.3 - CleanRom 4.1 - 1.85
Was browsing using chrome this morning with my battery at 48%. Right before my eyes it flashed the "0% battery - plug in" alert for a split second before it powered off and literally had no battery.
Furthermore, this seems to have been happening 1-2 times a week for a couple months. I keep waking up in the morning to a phone w/ 0% power, despite going to bed with somewhere between 50-100% charge.
I have also experienced the problem where I hold the phone in my hand and the are a near the antennae/camera gets very warm and my battery drops at almost a percent a second until it's dead. This occurs even with Wi-Fi turned off (which I tested due to "scanning" being the perma-status of wifi when the antennae area got warm).
Coming from every iPhone generation, I really like this phone , but the battery issues are pretty substantial. (worse, dare I say than the annoying death-grip apple tried denying was even real)
---------------
Lastly, each time, the battery meter appropriately reflects the drop of power to 0% from 50%+. I have tried reformatting phone to default RUU, upgraded to 1.85, tried newer Cleanrom, everything, no cigar. If anybody has any advice, I'd really appreciate it. I'd also be happy to provide more info if I can.
Thank You!
robenwzrdhat said:
Coming from every iPhone generation, I really like this phone , but the battery issues are pretty substantial. (worse, dare I say than the annoying death-grip apple tried denying was even real)
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Click to collapse
Pulling the "I had an iPhone, and it was better" card is pointless, and is only going to win you enemies here.
I'd say close to half the people I know with iPhones have had battery issues, or other severe hardware issues, at some point.
Have you tried flashing a different radio? If there is a reception issue, it can be killing your battery quickly searching for the network, even while connected to WiFi.
Also, posting a screenshot of your battery usage (particulary the "large" battery graph called "History details") for us to look at may be useful to help diagnose the problem.
redpoint73 said:
Pulling the "I had an iPhone, and it was better" card is pointless, and is only going to win you enemies here.
I'd say close to half the people I know with iPhones have had battery issues, or other severe hardware issues, at some point.
Have you tried flashing a different radio? If there is a reception issue, it can be killing your battery quickly searching for the network, even while connected to WiFi.
Also, posting a screenshot of your battery usage (particulary the "large" battery graph called "History details") for us to look at may be useful to help diagnose the problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
forums.androidcentral.com/htc-one-x/207174-instant-battery-drain-0-t-one-x.html
This pretty much sums up my issue. Guy just went to ATT to replace his.
Also, I'm not pulling the iPhone is better card. It isn't. Period. This phone is amazing and android is vastly superior to iOS. I hate programming in objective C anyway and though the NDK isn't exactly straightforward at least I can run native code. If anything, my complaining about iPhone's crappy hardware problems should gain me praise and camaraderie. I left iPhone and blindly made the leap to an android phone for a reason. "anything has to be better than this (except blackberry o.0)"
Would hate to try and exchange this phone with ATT, given that mine is rooted and unlocked. I'm expecting resistance, and I haven't done my homework to see if I can walk out of ATT with the latest version replacement and still unlock it. Also, I have a tiny chip on the bottom. Don't know if they'll replace it.
Edit: Also, no issues with reception (4g LTE all day). Haven't tried flashing a new radio, but that may help with the second issue. The battery just plummeting to 0% though makes absolutely no sense.
robenwzrdhat said:
Edit: Also, no issues with reception (4g LTE all day). Haven't tried flashing a new radio, but that may help with the second issue. The battery just plummeting to 0% though makes absolutely no sense.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're right, it doesn't make sense for the actual battery voltage to instantaneously drop like that. Steep line yes, vertical, I don't think its really possible. The vertical drop is likely an incorrect battery meter reading, and the phone correcting itself.
I've seen this once on my phone, and a factory reset cleared it up (never saw it again). Same with at least one other use on here. But the fact that you've flashed some ROMs and ran the RUU should have accomplished the same.
I'd still encourage you to post a screen shot of the battery usage (for several hours of use), as looking at the battery grapsh versus the bars for network signal, awake, etc. might shed some light.
redpoint73 said:
You're right, it doesn't make sense for the actual battery voltage to instantaneously drop like that. Steep line yes, vertical, I don't think its really possible. The vertical drop is likely an incorrect battery meter reading, and the phone correcting itself.
I've seen this once on my phone, and a factory reset cleared it up (never saw it again). Same with at least one other use on here. But the fact that you've flashed some ROMs and ran the RUU should have accomplished the same.
I'd still encourage you to post a screen shot of the battery usage (for several hours of use), as looking at the battery grapsh versus the bars for network signal, awake, etc. might shed some light.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had hoped a factory reset would solve it for me as well, but once it started happening nothing would stop it I will update the thread the next time it happens then. Just got off the phone with ATT and they'll exchange it if it doesn't have physical damage, but the small chip out of the bottom could possibly deem it out of warranty, in which case they charge the full price of the phone (509$)!
robenwzrdhat said:
Just got off the phone with ATT and they'll exchange it if it doesn't have physical damage, but the small chip out of the bottom could possibly deem it out of warranty, in which case they charge the full price of the phone (509$)!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From what other XDA users have posted, I don't think one small ding will void your warranty, if its in good shape otherwise. Its when people try to send a phone in that is pretty beat up, or has a cracked screen or water damage, and want a warranty replacement, that they get denied.
Been having the exact same issue with my Rogers One X recently. The problem comes and goes... I woke up and found it dead twice just like you described. Sometimes it even dropped 20% of battery in a flash second.
I'm on Clean Rom V SP1. Just flashed BeastMode kernel a couple days ago and it's normal so far for two days... Just a note (it might not even be relevant), I had to use flashlight for a longer than usual period once. Not sure if the aggressive draw of battery screwed up the battery's voltage meter and thus causing this issue..
redpoint73 said:
From what other XDA users have posted, I don't think one small ding will void your warranty, if its in good shape otherwise. Its when people try to send a phone in that is pretty beat up, or has a cracked screen or water damage, and want a warranty replacement, that they get denied.
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Click to collapse
Thanks for this. Am leery of ATT, as it's often their way or the highway.
robertyouu said:
Been having the exact same issue with my Rogers One X recently. The problem comes and goes... I woke up and found it dead twice just like you described. Sometimes it even dropped 20% of battery in a flash second.
I'm on Clean Rom V SP1. Just flashed BeastMode kernel a couple days ago and it's normal so far for two days... Just a note (it might not even be relevant), I had to use flashlight for a longer than usual period once. Not sure if the aggressive draw of battery screwed up the battery's voltage meter and thus causing this issue..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hope new version of cleanrom works for you. It's a great rom. I haven't used the flashlight beyond turning it on and going "spiffy" and turning it back off, so I doubt that contributed to it. Mine started out every once in a while, then just happened more and more frequently. I don't want to leave my phone charging all night. Think I'm going to try and exchange at ATT today.
redpoint73 said:
You're right, it doesn't make sense for the actual battery voltage to instantaneously drop like that. Steep line yes, vertical, I don't think its really possible. The vertical drop is likely an incorrect battery meter reading, and the phone correcting itself.
I've seen this once on my phone, and a factory reset cleared it up (never saw it again). Same with at least one other use on here. But the fact that you've flashed some ROMs and ran the RUU should have accomplished the same.
I'd still encourage you to post a screen shot of the battery usage (for several hours of use), as looking at the battery grapsh versus the bars for network signal, awake, etc. might shed some light.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think the described problem looks like this (attached)
nvsmksru said:
I think the described problem looks like this (attached)
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Click to collapse
Yup, I understand perfectly what it looks like, and I've seen it myself. I want to see a screenshot of the OP's phone, not random other people. In particular, the screen "History details" accessed when you tap the graph, which shows bar graphs for Mobile network signal, Awake time, etc.
It also seems the OP is talking about 2 completely different issues. One is the vertical drop in the %battery graph (which is probably just a metering error). The other is a steep (but not vertical) battery drainage including the phone possibly overheating. I'm more interested to see the screenshot for that case.
redpoint73 said:
Yup, I understand perfectly what it looks like, and I've seen it myself. I want to see a screenshot of the OP's phone, not random other people. In particular, the screen "History details" accessed when you tap the graph, which shows bar graphs for Mobile network signal, Awake time, etc.
It also seems the OP is talking about 2 completely different issues. One is the vertical drop in the %battery graph (which is probably just a metering error). The other is a steep (but not vertical) battery drainage including the phone possibly overheating. I'm more interested to see the screenshot for that case.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I do mention two issues. The main one I address here is the vertical drop. And the above poster is right, that's exactly what it looks like when the battery dies. If (when) it happens again though I'll include the more detailed graph.
The secondary issue though, some have speculated is a result of the phone losing and then regaining 4g lte signal. Not sure about that one though, as it happens late at night for me. The one night I left my phone in the charger is when I discovered it in the morning. My phone was at 100% charge when I fell asleep, but when I woke it was at 80% and was very warm. It was using more power than the charger was providing, it seems, and that is when I experienced the rapid drop of a percent every second-ish after I took it off the charger. The wi-fi status was also set to "scanning" the entire time the phone was discharging until I rebooted it once it hit 10%. The issue stopped and the phone cooled off. Charged as advertised afterwards.
---Edit
Also, I went to the ATT store and since it was a core store they weren't familiar with exchanges. I got the manager though and had them take a peek at the phone and made certain they noted in my account that it's in good condition (they didn't notice care about the chips, I suppose). Replacement will be here in 6-10 days, but it will be a refurb (which surprised me). Hopefully I won't get two with the same issue.
robenwzrdhat said:
Yes, I do mention two issues. The main one I address here is the vertical drop. And the above poster is right, that's exactly what it looks like when the battery dies. If (when) it happens again though I'll include the more detailed graph.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No need to post that graph. I think its just a metering error, and I don't think the "History details" graph will shed much light.
robenwzrdhat said:
The secondary issue though, some have speculated is a result of the phone losing and then regaining 4g lte signal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could be. The "History details" graph indicates data network strength, as well as dropouts (amongst other things). So that is the one I want to see (not the graph for vertical drop).
redpoint73 said:
Could be. The "History details" graph indicates data network strength, as well as dropouts (amongst other things). So that is the one I want to see (not the graph for vertical drop).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Will post it next time it happens!
robenwzrdhat said:
Will post it next time it happens!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've actually had this issue happen to me about once a week, and I haven't figured it out.
I used to think it was from Google Maps or some rogue app eating battery, but I've really been careful about leaving them running and it still occurs.
I'll also try and grab a battery graph next time, but it literally looks like a complete instantaneous jump from 70% or whatever to 0%.
quasitime said:
I've actually had this issue happen to me about once a week, and I haven't figured it out.
I used to think it was from Google Maps or some rogue app eating battery, but I've really been careful about leaving them running and it still occurs.
I'll also try and grab a battery graph next time, but it literally looks like a complete instantaneous jump from 70% or whatever to 0%.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure if this has anything to do with it, but I have had "auto-brightness" turned off since I made this post and it hasn't happened since. My phone might also have known that I ordered a replacement, so now it's trying to be on its best behavior.
quasitime said:
I've actually had this issue happen to me about once a week, and I haven't figured it out.
I used to think it was from Google Maps or some rogue app eating battery, but I've really been careful about leaving them running and it still occurs.
I'll also try and grab a battery graph next time, but it literally looks like a complete instantaneous jump from 70% or whatever to 0%.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I've already mentioned, the vertical jump is likely not related to any actual battery usage (such as a rogue app). Its probably just a metering error, and the vertical jump is the meter trying to correct itself. If the issue persists, the only solution that I have seen that helps is a factory reset.
redpoint73 said:
As I've already mentioned, the vertical jump is likely not related to any actual battery usage (such as a rogue app). Its probably just a metering error, and the vertical jump is the meter trying to correct itself. If the issue persists, the only solution that I have seen that helps is a factory reset.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're probably right. The other possibility is a battery failure... I hope not. I've definitely reset battery stats in recovery but I haven't done a factory reset recently. Next time I flash I will.
quasitime said:
You're probably right. The other possibility is a battery failure... I hope not. I've definitely reset battery stats in recovery but I haven't done a factory reset recently. Next time I flash I will.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I doubt its a battery failure. I'm no expert on batteries or anything. But I would think that it would be impossible for the battery voltage to just drop to zero. Where would all the energy go? It would at least have to be expelled in a burst of heat or go to ground, or something. Conservation of energy says its got to go somewhere, it just can't vanish. That's what leads me to believe its just a metering error, not a real life event.
As for clearing battery stats, it really does nothing. It just clears the stats displayed on the battery usage screen, which also happens when you turn the phone off, or charge it fully. The myth of clearing battery stats was debunked a while ago: http://www.xda-developers.com/android/google-engineer-debunks-myth-wiping-battery-stats-does-not-improve-battery-life/
Either way it's really hard to tell. If it's a battery failure issue, then capacity won't be reliable. In conjunction with a metering problem, then the voltage is not really dropping, it's just reading much lower than it thought it was... which signals the phone to power down.
I'm definitely going to factory reset soon when I flash, and see what happens.
redpoint73 said:
I doubt its a battery failure. I'm no expert on batteries or anything. But I would think that it would be impossible for the battery voltage to just drop to zero. Where would all the energy go? It would at least have to be expelled in a burst of heat or go to ground, or something. Conservation of energy says its got to go somewhere, it just can't vanish. That's what leads me to believe its just a metering error, not a real life event.
As for clearing battery stats, it really does nothing. It just clears the stats displayed on the battery usage screen, which also happens when you turn the phone off, or charge it fully. The myth of clearing battery stats was debunked a while ago: http://www.xda-developers.com/android/google-engineer-debunks-myth-wiping-battery-stats-does-not-improve-battery-life/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I think it happened again.
quasitime said:
Either way it's really hard to tell. If it's a battery failure issue, then capacity won't be reliable. In conjunction with a metering problem, then the voltage is not really dropping, it's just reading much lower than it thought it was... which signals the phone to power down.
I'm definitely going to factory reset soon when I flash, and see what happens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

[Q] HTC One XL Battery Life

I am curious about the battery in the one x, and especially the habits of consumption.
I have been around the block with android development. I had a captivate before this, and managed to get great battery life out of that! That was much more simple however. Flash a rom, cycle the power, cycle, cycle, cycle. Then you're good to go.
I feel like the way that the one x deals with the battery is different, more advanced. Some bootloader level software that is untouched, like the hardware keys and whatnot.
My battery has been hit and miss to say the LEAST. I use BBS to take care of wakelocks, keep data and gps usage to a minimum (my regular use), and I charge my battery when the phone is dead up to 100%.
The back of my one x gets very very hot sometimes. This varies rom to rom. Started with stock sense ICS, took the OTA jelly update, now I am rooted, s-off, and on cyanogenmod 10.2 nightlies (which run insanely well btw). The issue is the same. It reacts the same, and is just as unpredictable. I have read about this, and know its a hardware issue, but I am still curious about it, as I have heard SO many different things. I am usually able to quickly curb the issue by turning on airplane mode, or turning my phone off (for a while, as rebooting doesnt seem to help).
In passing, I also read something about "HTC Charge Mode". I have read forum posts where people say things like "hold both volume keys and the power button for two minutes, this with re-calibrate the battery circuit." There are so many combinations of keys and timings that people talk about that I can't help but believe that it is all garbage.
The heating up is typically caused by camera usage, data (radio, I assume) usage, games (temple run 2, gyro), and sometimes even spotify (offline playlists). Wifi seems ok, not too much of a contributor. When I was on stock sense jellybean, I was able to fix a lot of the heating up by turning off "google location services".
The weirdest part is that if I feel the phone warming up, I can go into airplane mode like I said, and its fine. If I keep perpetuating it, however, it gets very, very hot. Hot enough, im sure, to melt soldered connections. I turn on airplane mode, and it doesnt get much better. This is when I have to turn it off. Sometimes it hurts my leg in my pocket if I absentmindedly leave data on.
So I want to know -
1) what is the deal with the battery on the one x
2) can I cycle the power like I could on my captivate?
3) if you know anything I don't about the heating up issue, please share
Thank you so much for reading! I look forward to the possible feedback!
TL;DR - please read the post! I'd really appreciate it!
One thing I do know is that after doing your initial few charge cycles when flashing a ROM, it's better to not actually let the battery level get too low before charging. I read an article by a battery scientist, he stated that continual full discharging of the battery will decrease the long term battery life. So, it's best to do top-up charges from ~40% to full charge. Obviously you can disregard this when doing your initial charge cycles.
Some of these phones heat up more than others. Having the phone in your pocket or any enclosed space for an extended period of time will encourage it to heat up. I can't remember the technical term, but it's a combination of there not being enough air flow around the device to facilitate its cooling down, and nowhere for the heat to go. So it just gets worse.
So knowing that, there are some steps you can take to mitigate the heat, even if only in a minor way.
Sent from my Evita

[Q] Battery Problens!!

Ive had my htc one x for maybe 5-6 months which is almost the longest ive ever been on one phone and i love(d) it, but its always been doing something very strange and aggravating that seems to be getting worse. Battery drain has always been a problem for me with this phone but ehh i can deal with it, but once my phone gets down to about 14% which is does often because of the draining it starts acting real funny with its power and sometimes goes from 14 down to 5 in an instant literally out of no where and as soon as i plug up itll go right back to 13, or itll shut down entirely at 14% but i can just cut it back on, or itll shut down in the middle of me doing something and i have to charge it for about 5-10 minutes before itll even come back on. The latter happened last night btw. No matter what combination of roms/kernels i try this always seems to be a problem. I really cant deal with this anymore and its to the point where i wanna throw my phone into a wall and just buy another one, which im seriously thinking about doing at this point. If such thing has happened to anyone before or you have insight on this can you please help before i just give up hope completely.
What you have described is normal for our device. Remember that the battery percentage is just an estimate of your actual charge. In addition, you find your phone shutting off around the lower percentages as a result of the device attempting to prevent damage to the battery. That is what the HOXl was designed to do.
Sent from my One X using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
KungFuCracka94 said:
What you have described is normal for our device. Remember that the battery percentage is just an estimate of your actual charge. In addition, you find your phone shutting off around the lower percentages as a result of the device attempting to prevent damage to the battery. That is what the HOXl was designed to do.
Sent from my One X using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Last night when it did it, as it has before, i was still on 21%.... thats not normal. And this isnt my first android nor first htc, never happened before. Even on my aunts old one s it didnt happen
Do you allow full charges after these "forced shutdowns" occur? This should cause your battery to recalibrate.
Sent from my One X using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
NexusS4gFreak said:
Last night when it did it, as it has before, i was still on 21%.... thats not normal. And this isnt my first android nor first htc, never happened before. Even on my aunts old one s it didnt happen
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The battery behavior on this phone has been interesting. I have the battery last over two weeks on airplane mode and I've had the battery last just a couple of hours with just a stock setup. There are so many factors that play into this. I work in an area with very little to no signal reception and my battery life goes crazy and the phone can get really hot while I'm there so I've seen the best and worst.
What I do to counteract this bad behavior:
1. Charge prior to 40% (I've had the phone go from 40% to zero instantly before)
2. Consider your signal reception and either try out different radios or use airplane mode to reduce erratic battery drain
3. Install a 3rd party app like batterycalibration (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nema.batterycalibration&hl=en) and use that when things get hairy (I calibrate every two weeks or so and that does the trick for me.
My phone has been like this since I pulled it out of the box. With a little management, it is just fine. You have seen it before but I'll say it again, you have to get through a few charge cycles when flashing a new Rom to get back to normal.
Hope this helps. It works for me and I work in a cell phone reception hell.
NexusS4gFreak said:
Ive had my htc one x for maybe 5-6 months which is almost the longest ive ever been on one phone and i love(d) it, but its always been doing something very strange and aggravating that seems to be getting worse. Battery drain has always been a problem for me with this phone but ehh i can deal with it, but once my phone gets down to about 14% which is does often because of the draining it starts acting real funny with its power and sometimes goes from 14 down to 5 in an instant literally out of no where and as soon as i plug up itll go right back to 13, or itll shut down entirely at 14% but i can just cut it back on, or itll shut down in the middle of me doing something and i have to charge it for about 5-10 minutes before itll even come back on. The latter happened last night btw. No matter what combination of roms/kernels i try this always seems to be a problem. I really cant deal with this anymore and its to the point where i wanna throw my phone into a wall and just buy another one, which im seriously thinking about doing at this point. If such thing has happened to anyone before or you have insight on this can you please help before i just give up hope completely.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When a new ROM or kernel is flashed you need to let battery settle for at least 48hrs before you get super worried about battery. If possible during that time let device fully discharge then charge up to 100. Please use a battery monitoring app and then see what's causing the issues. With proper config hoxl will get good battery life. There is always the chance its hardware issue but doubtful as battery prolly would of completely failed by now. Also check your screen brightness settings. Hope this helps
Senseless Power Unlocked
For example
Senseless Power Unlocked
Madcat8686 said:
The battery behavior on this phone has been interesting. I have the battery last over two weeks on airplane mode and I've had the battery last just a couple of hours with just a stock setup. There are so many factors that play into this. I work in an area with very little to no signal reception and my battery life goes crazy and the phone can get really hot while I'm there so I've seen the best and worst.
What I do to counteract this bad behavior:
1. Charge prior to 40% (I've had the phone go from 40% to zero instantly before)
2. Consider your signal reception and either try out different radios or use airplane mode to reduce erratic battery drain
3. Install a 3rd party app like batterycalibration (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nema.batterycalibration&hl=en) and use that when things get hairy (I calibrate every two weeks or so and that does the trick for me.
My phone has been like this since I pulled it out of the box. With a little management, it is just fine. You have seen it before but I'll say it again, you have to get through a few charge cycles when flashing a new Rom to get back to normal.
Hope this helps. It works for me and I work in a cell phone reception hell.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ive done all three methods youve mentioned before and still same thing. Also im on 3/4 bars with lte 90% of the time so no reception issues here. And with my current setup ive been running it for about 2 weeks.
DESERT.TECH said:
When a new ROM or kernel is flashed you need to let battery settle for at least 48hrs before you get super worried about battery. If possible during that time let device fully discharge then charge up to 100. Please use a battery monitoring app and then see what's causing the issues. With proper config hoxl will get good battery life. There is always the chance its hardware issue but doubtful as battery prolly would of completely failed by now. Also check your screen brightness settings. Hope this helps
Senseless Power Unlocked
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ive always let the rom settle in and i constantly maintain the brightness on around mid level (mirror screen protector so i cant go too low) but its not just one rom or a few, its with every rom i flash ad that consists of most roms available for this device
The battery behaviour you described is completely normal if you understand how a battery of this type works, and if you understand how the software (especially the display of battery percentage) works in conjunction with it.
Sent from my Evita
timmaaa said:
The battery behaviour you described is completely normal if you understand how a battery of this type works, and if you understand how the software (especially the display of battery percentage) works in conjunction with it.
Sent from my Evita
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So youre telling me having the phone get to 22% and instantly drop to zero and power down is normal? Makes no sense at all. Also i cant get it to charge too 100% for anything. So if theres no fix to this, anybody want a one x with a troublesome battery?
What I'm saying is the battery percentage displayed by the software is never exact, it's only an estimate based on the voltage level of your battery. Your battery sounds like its long term life (capacity) has been decreased over time and possibly bad treatment (allowing the device to discharge too much too many times).
Sent from my Evita
NexusS4gFreak said:
So youre telling me having the phone get to 22% and instantly drop to zero and power down is normal? Makes no sense at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depends on what you define as "normal". Such behavior is certainly not unheard of (although you particular collection of symptoms may point to a more serious issue, which I'll get to later). Couple things you have to remember: the battery meter is far from accurate. Being off by 10% or more is not unusual (completely normal). So jumping from 5 to 13% as you mentioned is not out of the question. The battery voltage is not actually jumping around, just the % battery number that the phone is assigning to various voltage readings. Reading errors happen, and if a jump is noticed, its just the meter correcting itself.
Which brings us to the other point that should be kept in mind: the battery % is not a "real" measurement. Its just a number assigned to various voltages to give the average person a sense of how much battery is left. Its a completely fabricated and artificial measure that just gives some relative sense of when a user should charge their battery. Phone makers just decided to use a system that average people would understand, like the fuel gauge on a car. Zero doesn't really mean zero (or anywhere close), but reporting in voltages would make no sense for most folks. Also, as we all well know, just because (for example) it took you 12 hours to drain the phone to 50%, does not necessarily mean the phone will last another 12 hours to drain the remaining 50%. It all depends on what you are doing with the phone during that time. Which leaves the question: What does the % battery really mean? Really, not a heck of a lot.
On the other hand, the battery failing to charge to 100% is troublesome, as is the apparent frequency of the meter drops and the fact that the issue remains after various ROM flashes. Leads me to believe there may be some hardware issue going on.
The short answer: IMO while some of the individual symptoms are not unusual, the seeming frequency (you haven't exactly quantified this, but it seems relative frequent just based on your descriptions) may suggest a larger issue, but its not certain.
Thanks it explained a lot but it happened again today, went to the store with ~36% on the meter and walked out, haven't touched it at all, phone was completely dead. Tried to charge and it went to 6% and stopped charging, all signs showed it was charging but it was stuck on 6. Then it started climbing again and reached about 16% and actually started losing charge while on the charger. Switched over to my portable battery charger i just got and it held the charge at about 5% for ~30 minutes, which is what it was when i plugged it in and started to charge, then it stopped againand during the whole process the phone was getting very hot. Yea im getting a new phone :/

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