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Help Battery indicators wrong, wtf is going on?

A

Andeh

Newbie
I'm running Android Revolution HD 3.6.13 on a HTC Sensation and have been experiencing some sucky battery life on it.

A few moments ago i noticed that my stock battery icon wasn't the same as my downloaded battery icon. Screenshot 1 shows before i plugged into the PC.

14yh5.jpg


After i plugged it into a PC and the downloaded battery indicator shot down to 83% shown in screenshot 2.

wnZrR.jpg




Can anyone help me out here. It seems that i am getting different readings and very poor performance on my battery since loading this ROM.


Thanks in advance.
 
The Sensation is very poor at reading the battery, it'll often jump up and down, it'll soon reset itself, I wouldn't worry too much about the actual percentage.

What do you consider to be poor battery life, it's a very varied subject?
 
Sounds to me like a problem with the third party battery app not updating frequently or properly but fully agree with Gibbs above.

My battery yesterday was unplugged at 7am and on battery till about 11pm. At the point of plugging in i had about 15% left. I'd say medium usage consisting of a few calls quite a bit of texting/whatsapp, internet browsing etc
 
Thanks for your replies.

What i consider to be poor battery life is unplugging from a 100% charge (LED indicator goes green) and 5 minutes later it is already down to 98%.

My phone does some crazy things like randomly rebooting itself when i have about 60% battery, when it boots back up again i've gone down to 15% and in the red. I have to take the battery out and put it back in again, reboot and its at some stupid reading like 43% afterwards.

It's only ever when it reaches around the 60% mark it starts to go all crazy on me. I use my phone for occasional facebook over wifi and mobile internet, few games and the odd gps location here and there and my HTC Hero never had this problem when i rooted and flashed custom roms.

I have system tuner, i have played around with all kinds of voltages, core speeds, wiped caches, re-flashed roms etc etc and all i seem to get is the same old story with random reboots and crazy battery readings/life.


If someone could tell me what i am doing wrong it would be greatly appreciated. I am losing my patience with this phone and seriously considering using it as a glorified door stopper that has a life of its own and digging out my Hero.



Thanks.
 
As far as I know, I actually have the same problems as yours. My phone was rebooting itself randomly on ARHD 4.1.13, so I set the CPU to 1.2 GHz, and it is working perfectly now (of course the battery reading is still terrible, but at least it is not a big problem as rebooting). Anyway, if you want a more stable ROM on your Sensation, Insertcoin may be a better choice. Nevertheless, it is not as fast as ARHD. I am still trying to find a ROM with Sense 3.5, Beats audio, Android 2.3.5 that works at 1.5 GHz, and really appreciate a lot if someone can point me to the right direction. The different between 1.2 Ghz and 1.5 Ghz is quite noticeable.
 
It's a pain in the ass. I have set my clock speeds to 1.2GHz and it still randomly reboots :mad::mad:

I think when the Sensation offically goes to ICS i shall be changing back to stock ROMs again.

I was out on the roads today and had to use Google navigation and my phone rebooted itself 2 times and once it came back it took forever to find the GPS signal again. Not ideal when in the middle of somewhere i wasnt familiar!! :mad::mad:
 
I had a custom rom on my captivate and had constant issues with the phone reboooting... I had a hell of a time to get it back to a stock rom and once I did the phone never rebooted on me again. It's great to load custom roms but you have to expect issues!
 
I know there may be the odd bug here and there but for this to be such a popular ROM and for so many people to be experiencing the issue and no definate answer on how to solve it seems a bit poor to me.

Titanium is backing up as we speak and i'm going back to stock ROM. I've had far too much shit with this ROM to put up with it anymore. I unplugged it this morning from 100% charge and 1 minute later it had dropped to 98%. Wtf is up with that!?

Poor form!
 
I will just list out everything I know (and have tried in the past few days), probably it will help everyone in this matter:
1. I have been told that this shutdown problem is not a hardware problem, but it is on the software side. I am not sure if it is correct, but I do hope so.
2. From my research, there are 2 popular reasons that can cause the phone to shut down randomly: problems with either kernels or radios.
Thus, in the past week, I have tried as many different kernels/ROMs as possible. Below are the list of kernels/ROMs I have tried:
Android Revolution HD (4.1.13/6.5.1): faux123 029 kernel (the latest) for 4.1.3 and SebastianFM latest ICS kernel
Insertcoin Sensation (3.4.6): Bricked 1.5 kernel (latest as well)
Virtuous Sensation (2.2.3): Unity v10 kernel
In the process, I have also changed different hboots as well as the recommended radios for each ROM. To be extra sure, I have also tested them again with stock radio and with no overclocking (CPU at 1.2 GHz).
Much to my dismay, the shut down problem still persists regardless of ROMs and Android/Sense versions (ARHD 6.5.1 is based on the official ICS update for HTC Sensation, so I was having really high hope that it would solve my problems, but it sadly did not). Admittedly, as mike1986 (chef of the ARHD ROM) has said that undervolting (not underclocking) can make your Sensation unstable so if you have problems, try restoring the voltage to stock voltage, which I have not been able to achieve due to my lack of knowledge. Other than that, I believe I have explored most of other possible solutions.
Nevertheless, during this trial/fail process, I realized 1 thing: this shutdown problem only happens when my phone is below certain level of battery (let's say 50%). On top of that, the reading of battery on my Sensation is extremely erratic, jumping up and down after each reboot (can change from 80% to 30% after a reboot). On one occasion, my battery was around 50% when it suddenly shut down, and it refused to boot up (it got to the lock screen and then shut down immediately). I then boot into the bootloader (with the intention of flashing another kernel) when I received this error warning (I don't remember the exact phrasing): the battery is low on voltage, please replace it with another battery.
Sorry for my super long post, but I finally can come to my hypothesis: this shutdown problem can be caused by the erratic battery reading, which can wrongly tell the system to shutdown because of low battery, or the phone reports a very high battery level when in fact it is not, and it shuts down when the battery is fully drained (as pointed out by the error in the bootloader).
And lastly, some people on the xda developers forum claimed that each battery has a chip to regulate its inflows and outflows of electric current (and probably charge level as well), so my final conclusion is that: it may be a problem with the battery itself. As my final hope, I replaced my battery with a new battery and have been testing it ever since. For the past 24 hours, I have not encountered any shutdown or erratic battery reading, and I really hope that I can cure this problem one and for all.
Of course, I do realize that I don't have scientific facts for some of the claims above, but I have already tried almost everything I know about Android, so I am really up for anything now. I will update everyone again if this is the solution. At least I hope this can give you guys more insights into the problems.
 
Your reply was a worthy read.

As a last time try, i updated to the latest ARHD Rom with updated radios/firmware etc word for word exactly how it is said over on xda but still get ca-raaaazy battery readings/performance.

It seems that it was only since rooting and changing roms that i started getting these issues so i don't know how it could be a problem with the battery but as you say, if it has solved the problem for you then i guess i must give it a try. I didn't want it to come to spending extra money on a phone that should work properly with a Rom that has been supposedly thoroughly tested and given top marks by thousands of people. To me it sounds like the people who have these problems are being pushed to the side with excuses and being told the Rom is absolutely rock stable. *cough* bullshit *cough*

I'm currently trying to find a perfect voltage on my phone so i don't have to put up with this crap for much longer but i am just about ready to do this to my phone. http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/qssmw/i_tried_to_fix_my_phone_nailed_it/http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/qssmw/i_tried_to_fix_my_phone_nailed_it/
 
Andeh said:
Your reply was a worthy read.

As a last time try, i updated to the latest ARHD Rom with updated radios/firmware etc word for word exactly how it is said over on xda but still get ca-raaaazy battery readings/performance.

It seems that it was only since rooting and changing roms that i started getting these issues so i don't know how it could be a problem with the battery but as you say, if it has solved the problem for you then i guess i must give it a try. I didn't want it to come to spending extra money on a phone that should work properly with a Rom that has been supposedly thoroughly tested and given top marks by thousands of people. To me it sounds like the people who have these problems are being pushed to the side with excuses and being told the Rom is absolutely rock stable. *cough* bullshit *cough*

I'm currently trying to find a perfect voltage on my phone so i don't have to put up with this crap for much longer but i am just about ready to do this to my phone. http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/qssmw/i_tried_to_fix_my_phone_nailed_it/http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/qssmw/i_tried_to_fix_my_phone_nailed_it/
Click to expand...

As I have mentioned, I am not sure if changing the battery is the right solution. For me, since my previous post (3 days ago?), my Sensation has been working perfectly (not a single problem at all). With my previous battery, I could never go 2 days straight without shutting down. I don't want to give you false hope and waste money on a new battery, so I will advise you against buying a new battery for now since I only use it for 3 days. Btw, because the original battery is quite expensive, I actually bought a cheap battery outside, so I was quite surprised that it has been working so well (a SCUD 1700mAh battery).
 
Hi,
My Sensation has also been suffering from random shutdowns and fluctuating battery indications. However, I believe that the problem is not the battery itself but the connections between the battery and the phone. The needle-like prongs on the phone have a very small contact area and tend to scratch the gold plated contacts on the battery. I suspect this allows oxidation to occur, causing a voltage drop when there is a high current demand on the battery.
In my experience, the shutdowns mostly occur when using the Nav app, or switching on the camera, or when the phone is transmitting at high power to establish/re-establish contact with a base station - all scenarios where there is a high current drain on the battery. They only occur when the indicated battery voltage is less than about 3800mV - as the voltage goes down, the current goes up for a given power demand.
I have had encouraging results from cleaning the battery contacts with WD-40 (I recommend spraying it on to a paper towel first, not directly on the battery). After the first clean, the phone lasted 3 weeks without a shutdown, after previously shutting down several times every day. The problem then recurred, but after another clean it has now gone 3 days without a shutdown.
If I am right, a replacement battery, with undamaged contacts, is also likely to offer a temporary, but more expensive, solution (aftermarket batteries may also have better contact plating than the OEM ones).
 
Greybeard33 said:
Hi,
My Sensation has also been suffering from random shutdowns and fluctuating battery indications. However, I believe that the problem is not the battery itself but the connections between the battery and the phone. The needle-like prongs on the phone have a very small contact area and tend to scratch the gold plated contacts on the battery. I suspect this allows oxidation to occur, causing a voltage drop when there is a high current demand on the battery.
In my experience, the shutdowns mostly occur when using the Nav app, or switching on the camera, or when the phone is transmitting at high power to establish/re-establish contact with a base station - all scenarios where there is a high current drain on the battery. They only occur when the indicated battery voltage is less than about 3800mV - as the voltage goes down, the current goes up for a given power demand.
I have had encouraging results from cleaning the battery contacts with WD-40 (I recommend spraying it on to a paper towel first, not directly on the battery). After the first clean, the phone lasted 3 weeks without a shutdown, after previously shutting down several times every day. The problem then recurred, but after another clean it has now gone 3 days without a shutdown.
If I am right, a replacement battery, with undamaged contacts, is also likely to offer a temporary, but more expensive, solution (aftermarket batteries may also have better contact plating than the OEM ones).
Click to expand...

Hey Greybeard,
Thanks for your post and welcome to the forum. People at xda-developers also suggested that I should look at the contact between the battery and the phone, but I was a bit intimidated about the prospect of short-circuiting the phone with some liquid. That's why I opted for a battery instead.
Anyway, after reading your post, I can tell that you have given the correct explanation to the problem, so thank you so much for that. I also noticed that shutdown usually occurred around 3800mV under heavy usage, but I did not know what it really means. And the gold plated contact area on my battery is indeed scratched.
 
Last night was a nightmare! I couldn't get my phone to charge properly without it being switched off . When it was switched on and charging it was using more power than it was receiving from my charger. I have the CPU underclocked at just over 800MHz... (yeh, you read that right).

I still don't understand why this issue has only come to the surface when i switched from a stock ROM to ARHD.

I will try cleaning the battery and the contacts when i get hold of some WD40 and see what happens.

Thanks for your advice guys. I'll keep you posted.
 
So i cleaned the contacts. 24 hours and no crash. Set the clock speeds up to 1.2GHz and all seems ok for now!

I think you guys may of solved my problems!!!! :D
 
Andeh said:
So i cleaned the contacts. 24 hours and no crash. Set the clock speeds up to 1.2GHz and all seems ok for now!

I think you guys may of solved my problems!!!! :D
Click to expand...
That's great to know. In my case, the new battery also works perfectly, even at 1.5 Ghz for the past few days.
 
Andeh said:
So i cleaned the contacts. 24 hours and no crash. Set the clock speeds up to 1.2GHz and all seems ok for now!

I think you guys may of solved my problems!!!! :D
Click to expand...
Glad it seems to work for you too. :) As an experiment, I left the Google Nav app on during a car journey to see if it would cause a shutdown, but the phone eventually got down to an indicated battery level of less than 3% before it died, after lots of low battery warnings - can't complain at that!
You might find you need to repeat the cleaning after a while.
 
It was a great start this morning but i encountered a few issues today.

100% charge, listening to music for a while and then my battery started rapidly declining. When i say rapidly i mean from 99% to 70% in about 10 minutes just by listening to music.

My phone was charging via PC and getting very hot (50 degrees and up) and it kept saying it was using more power than it was receiving, connect to AC power.

I turned my phone off for it to charge and when i turned it back on it was alright for a short while but it kept going to the white htc loading screen when i quit a few applications. Not all the time on the same apps, different ones at different times.

Not 100% fixed, maybe the contacts need a better clean.
 
Andeh said:
It was a great start this morning but i encountered a few issues today.

100% charge, listening to music for a while and then my battery started rapidly declining. When i say rapidly i mean from 99% to 70% in about 10 minutes just by listening to music.

My phone was charging via PC and getting very hot (50 degrees and up) and it kept saying it was using more power than it was receiving, connect to AC power.

I turned my phone off for it to charge and when i turned it back on it was alright for a short while but it kept going to the white htc loading screen when i quit a few applications. Not all the time on the same apps, different ones at different times.

Not 100% fixed, maybe the contacts need a better clean.
Click to expand...
It seems to me you must have another issue with your phone - something is sucking a lot of power. No way should just listening to music use more power than the PC port can supply, or send the temp up to 50C.
Can you tell where the heat is coming from? If it is the battery itself that is heating up, maybe it has an internal short, but if the heat is coming from the processor maybe a rogue app could be running in the background?
 
There must be something seriously wrong with either your phone or your battery. 50 degree is downright impossible. The highest my phone has ever reached is 42.
 
It has been running ok today like i expect the phone to. It's not had a funny turn since last post.

I uninstalled a few apps and moved some back to phone memory to make sure they run properly and so far so good.
 
Hi i think i have the same issue, before last friday my battery would last 36 to 48 hrs now it lasting 12 at most!!

i have done a factory reset no joy which rules out an rough app, called HTC and they are sending me a replacement battery but i'll try cleaning the contacts on my current one see if that fixes the issue.
 
3 days and no crashes, no strange behaviour and no overheating.

I've upped the CPU speed to 1.4GHz (a 100MHz increase) to see how well it handles.

Fingers crossed! :D
 
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