Root help me fix this battery issue once and for all

[jpkotor]

i don't know how significant this is but my performance is also very laggy and choppy, especially the swype keyboard, it's lagging bad and splitting words i swipe into two completely unrelated words.

 

[akazabam]

For the baseline, try maybe an hour or two unused, and see how much the battery drains (and check spare parts), then try using it for a bit.

Interesting that it's laggy. I'm starting to think this might be an issue with apps, perhaps, at least partially. Install OS Monitor, and sort by load, descending. See if any processes are running hot.

 

[jpkotor]

so far, no good. still haven't had the change to disable my phone for hours on end, but i have installed OS monitor. I don't think anything is out of the ordinary. while it's running OS monitor is at top fluctuating from 7-20% (it's refreshing every 2 seconds). Android system is at 3-4%, system/bin/akmd 3%, pretty much everything else is 0%. sometimes something pops into 1% and disappears.

in the meantime battery life is still miserable. 4 hrs unplugged today and i've BARELY touched the thing and i'm down to 73%. 3-4% dropped just turning on the screen and looking at system panel for what's been the top apps (system 0.9%, HTC sense 0.3%...). nothing sticking out in spare parts either, under cpu, partial wake, network, etc.

until tonight when i'll try to turn off all radios and syncing, are there any other ways to diagnose this issue? i am really thinking i just have a crappy battery or something... does warranty cover that? should i just call sprint and demand a new battery?

otherwise, if maybe i should try a new kernel what's next? right now i'm still doing the na 4.3.2 cfs nohavs nosbc with no profiles...

 

[akazabam]

Ok, let's see. Sorry if I ask you some questions you've already answered or done. It's hard to remember what all you've done now . Have you tried making a nandroid backup, then wiping the phone, and using it a few days with absolutely nothing installed? Just a ROM (or your choice) with the stock HTC kernel, and no other apps installed. That's a pretty good baseline (aside from the one you're going to do with all radios off). Also, what kernels have you tried so far? At this point, I'm going to say it's probably not a kernel issue.

I'm also starting to wonder, also, if you do just have bad battery. You can try getting one from Sprint. They can test another battery, as well. You might not be able to get much of a test, since it's not like they can just test it all day, but it might give you some indication. If we get to that point, it can't hurt to bring it in.

 

[Reddawg]

I have been monitoring this thread religiously mainly because I am in a similar situation. I have three different batteries though and they all act the same so we can remove that variable. This happened before I rooted and it is basically the same now that I've rooted.

I'm running VaelPak 3.0.1 REMASTERED - Based on 3.70.651.1 OTA - [Netarchy 4.3.1-bfs no-HAVS Kernel]. I updated my radios and yesterday I even downgraded PRI to 1.77 but I haven't been off charger long enough to really tell what's going on yet.

However, just this morning I used K-9 to check some email and clean some of them up. I'm in a strong 4G area and in that 8 minutes of use I dropped from 97% to 90%.

So, please keep the tips, methods and suggestions coming. There are those of us watching in the background.....

 

[jpkotor]

However, just this morning I used K-9 to check some email and clean some of them up. I'm in a strong 4G area and in that 8 minutes of use I dropped from 97% to 90%.

welcome to the thread

unless you're using an sbc kernel, a fast drop like that in the first 10% is practically expected. that's because of the way the evo charges it's battery. 90-100% does not accurately reflect the battery life. you can unplug at 100% and it's actually at 90% so you'll see it drop real fast to catch up to the actual value. some people seem to believe an sbc kernel can damage the battery, so i've stopped using them... no need to exacerbate my battery issues.

 

[akazabam]

Were you actually using 4g at the time, too? In addition to what jpkotor said, using 4g in the top 10% is going to make the drain look even worse. Do you keep 4g on all the time? Also, have you tried any other kernels (assuming you're battery is draining quickly all the time).

 

[Reddawg]

welcome to the thread

unless you're using an sbc kernel, a fast drop like that in the first 10% is practically expected. that's because of the way the evo charges it's battery. 90-100% does not accurately reflect the battery life. you can unplug at 100% and it's actually at 90% so you'll see it drop real fast to catch up to the actual value. some people seem to believe an sbc kernel can damage the battery, so i've stopped using them... no need to exacerbate my battery issues.

Thanks for the input. I guess I should have stated that I had just bump charged it because I am very familiar with the 10% drop issue.

So far I haven't had an SBC issue and as I said I have a couple of extra batteries. But, I don't want this thread to become another discussion about SBC or not.

 

[jpkotor]

and now for an update on my battery problems

so, akazabam, what i ended up doing last night is making a nandroid, wiping data, cache, dalvik and flashing Fresh 3.5.0.1(comes with HTC kernel #15)i set up my google account on it and my exchange activesync.

i installed titanium backup but did not restore anything, and i installed lookout. i also used the UOT kitchen to change my battery meter to show % so i didn't have to use battery monitor to see the percent (since we had considered perhaps battery monitor was playing some role as well).

I went to sleep around 1 AM with 53% battery... woke up at 9 AM with 51% battery. so far so good right? well then my phone rang, i missed the call, and then i sat there and watched the screen until the timeout hit and it turned off,without touching the phone. it dropped to 48% in that time. with some very light use (few morning texts) i was down several more percent. now, a couple hours later, i'm down to 32% and have hardly done anything, but most if not all of the drop was from brief moments when the screen was on i believe.

should i have wiped battery stats as well? should i give it a couple charge cycles before i consider this the baseline?

 

[akazabam]

You should give it a few charge cycles. You can't tell a whole lot after switching to a new ROM/kernel if you're not going to charge it up to 100% right after. I would say charge it all the way up, do a bump charge with it off, wipe battery stats if you're paranoid (I don't think it really does what everyone claims), turn it back on, do that a couple times, then get your baseline.

 

[jpkotor]

You should give it a few charge cycles. You can't tell a whole lot after switching to a new ROM/kernel if you're not going to charge it up to 100% right after. I would say charge it all the way up, do a bump charge with it off, wipe battery stats if you're paranoid (I don't think it really does what everyone claims), turn it back on, do that a couple times, then get your baseline.

but how can i survive that long without my compass, metal detector, and heart rate monitor?!

lol jk. ok so i'll give it a couple cycles and see what's up, then, if it looks good in a couple days, begin restoring my apps in clusters to see if my battery life drops.

 

[akazabam]

but how can i survive that long without my compass, metal detector, and heart rate monitor?!

lol jk. ok so i'll give it a couple cycles and see what's up, then, if it looks good in a couple days, begin restoring my apps in clusters to see if my battery life drops.

Lol, I'd like to see if anyone actually uses apps like that more than once every couple of months . Yeah, give it a couple charge cycles, and let me know how it goes.

 

[jpkotor]

alright so here's the update. recap: phone was wiped (data/cache/dalvik). Flashed Fresh 3.5.0.1 with htc kernel #15. I installed lookout and titanium pro (didn't restore any apps). Flashed the UOT battery meter so I can see % without a monitoring app. Got my google and activesync up other than that everything is as comes with fresh.

I'm at 1d 1hr 15m off the charger and have 25% left! Granted several of those hours were me sleeping (only lost about 4-5% overnight), I imagine that's the case with anyone whose battery is still alive after 24 hrs off the charger (except for insomniacs).

My phone use has been somewhat light. I haven't held back on texting and I did google and/or wikipedia a few things on it. I checked my ebay account, been checking my emails on it... so pretty good so far. I still notice that sometimes I'll send a couple texts and lose 2 percent at once, but other times I'll do more and not lose a single %... is the battery meter known to play tricks like this? like how my old car would say the tank is full until i'm about half way down then all the sudden it plummets rapidly?

Anyway... it's still not the life people claim to get (48 hrs or whatever), but I can still perhaps disable perflock and underclock at certain %'s, perhaps use juicedefender... i was holding off on jd until I found out what my battery could be capable of so i can tell if it makes a difference. even then i think i'll hold off on any of those battery tricks until I restore all my apps and see if one of them has been guilty for my battery life. or maybe my phone doesn't like netarchy kernels? i guess we'll find out if my battery life is still decent with my apps back.

have apps that constantly monitor, like system panel or spare parts, ever been accused of negatively affecting battery life? I don't think I'll be bringing back the battery monitor widget but i'd like to have system panel and spareparts to help me troubleshoot problems should they arise.

edit: rather than "ever been accused", as I'm sure they have, but have they ever been shown/proven to affect battery.

 

[akazabam]

1) That's decent battery life. I mean, if you actually use the phone, expect the battery to drop. more than 24 hours on a charge is good as long as you're using it how you would normally.

2) 4-5% over night sounds about normal for that kernel along with not turning any any radios or syncing during the night. Now that you have a baseline, I'm sure you can get that number even lower with a few tricks.

3) The battery will drop a certain amount while in use based on many different factors. Just because it dropped 2% at once while you were texting once, then not at all another time doesn't mean much. If you use the phone right after charging the phone all the way up, expect it to drop quicker. If you're already down to < 50%, expect it to drop less. Not only are these phones somewhat designed to preserve battery life (a custom kernel and a different governor will help even more), but the way the battery percentage is calculated can throw it off a bit. It's never going to be 100% accurate. For example, I rebooted my phone this morning. Before the reboot, it was at 49%. After the reboot it was at 30%. I've had it do the opposite, and jump up instead. I have no doubt that this is a result of a caclulation, and doesn't reflect a massive drop or a miraculous phantom charge (tm). Basically, you have to look at battery drain as an average, and not how much or little it dropped in a 1 or 2 minute period.

4) Yeah, I can get 48 hours pretty easily, but it involves letting the phone sit unused for most of a charge. Kind of defeats the purpose. I usually get ~36 hours or so, but sometimes less. Because of my setup, the battery drains around 1% or less during the night, so that helps. 48 hours is a pipe dream, though, if you actually want to use your phone.

5) Well, for starters, spare parts more or less just collects status. It doesn't actually actively monitor. Some apps, though, will drain the battery. Here's the deal, sometimes, battery savings measures are actually worse for the battery. I'll give you some good and bad examples. I use tasker to turn all radios (except the actual phone) and auto sync off at night. That saves a lot of battery. The condition under which it does this is based off of time of day. The processing power it takes to determine whether it needs to take action or not is minimal. But, If I were to make a profile to turn off all radios at night only if the phone is horizontal (i.e. I'm not using the phone), the processing power it takes to determine phone orientation will use more battery power than you'd save by turning off the radios. That's kind of an extreme example, but when something is constantly checking whether or not it needs to do something, it can drain the battery. A practical example is setcpu. Having a lot of profiles (which causes constant polling) can be bad for battery life, even if those profiles underclock. It's better to have just a few profiles (screen off, temperature, etc.). That being said, spare parts can tell you if a monitoring app is using more than it's fair share of battery life, especially when the phone should be sleeping.

 

[jpkotor]

Battery life is pretty dismal again :/ I haven't restored most of my apps yet, so I am not sure what it can be. I was getting pretty decent life right after the wipe and restoring just titanium backup and lookout. The other day I restored a batch of apps like Googletranslate, Google voice, my barcode scanner, set CPU and system panel. I didn't set any profiles or change any settings but immediately noticed crappy drain. So I froze system panel and setcpu but it hasn't really improved, yesterday I got about 12 hrs light use before I was getting low battery warnings and plugged in. Could setcpu have put some settings in place to cause this? Like the advanced settings? Or since I froze it should I assume its innocent and start accusing other apps like Google voice, which I don't presume really does much in the background . Nothing in spare parts seems to point the finger at anything.

Also I'm typing this on my evo and its reallyreallly laggy, like unbearable I usually don't do any web-typing on my evo because of the battery life issue but does it always lag or is there yet another problem with my evo. I've never made a forum post on my evo before

 

[akazabam]

Well, I can see how setcpu might be an issue, even with no profiles set, but not if you froze it. Google voice has been known to cause problems at times, but that would have been in spare parts stats. You're saying the phone is laggy; have you tried using OS monitor and sorting the process list by load? Maybe something is running hot.

 

[jpkotor]

I just downloaded and checked OS monitor, between the last post and this one i did a full reboot, and now posting this reply isn't laggy, before it was just typing in the browser that was laggy, not the rest of the phones operations.

Maybe something was running hot but since I reset right after my last post it won't show up anymore. Just typing this post cost me 6% btw, and I know show term losses like that aren't a super accurate representation but its still gotta mean something , that kinda drain can't be normal! Can it?

 

[akazabam]

Well it depends. Go through a couple charge cycles after making that many changes. Let's see how your average battery life is rather than analyzing such short periods of time.

 

[jpkotor]

Well it depends. Go through a couple charge cycles after making that many changes. Let's see how your average battery life is rather than analyzing such short periods of time.

Well that's what I meant in my last last post, it's been several days and many charge cycles since I had wiped my phone and started fresh. The first cycle or two didn't go so well but then my battery life dramatically improved. I was getting off work after off the charger from 9 am to 6 pm with 70% or so left, and then more heavy use of the phone until ~11 left me with still around half. It was blissful to know that I could make it from leaving in the morning to going to bed at night without a charger.

So I resisted restoring all my apps but when I finally decided to bring some back here's what I brought back (now I'm on my comp I can actually type!):
Wired & Wireless Tether (haven't used them yet)
ES File explorer
Barcode Scanner
Google Sky Map
Google Voice
Google Translate
Lookout (brought back as soon as I reflashed rom)
SetCPU
Spare Parts
Titanium Backup
SwitchPro (but I haven't actually put a widget on my screens yet)
OS Monitor

I wanted to start bringing my phone back to where it was and see what happens. Well now I get back from work with like 30% left and by 8 oclock I have to plug in (after 11-12 hrs off the plug). The reason I bring up short term drain is it's so drastic it's hard to ignore. For example, I left work early today so I got in my car and plugged in, handled some errands, unplugged. When I unplugged I was at 63%. Now, 1 hr later I'm at 35%. Short term, but so ridiculous.

With SetCPU and system panel frozen, the next likely culprit would be google voice, but it doesn't even make the list on any of the Spare Parts battery usage stats. Since I typed that I'm at 35% (so like 1 full sentence ago), it has dropped to 30%. Only activity was checking a text and noticing the battery said 30 instead of 35.

I'm back to miserable battery anxiety.

 

[akazabam]

Okay, so the only things you changed between then and now was installing a few apps. Yeah, no need to go through more charge cycles, then. Under spare parts, what do you see now for network usage? Also, how does your time without signal (the %) look? I know you checked before, and it was fine, but it can't hurt to verify again.

 

[jpkotor]

Okay, so the only things you changed between then and now was installing a few apps. Yeah, no need to go through more charge cycles, then. Under spare parts, what do you see now for network usage? Also, how does your time without signal (the %) look? I know you checked before, and it was fine, but it can't hurt to verify again.

I've been checking it, it is usually 0%. About two days ago I checked it randomly and it was at 37%, although I had signal the whole time. It eventually went down though and I haven't noticed it being unusually high since. As for today, I just plugged in a few min ago so I'll have to just unplug and check later.

Network usage since boot (since I just unplugged but I rebooted between the first two posts of today)
Dialer
0
Android System
Spare Parts

Whenever I try to click on the 0 I get a force close.

 

[akazabam]

I've been checking it, it is usually 0%. About two days ago I checked it randomly and it was at 37%, although I had signal the whole time. It eventually went down though and I haven't noticed it being unusually high since. As for today, I just plugged in a few min ago so I'll have to just unplug and check later.

Network usage since boot (since I just unplugged but I rebooted between the first two posts of today)
Dialer
0
Android System
Spare Parts

Whenever I try to click on the 0 I get a force close.

Mine always does that too when I select 0. I think it's a bug with spare parts. Anyway, is dialer really that high on the list? If you select it, how much data has it actually used?

 

[jpkotor]

Total bytes 323522. This is just since last boot which was around 4 pm, and the only thing i've really done since then was receive a couple phone calls.

Total in all time puts Internet on top, then dialer, then 0, then maps, then Android system.

Edit: 4 pm pacific, so 1 hr ago

 

[akazabam]

Okay, that's nothing to worry about. Maybe just to isolate the problem, make a nandroid backup, then just wipe data, and use the phone for a bit. That will be exactly what you have now, but without any apps. Let's see if it gets any better or worse.

 

[jpkotor]

Okay, that's nothing to worry about. Maybe just to isolate the problem, make a nandroid backup, then just wipe data, and use the phone for a bit. That will be exactly what you have now, but without any apps. Let's see if it gets any better or worse.

So when I wipe the data will I need to flash Fresh again? And this is what I did before, which is how I got to the point in the first place :/ but I guess I'll just have to do it again but bring back apps slower rather than in such large batches?