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Root Help with Battery life

J

jasondhsd

Member
Hi posted this in the help section but no one helped so hoping u guys can help. Had my phone rooted to .602 since about the time it came out but the past week my battery life has turned to complete crap. I use to get at least 5hrs before hitting 30%, fairly heavy usage. Now I'm down to under 2hrs and just moments ago I just put the phone back on the charger at 20% after 1hr 5min of usage after watching a revision3 how which ive done hundreds of times on a full charge after I finish watching a show it would be down to MAYBE 80% and then last me another 5hrs. I haven't changed any settings. I do keep gps and location services turned on, along with BT. At first I though it might be the new Facebook app so I uninstalled it but problem persists. BTW, I have two batteries one is 3 months newer then the original and I swap them out when one gets to about 15%. Both are draining at a faster rate. I've ordered a new battery to see if that helps any but I find it unlikely that both my batteries would suddenly "go bad" like that. I've reset battery stats, let the battery drain out and recharge. Still poor. It almost seems like something is using my 3g connection often is there any way to monitor real time 3g usage to see which apps are using the connection?
 
Quit swapping batteries until you get this figured out, it might be confusing your battery stats.

Charge your phone to 100%. If you're rooted, delete your battery stats with battery calibrator before unplugging it. Then unplug it and run it completely dead, then leave it in the charger until it hits 100%.

Then see what your battery life is like on that battery.

You can see what's using your battery by viewing your battery usage in settings.
 
I'd like to try this, but I am finding apps named "Battery Calibrator" by three different developers listed on the market. Which one are you folks recommending?
 
As Colchiro hinted at , every time i flash a new RoM i make it a habit of clearing the battery stats. on the first full charge so i can get a good feel for battery life.
 
If you clear your stats, you have to run it until it dies before charging, then charge it continuous until 100%. I do it about 4x a year, but I have the extended battery.
 
Thanks. I've got the extended battery too. When I saw how quickly the standard battery was depleting I ordered it soon after my soon gave me this DX in October.

So after you clear the stats and start the discharge cycle ( doing that now) do you make any effort to increase the load and discharge more quickly, or just continue on with typical daily usage?
 
Thanks. So the underlying principle here seems to be that I am 'retraining' the mechanism which reports the percentage of battery charge so that it more accurately reflects the true state of charge. The DX told me it was at 15% and to plug it in (which I did not do) about 45 minutes ago while playing MP3s. It's still going strong at 10% playing tunes. I think one reason is because I didn't know about battery calibration when I swapped in the new extended battery. It must still 'think' it is using the original battery. This is interesting to learn. :)
 
Well stop spending money on a guess. I've worked with cars in the past and it drives me nuts when someone says their gas mileage is down and they're so mad because they've spent all this money on new plugs, air filter, etc....if both batteries are doing the exact same thing its prolly not the battery itself.

Ive been on the newest apex for about a month now and the battery life isnt as good as I expected so im actually interested in what other people have to say in this thread. I did calibrate and have the free version of juice defender but still seems like the battery life is the same compared to when i was stock .605, my x ran terrible on stock .605.
 
Zoandroid said:
Thanks. So the underlying principle here seems to be that I am 'retraining' the mechanism which reports the percentage of battery charge so that it more accurately reflects the true state of charge. The DX told me it was at 15% and to plug it in (which I did not do) about 45 minutes ago while playing MP3s. It's still going strong at 10% playing tunes. I think one reason is because I didn't know about battery calibration when I swapped in the new extended battery. It must still 'think' it is using the original battery. This is interesting to learn. :)
Click to expand...

it doesnt read the extended battery like it should, it instead reads it as a normal battery, i do not know why this is, but its just how it is, you can be on 15-10% for multiple hours and it not die.

but yes simply wiping the stats does help out
 
DavefromCA said:
Well stop spending money on a guess. I've worked with cars in the past and it drives me nuts when someone says their gas mileage is down and they're so mad because they've spent all this money on new plugs, air filter, etc....if both batteries are doing the exact same thing its prolly not the battery itself.

Ive been on the newest apex for about a month now and the battery life isnt as good as I expected so im actually interested in what other people have to say in this thread. I did calibrate and have the free version of juice defender but still seems like the battery life is the same compared to when i was stock .605, my x ran terrible on stock .605.
Click to expand...

what are you talking about?
 
VoidedSaint said:
it doesnt read the extended battery like it should, it instead reads it as a normal battery, i do not know why this is, but its just how it is, you can be on 15-10% for multiple hours and it not die.

but yes simply wiping the stats does help out
Click to expand...

I have had some experience with notebook batteries. I was surprised to learn that they have a rather involved control circuit in the case of the battery when I disassembled my first one to replace the cells. I had just thought the notebook itself 'read' the battery voltage and current transfer and figured things out. I don't know if these much smaller batteries for cell phones work the same way, and I wouldn't expect to find a PCB inside one like notebook battery packs, but it wouldn't really surprise me if it works the same way.

So, as you said, it's been 2 hours to drop from 15% to 5%. But I am going to presume once the new battery stats file takes hold, 15% will be 'redefined', and I probably won't be able to see 2 hours more use after that.

:)

Hey, where do Droid X batteries "go" when they die? What I mean is, I currently have the DX sitting in front of my on my desk, with the screen off. The red LED is flashing to tell me that the battery is low. Will it wake up and give me one final warning on the screen or with a notification tone with it's dying breath that it is shutting down, or will it just silently power off? I'm trying to decide if I need to leave the display on, so I will know when to start charging it back up (which I plan to do with it powered off, so it charges fastest...I'd like to get it back in service ASAP). :)
 
VoidedSaint said:
it will beep with 5% left, or in your case it will probably be 30-40% lol
Click to expand...

Hmm. You mean more than once? It did beep once when it "got to" 5%, but that was almost an hour ago! Still running at 5%. :)

It IS going to shut down eventually, right? Maybe we have discovered perpetual energy!! :D
 
There's a setting to keep the screen on (settings... display I think) and some toggle widgets have it too.
 
Thanks. I am aware of that. The first thing I do with any electronic device is increase the 'screen timeout' to the maximum setting just shy of that, which for Android appears to be 30 minutes. So I have it set that way. I don't like the screen shutting off shortly after I set the phone down for some reason. I am in the habit of turning it on and off as needed.

But for this case, I'll set to stay on. It's really cool that I am getting so much life out of '5%' :) but I have been using my older Ally for the day's important tasks because I have no idea when the DX will shut off under this procedure. I'd like to have the DX back and fully operational.

BTW, Voided Saint, it has reliably sounded every single alarm since I installed CM7 for the GB kernel. It is so nice to have the updated OS AND have my alarms work! Many thanks to all of you who helped me achieve that!

It's kind of funny, and reminds me of those comical 'get it faster with 4G' TV commercials. The Droid X sounds each alarm FIRST. About 15 seconds later the Ally will sound the same alarm. It's clock must be slightly behind the DX. Unless the DX actually has a 'faster' 3G radio? Both being on Verizon I would think the clocks would both be synced to the same source. When I snooze one of the alarms on one phone, I make sure to snooze it the same amount on the other phone too, since they use the same Google calendar. Wouldn't want to cause a tear in the fabric of space-time. :D


Edit:

Hmm. In the Settings/DisplayScreen Timeout here in CM7/GB that "never turn off" setting that would have followed 30 Minutes is not there.
 
I was hoping to leave the phone powered off while charging, but apparently it doesn't like the idea. It keeps powering back up. Is there any way to keep it powered off while on the charger?
 
In lieu of charging 'powered off' which it won't do, I'll boot into recovery and charge it there. I am trying to charge it without the need to handle the several alarms the are coming up this time of day, since I can't carry it around and dismiss them while it is still charging.

The charge LED doesn't come on this way. Will actually charge while in CWM Recovery?
 
When I checked it after leaving it 'charging' in Recovery for half an hour, it had not increased in charge at all. So I don't think so either. I booted back up and kept it on the charger for about 3 hours, and it is now fully charged.

Thanks again for the help. :)
 
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