[International / GSM] Undervolting question. (GSM GNex)

[DakotaM]

(I know that there is an Undervolting thread but that's for the Verizon GNex and not for the GSM)

I was wondering how low I could undervolt my Gnex on the AOKP JB build 3 ROM with tune faux kernel? (Please correct me if I'm wrong). My battery dies out waaaaay too quickly and it's strange because I have my phone running on Ondemand with the location services off and the brightness set dim.

Here's what I'm working with as far as settings go:

1200 MHz
1450 mV

1720 MHz
1440 mV

1640 MHz
1430 mV

1560 MHz
1420 mV

1480 MHz
1410 mV

1420 MHz
1350 mV

1350 MHz
1251 mV

1200 MHz
1232 mV

1060 MHz
1213 mV

920 MHz
1185 mV

810 MHz
1134 mV

700 MHz
1083 mV

525 MHz
1003 mV

350 MHz
923 mV


Any help/knowledge is much obliged!

 

[MSUgEEk]

It's debatable whether or not undervolting really helps as far as saving battery.

Your biggest power draw is the screen by far. I would go into the screen brightness levels and use the custom level adjustments and adjust each lighting level down as low as you are comfortable with. Once your eyes adjust to it, you'll likely find that you can adjust it even lower.

Personally, I would not mess with undervolting. As an electrical engineer, I can tell you that electronics can be damaged just as much by providing less voltage than needed as they can by providing too much voltage. It won't happen instantly, but over time, undervolting can cause issues.

 

[DakotaM]

I did adjust the screen to the dimmest level posible but I guess you're right about that if undervolting is dangerous. Besides screen and undervolting, is there any other way to increase battery life on my device?

 

[MSUgEEk]

I did adjust the screen to the dimmest level posible but I guess you're right about that if undervolting is dangerous. Besides screen and undervolting, is there any other way to increase battery life on my device?

Undervolting is ok if you really know what you're doing, but that requires knowing the manufacturer specs on the processor and knowing the inner workings. Otherwise you're shooting in the dark and risking damage all in the name of maybe an extra 10 minutes of battery life. Not worth it even in the least if you ask me.

For better battery life, do what you've already done, adjust the screen brightness. I'm not sure if you're talking about adjusting the brightness slider or adjusting the levels in the ROM settings, but if you haven't went in and adjusted your auto brightness level triggers in the ROM settings, that can help greatly without the hassle of having to manually adjust brightness all the time.

The next thing is stay connected to wifi as much as possible. Anything outside of that just hinders the use of a smartphone...you could always disable syncing and such, but that's why you have a smartphone, so I don't see those as options.

Otherwise, check your battery usage at the end of the day and see what's eating it the most and find ways to control/fix that.

 

[DakotaM]

Unfortunately, the ROM I'm running which is AOKP doesn't have those settings :/ but I'll definitely look at my battery stats at the end of the day. What about the different modes like conservative, performance, on demand, and interactive? Those are within the performance settings.

 

[MSUgEEk]

Unfortunately, the ROM I'm running which is AOKP doesn't have those settings :/ but I'll definitely look at my battery stats at the end of the day. What about the different modes like conservative, performance, on demand, and interactive? Those are within the performance settings.

If you're running AOKP then you're in luck, it does have those settings I run it as well.

Go into Settings -> Display -> Automatic Backlighting

Then enable the top checkbox to enable a moving average filter.
Change the Window Length to 10 seconds.
Change the Reset Threshold to 700 lux
Change the Sample Interval to 2 seconds (or 5 seconds)

Under Light Levels
Check Use Custom
Set Screen Dim Level to 10
Check Allow Light Decrease
Set Decrease Hysteresis to 50%

Then go into Edit Other Levels...
Under the screen column, go down through every value and decrease it a little and hit Save & apply. You should see your screen dim a little. What this does is change the brightness value for each level of lighting your sensor detects. You can then leave it in auto mode and you should see an over all dimmer screen to whatever your comfort level which will save you some battery. The first level I use is 10 and I slowly increase from there.

 

[DakotaM]

Thanks! I did all of your steps but about the edit other levels...please guide me as well? lol Because I honestly have not the slightest clue of what I'm gonna do there without guidance.

 

[MSUgEEk]

Thanks! I did all of your steps but about the edit other levels...please guide me as well? lol Because I honestly have not the slightest clue of what I'm gonna do there without guidance.

I'll take screenshots of my setup and post it, then you just make yours look like mine, how's that?

EDIT: Taking longer than I thought. My imgur account is messing up.

 

[MSUgEEk]

Ok, the way you change this is to click on the button of the number you want to change and type in the new value. Only change things under the screen column. If your numbers don't match exactly under the lower and upper columns don't worry about it. As long as you can get all of the screen values in you'll be fine. If you can't, let me know and I'll help you work through it.

 

[DakotaM]

Holy crap! Thanks for the screen shots man! I'll do this very soon and then tomorrow I'll post back here to show my battery life

 

[MSUgEEk]

Holy crap! Thanks for the screen shots man! I'll do this very soon and then tomorrow I'll post back here to show my battery life

No problem. They key is keeping the screen as dim as possible for indoor lighting situations because that's where you use it the most (at lest most people do). Your battery savings are all below that 1000 level, after that you ramp up to full brightness so you can see it outdoors.