• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Root [MetroPCS/CDMA] Will This Fix My Battery Drain Problem?

E

El Droiderino

Lurker
Hi,

Noob here looking to root my GS3 SCH-R530M 4.3 handset, mainly because it has horrible idle battery drain and charging. Tried to solve the issue with Battery Doctor/Wakelock Detector/freezing apps and more. Sometimes it would run well for a day but mostly horrible. Cell Standby and Device Idle both being consistent energy hogs, along with autostart apps that I can't keep stopped without root authority.


So I'm pretty green to the methods and terminology, so please correct my mistakes. I'm wondering if the Root Recovery Image method with the stock ROM that Shabbypenguin and others recommend here would solve my issues? Or will I likely need a Kernel with some performance tweaks?


If a rooted stock ROM and Kernel doesn't solve my battery issues. What would you recommend? Manual adjustments using Battery Doctor's (or other app) autostart management, and getting rid of bloatware. Read a 2012 article on battery drain issues for international S3 handsets attributing it to an error in framework-res.apk with a power drain value for Cell Standby of 34mA instead of 3.4mA in power_profile.xml. Don't know if my power problems are same as the article refers to. Article talks of a link that I can't find giving instructions to fix. Would this be something you download a file browser to S3 and simply add a decimal point in the right file? Or should I be looking for custom ROMs and Kernels with this already sorted out?


Thank you, I'll undoubtedly have more questions :l
 
When I had my S3, I used the SlimKat rom. I saw noticeable increases in my battery life. I did switch kernels from time to time and used an accompanying app to tweak to my liking. My main app was Trickster Mod or one of the kernel apps such as Faux. If you want a close to stock experience, your best bet would be #2 and asking for help in that thread. Before flashing anything, please read up as much as you can as I never had the knox bootloader on my S3 and I am not sure about what issues that could cause you.
 
Hey, thanks for the reply, confed. I've been busy lately but I'm going to check out your suggestions and hopefully it works for me. Thank you.
 
Okay, so I've successfully rooted my SCH-R530M, and I've definitely seen great improvement to my battery life. I used odin to flash CWM then loaded SuperSU.zip to handset and installed in recovery.

Going to check out the Trickser Mod app soon. Looking for custom ROM, might try Carbon.
 
Carbon is good but I haven't used it. A lot of people in here loved it a while ago. Check out SlimKat when you get a chance. I had good battery life and it was very stable. They do have a custom DPI set that you either love or hate. Stable builds are located @ Downloads - d2lte
Weekly are located @ Downloads - d2lte

Check out their main site @ slimroms.net for more info and good luck.
 
Sometime the problem is a missread of the battery binary file... Best way to do it since your rooted already.. Charge all the way to 100% then download battery calibration app from playstore..Grant superuser permission... Calibrate battery stats.. Unplug device and use it normally till completely empty... And that will fix the problem...it is always recommended to calibrate battery stat once in a whioe or everytime you flash a new custom rom. Hope it hepls ..thumbs up
 
So, flashed my first custom rom, went with Carbon 4.4.4 and it's pretty cool. Might have to try a different launcher though since I like my app drawer organized better. Going to flash some more roms and nandroid back them up so I can quickly switch between them and find the best one for me. Going to probably check out Slimkat next, thanks for the suggestion.

Thanks for the battery calibration app suggestion too, I will download soon but I don't think that it is currently effecting me. But good to know I should do after flashing roms.

Right now my handset runs pretty well, but I've only been monitoring it's standby drain. But, the standby drain is pretty much identical to what is was on 4.3 after root (good) using battery doctor's autostart management + auto kill app (not sure how much BD helps), airplane mode with Wifi on always, and froze most unnecessary apps with Titanium Backup. With Carbon I'm running the same BD + airplane with Wifi setup, but haven't froze anything.

So with both setups I'm getting 24 hours standby for about 8% battery, not sure how that stacks up but I'm happy with it. With airplane mode off battery will have some pretty aggressive drops in standby, like 5% in an hour. I don't really need the cell signal since handset is not in service, but I might decide to put back in service so I'm going to try flashing different modems from Shabby's repository. I asked on that thread but no one answered yet, I'm pretty sure I know the answer but I read conflicting info online maybe one of you know. Will Shabby's SCH-R530M modems also change WiFi performance? My Wifi and Cell signal on my SCH-R530M are not great, sitting right next to my SGH-T999N it consistently has at least one bar less for Wifi and both handsets don't have very good cell signal. I'd like to improve both Wifi and cell, but mostly WiFi. I'll probably just use airplane mode unless I reactivate service, and use Rom Toolkit to make airplane icon transparent.


How is everyone else's battery drain? With standby, and with like 30mins of web browsing or YT video?

And flashing modem effects Wifi too, right?


Thanks guys
 
I don't believe that the modem affects WiFi signal. The 2 phones most likely have different hardware that governs WiFi. I noticed a substantial increase in WiFi coverage when I upgraded to my OnePlus One from my S3. Roms could start seeing their lollipop versions surfacing soon which could help you.
 
confed said:
I don't believe that the modem affects WiFi signal. The 2 phones most likely have different hardware that governs WiFi. I noticed a substantial increase in WiFi coverage when I upgraded to my OnePlus One from my S3. Roms could start seeing their lollipop versions surfacing soon which could help you.
Click to expand...

I haven't had a chance to compare the modems, but I asked Shabbypenguin and he said they do control all radios. I'll post back after testing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom