Battery ran down in standby - Nexus One General

I left my nexus one, which I just got on Friday, next to the TV and it was fully charged. When I came back to it about 4 hours later it had turned its self off and wouldn't turn on until I connected the charger. The battery was at 0%, anyone seen anything similar?
I have now left the phone off, connected to an AC charger and will turn it back on only when it's fully charged!

Sounds like you got yourself a defective unit.

Charger it fully then let it completely die. After it dies charge it again fully see if that helps.

Charging via the USB cable does not seem to be very efficient/reliable. Using the AC charger is quite fast, and much more reliable.
Also check the apps that are running in the background, and turn off the ones you don't need. I discovered that the animated wallpaper was quite a drain... since I switched to a static wallpaper image, battery life has improved significantly.

It has the star field wall paper, but I didn't think that would run when the phone is locked and the screen was blanked. I'll leave it to fully charge, using an old nokia charger from a n85.
So the recommendation is to run it tomorrow until it dies then charge in the off state and only turn on when it's fully charged?
I have had a G1 for the last year.

n0ahg said:
It has the star field wall paper, but I didn't think that would run when the phone is locked and the screen was blanked. I'll leave it to fully charge, using an old nokia charger from a n85.
So the recommendation is to run it tomorrow until it dies then charge in the off state and only turn on when it's fully charged?
I have had a G1 for the last year.
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Yes, and use the charger that came with the N1.

n0ahg said:
I left my nexus one, which I just got on Friday, next to the TV and it was fully charged. When I came back to it about 4 hours later it had turned its self off and wouldn't turn on until I connected the charger. The battery was at 0%, anyone seen anything similar?
I have now left the phone off, connected to an AC charger and will turn it back on only when it's fully charged!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same problem. I got the phone approx. 1 week ago. before i go to work, I would have a fully charged phone. during lunch break break, ( about 4 hrs later from fully charged) its below half already! then 2 hrs later, its at to the point where it says connect your charger. Finally, off work, Phone is turned off and dead at 0% battery life. When im working, i dont even use the phone to browse or anything. just check the time on it and put it back on standby. I dont know whats wrong. Ive also rooted the phone btw with MoDaCo's rom. Any suggestions?

It was fulling charged again about 3 hours ago, not I've left it without wi-fi and with a static wallpaper and the battery is still full. I wonder if the wi-fi or the live wallpapers keep running even when the screen is off. I have checked and wi-fi is set to sleep when screen is off :-/

While modern batteries don't have the "memory" problems that cause them to lose life, they can suffer from miscalibration which will cause them to inaccurately report their remaining charge. If they report a very low charge to the phone (when this may not necessarily be true) the phone will probably turn itself off.
To recalibrate your battery, force it to drain completely. Even after the phone turns itself off, turn it on a few times more. I can't guarantee this is good for your phone, but it should get the last of the juice out. Then, when you let it charge, let it charge LONG after it reports being full, at least a few hours, to make sure it's completely full.

Sounds like something isn't quite right with your phone tbh. I have the star field wallpaper, wifi on and it's checking e-mails for 2 accounts every 15 mins.
I've also had some phone calls, been surfing the web, market and generally played around with it since I just got it on friday.
I checked the battery info on the phone now and it's been 15 hours since I charged it and it's now on 46% still. In my (limited) experience the battery seems to hold up pretty good on this phone.

That's the weird thing, it was fine Friday night and Saturday night and that was including quite a bit of playing with around

I received my phone last week. the battery was fine the first four days. after that the same problem stated above happened to me. the battery dies every 4 or 5 hours even in standby with no GPRS, WIFI or BT.
I did a complete wipe-out and the problem was gone.
I think that there were something that is draining the battery and gone with the wipeout.
by the way, i was using MCR and still using it.
thanks.

It has now been sitting for another 7 hours without wi-fi or starfield and the battery is still showing full. I'll now enable wi-fi and see how that goes. Then I'll try statfield later on. I'm wondering if the starfield keeps running even if the screen is blanked.
Actually it's showing 92% in the About page whereas the icon look full :-/

First day with nexus at work. Unplugged it from the main charge at 6:30 am at till 1:00 pm its was turned off. Made 3 short calls, no wifi, bluetooth, or gps and screen set to auto dim.
Only 6 1/2 hours is not long enough. I wish there was like a juice pack for nexus like the iphone. I could buy another battery but cannot be bothered carrying too many bits with me and opening it and changing.
Aslo charging through usb is very very slow.

my phone did this yesterday too, first time ever. I dunno why it drained so fast, something must have kept the screen on in my pocket or something.

Here's what I found.
I got my phone friday, took it off the charger and went to bed. When I woke it up was dead. What I do know is that since I'm with Roger's in Canada I don't get the 3G. I think it was searching for a 3G signal all night and that's what killed it. Try limiting it to 2G and see how the battery stands. I went a full two days without a charge, playing with it every chance I got and wifi turned on.

I'll try the 3g thing as the phone reception is poor in the room I left it. It is at 79% with the star fields wallpaper and wi-fi enabled (sleeps when screen off)

n0ahg said:
It has the star field wall paper, but I didn't think that would run when the phone is locked and the screen was blanked. I'll leave it to fully charge, using an old nokia charger from a n85.
So the recommendation is to run it tomorrow until it dies then charge in the off state and only turn on when it's fully charged?
I have had a G1 for the last year.
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Click to collapse
The star field wallpaper KILLS my battery even when the phone is idle with the screen off, just FYI... I switched to a default regular wallpaper and it has been fine since.

bradyonly said:
Here's what I found.
I got my phone friday, took it off the charger and went to bed. When I woke it up was dead. What I do know is that since I'm with Roger's in Canada I don't get the 3G. I think it was searching for a 3G signal all night and that's what killed it. Try limiting it to 2G and see how the battery stands. I went a full two days without a charge, playing with it every chance I got and wifi turned on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks i will try 2g setting tomorrow.

There gotta be something wrong with your phones or some software that is draining it.
Like I said on the previous page I use:
WiFi on
Star Field live wallpaper, with the background image nontheless
Some GPS use
Several phone calls
Some texting
Browsing the web
Screen brightness at maximum
2 email accounts updating every 15 mins
My battery still lives through the day with ease and I'm usually at 40% when I go to bed at around 1 am. I would call HTC or do a thorough check at what software is running.
edit:
Oh and I have 3G on with low reception (1 bar) where I live.

Related

Another critical bug on the universal :-(

I just found another painful bug....this one is related to charging (battery). I normally put my qtek on charge all through the night when I go to bed. For the last 4-5 days I have been unplugging the device when it showed 100% charge, put it on standby (no wifi,btooth,gsm etc.) and made sure there were no applications running. I usually leave it in the standby state for 2 hours while I finish my morning exercise.
whenever I return, I see a power loss of 20%!! I was shocked to see how I could loose 20% in 2 hours ith my device on standby mode. this time, I even made sure I pressed the power button before I closed the lid, and still...no luck :-( I still lost 19%
I guess the problem is, when the charger is connected and the battery gets completely charged, it stops charging further. I guess it reaches a fully charged state within 2 hours, and the battery starts to drain all through the night...and wm5/htc don't start charging once again when the levels go down....i'll have to do a cuple more tests until I can totally confirm that this is the bug...until then, are anyone of you guys experiencing the same problems?
Another thing I forgot to mention, once again I charge my battery from 80% to 100%, and it lasts through the entire day(12 hrs) and drops to only 40% with highhh usage (bluetooth ON throughout, gsm on with 3hrs talktime, and some light gprs usage). so it really is not a problem of my battery as I see it!
Cheers,
San
Hmmm. I hate to say, but I don't see that problem. But I do have the unlocked JasJar Universal from HTC, not the qtek. If this happens with other qtecs, maybe they load a custom software that is acting up. In fact, I could leave the device on for two straight hours off a 100% charge and I don't think I'd lose 20% unless the phone was on too.
DaleReeck said:
Hmmm. I hate to say, but I don't see that problem. But I do have the unlocked JasJar Universal from HTC, not the qtek. If this happens with other qtecs, maybe they load a custom software that is acting up. In fact, I could leave the device on for two straight hours off a 100% charge and I don't think I'd lose 20% unless the phone was on too.
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Click to collapse
have you tried charging your device for well over two hours before unplugging? (around 8-9 hours of charging for instance?)
I don't really think it has anything to do with the qtek rom/device. the qtek rom has the least ammt of customisations on it...
I still suspect that the charging process halts and it starts to drain the battery....but the os doesn't reinitiate the charging process once again....hmm
I'll have to wait till tomm before I can do another round of checking....tomm, I want to charge it....and before I unplug, I'd remove the battery and put it back and see what it indicates...I suspect that the power would have already dropped to ~80% by then...that's the only explanation I can think of at the moment....
San
Hi Dreamtheater!!!
I exactly follow you as far as charging is concerned and I hv a Jasjar....just to inform you...I started charging yesterday at 11.30 PM and just got up to see the charge..it is 100%...no power loss...
hdubli said:
Hi Dreamtheater!!!
I exactly follow you as far as charging is concerned and I hv a Jasjar....just to inform you...I started charging yesterday at 11.30 PM and just got up to see the charge..it is 100%...no power loss...
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Click to collapse
it shows 100% for me too...but in just 2 hrs, it drops to 80% which is weird! from then on, it drains normally...
I still need some time to nail the exact cause for the problem...hmm!
S
Hey dreamtheater, I charge my Exec overnite everynite just like you. Usually at least 7 to 8 hrs everynite, but I have yet to experience what you mentioned here. My Exec always start fresh from 100% and by the time I get home at nite, it will drop to about 70% so no, I'm not getting the batt drain issue like you do..
I did not experience any such behaviour with my Qtek. It charged fine over night and had 100% battery when unpluged.
Are you sure your's does not wake up for some reason after you suspend it?
Dreamtheatre, I charged my XDA Exec overnight (7 hrs) and after 2 hrs with GSM/UMTS radio on the unit lost 5% battery charge.
@DT,
You need to set the device to switch off after a specified time interval. This can be done by going to start>settings>battery>advanced and check the device timeout box. I usually set it to 1 minute.
Last night i was browsing on my JJ and fell asleep while doing so, IE and notes and inbox applications were still open. When i started, the battery level was 93%, i browsed for about 10 minutes over Wifi before i fell asleep. The device shut itself off and when i woke up the battery level was 82% which is prportionate to my 10 min WiFi use and probably 1 minute standby time before it shut itself off.
Try it out, i'm sure you will stop seeing the massive battery drain
Cheers.
Another thing. Contraty to what people think, keeping the universal's battery topped off improves battery life. Prevent it from dropping all the way to say 30% or so. You will notice the difference in battery life in just about a week or so
Another source of battery drainage i've found is when i'm charging my Exec from the USB connection on my PC - If I leave my Exec connected and put my PC into standby, it will literally suck the life out of the battery over the course of a few hours!
I think some of you have got me wrong...let me restate the problem...
I charge all night
Wake up with 100% charge
Pull off the charger
Leave it on standby for ~2 hrs (no apps running, gsm, wifi, all off)
Come back, and find a ~20% drop
Back to my findings now.......
Another morning, no luck :-(
It had 100% charge...I pulled off the battery, put it back in and restarted....still showed 100%, so I guess it really was fully charged after all. This time I turned off receive incoming beams as well....left it for a couple hours, and was disappointed to see 82% when I got back :-(
However, through the day I get excellent battery life....all day's use ends up consuming roughly 30-40% charge which is excellent compared to my prev xda2 which would comparitively loose all of it by eod. I guess if I park my device in flight mode it tends to start draining quickly....now that's my only available reason or cause that I can think of....
tomm I guess I won't put the device on flight mode and leave it just On instead. This is weird because its just me having this problem :-(
San
PS: I'm using the regular ac charger itself for charging...hmm
DT, I disabled PowerSave and switched off the GSM/UMTS radio on my Exec. After about 8 hours I had lost about 30% charge. So your 20% does seem high. It could just be the battery as loss of charge is not linear. Why not let it drop to say 60% and then do your test again. By the way there spare batteries seem to be available now for the Universal.

Do you leave your advantage ON, or PLUGGED IN at night?

Just curious what people do with their bricks when their sleeping..I like the idea of leaving it on, plugged in overnight next to my bed in case I get any emergency calls, but is there any possible wear/damage issues to the microdrive by leaving it on for extended periods of time?
About the Microdrive, no, not really.
But I couldn't vote in your poll: I personnaly leave it unplugged and in stand by (not completly shut down).
I am one of those who believe micro-leaking hurts batteries, even if they are supposed to be without memory-effect. So I don't leave it plugged, and when I charge it, I disconnect it ASAP.
That worked for me for all my batteries, which I kept up and in shape for a long, long time.
Thanks for the input Heartofdarkness, I guess I should have added another option to the poll at least one for none of the above. With work and everything, it seems like I am constantly in and out of my office with wifi, and bluetooth on. I'm fairly sure I would not make it thru the entire day on one charge, should I be charging it in spurts of like 30 mins? Currently im trying to get it as much charging time as possible, and unfortunatly thats in short bursts. I'm interested to see what everyone else does as well....... I guess it really doesent matter if the battery eventually craps out, at least its a replacable item.
My devicedoesn't shut down. It's always on 24x7. At night, it's my MP3 player if I'm not listening to my am talk back radio. It's also my alarm clock for the morning calls. Yes, my golf buddy can call me closer to the morning if there is any change in golfing plan, or just send me an SMS. Most probably, I still read and answer to XDA forum on bed until I get sleepy. Sometimes I download youtube videos and watch it before sleeping.
There will also be a scheduled backup that happens automatically at 4am.
Im option E: plugged in and completely off.
I suspect you would be fine if you didnt charge it all day. Mine goes on at 6am, gets a call or two and some browsing through the day (staying on standby otherwise), and by 8pm I have about 80 to 90% left. It then gets heavy browsing between me and my wife between 8 and 10pm leaving me around 30% at the end of the day. If I start browsing earlier than 8 Ill be left with 10 to 20%. Most of the day Im on a 3G/HSDPA network which uses more power than EDGE.
Have you tried going all day without charging?
Im option E: plugged in and completely off.
I suspect you would be fine if you didnt charge it all day. Mine goes on at 6am, gets a call or two and some browsing through the day (staying on standby otherwise), and by 8pm I have about 80 to 90% left. It then gets heavy browsing between me and my wife between 8 and 10pm leaving me around 30% at the end of the day. If I start browsing earlier than 8 Ill be left with 10 to 20%. Most of the day Im on a 3G/HSDPA network which uses more power than EDGE.
Have you tried going all day without charging?
techntrek said:
Have you tried going all day without charging?
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Click to collapse
Never happen for me. A single battery will not last the whole day for me. I use it so much that I normally also use a spare battery. When a battery runs out, I simply go the charger to take out the then fully charged one and swap them. So I never get caught not having any juice. If I'm in the car, then a single battery will suffice as the car battery quickly fully charge it.
eaglesteve said:
Never happen for me. A single battery will not last the whole day for me. I use it so much that I normally also use a spare battery. When a battery runs out, I simply go the charger to take out the then fully charged one and swap them. So I never get caught not having any juice. If I'm in the car, then a single battery will suffice as the car battery quickly fully charge it.
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Click to collapse
Today I went 5 am to about 7:30 pm without a charge. But man was I hurting when I got to the car! Had to plug in right away, down to the short red bar on the top, I think that's 10%.
thanks for the responses
cool, I feel a bit better about leaving it on all night. even if its just standby mode, I need it there for the calls....and who knows maybe ill wake up and wanna check some news
On and powered - Its on the bedside table and runs SPBTime as a bedside clock. I use phonealarm to turn down the screen brightness to zero, volumes to 10% at midnight, then at 6.45, turn up the display back to 100%, volumes upto 60% and then trigger a connection to BBC Radio 1 via Windows Media Player to wake me up. And if that fails, SPBTime kicks off an alarm at 7am which I can't ignore and wakes me up.
I pretty much leave the thing running 24x7 and it doesn't spend that much time off the charger (Charged when by the bed, and charged at work - only between times that it doesn't get plugged in). I accept that the battery will probably need to be replaced at some point, my biggest concern is the backlight wearing out.
Well, I don't really use wifi that much, but BT's always on. And it is always in stand-by mode when I'm not using it. And currently, I think I could go about 3-4 days without charging it, and using it quite heavily as it is both my personnal AND professionnal PDA and phone and I'm on the phone A LOT.
My secret (I feel like a "Barbara Gould Woman" ) ?
- stand-by after 1 minute inactivity instead of the default 2;
- Pocket Hack Master + "disabled XScale scaling functionalities" + PHM scaling engine with specific settings, among which 204 MHz as lower speed;
That way, my Athena's about 98% of the time at 204 MHz, and still feels responsive because of my scaling settings.
Thanks for all your responses!

Battery or Phone?

So to start out with here is what I posted yesterday from another thread...
"I got my HD2 last night. I used it for a bit right out of the box, went to bed and soon after I woke up in the morning it was dead.
My wife who also got her HD2 last night did basically the same thing. We both put our phones on the chargers. I was out doing yard work while mine was charging. My wife stayed inside and played with hers while it was on the charger. She unplugged it when it said it was done. When I came in from working I went to my phone and the light was green indicating a charged battery. I unplugged, turned on, it said 100% charged and started messing with it. Within minutes it said 4% battery life left and soon after it died. I then took it back in and plugged it back in. I turned it on this time to verify that it was charging. It stayed on the charger until it said it was 100% charged.
I have had it off the charger for 5 hours or so. I was using it a lot for the first hour or so, setting things up and getting it where I wanted it. I then left it alone and it has been sitting for the past 4 hrs. When I left it sitting it said it was at around 80% battery I believe. I just came back to it and it is again at 4% and telling me it is about to die. Then it did die.
I have gmail setup with activesync on default settings as well as direct push. I had done an end all with task manager just before I set it down. I do understand that the phone is active even when I am not using it but I would not expect this much battery drain.
I have the Stock Rom and the display auto dims on the default setting as well.
I love the phone but it seems like something is wrong with mine. Any suggestions?
BTW: My wifes HD2 is still running and has ~75% battery life left. She has been using it on and off for the entire day (10+ hrs) and wifi has been turned on the whole time too. This sounds more reasonable.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have been checking in on the phone periodically while it has been charging. It has been charging with the phone turned off. It seems to have taken ~1hr to charge 100%. The green light it on now. Is this a pretty standard amount of time for it to charge to 100%?"
So last night after I got my phone off of the charger I used it a good amount throughout the night. From 5:20PM until around 1:00AM it drained to around 60%. I thought that this was a good standard amount. I was using it in bed and before falling asleep to drain as much as I could because I wanted it dead in the morning. I just woke up and the phone was dead (so was my wifes). I went to plug them both in at the same time to compare charging times and and then I was going to compare battery life.
I plugged my wifes in and it started charging no problem. I then plugged mine in and it instantly started to boot up. It got to the boot screen and it started looping. It was stuck in a boot loop every time I plugged it into the charger. I swapped chargers with my wifes and it did the same ... but hers charged fine on the one mine was on. I ended up popping the battery out for a minute and then putting it back in. Put it back on the charger and it started to charge no problem.
I have experience with WinMo phones in the past and am used to/expecting some "quirkyness" but this seems like something is wrong. I am not sure however at this point if it is the battery or the phone. I am letting it charge now and planned on swapping the battery with the one in my wifes to see how it acts in a different phone. Any other suggestions? I love the phone but I want to know if there is a problem before the time for me to return it for another runs out. Thanks for any help.
It's the phone. The phone is having a considerable amount of issues. Some people are getting good, fine HD2s, other are getting bad seeds. Take it back, exchange for a new one.
Thank you for the input. I will add more to the story.
Both phones started charging at the same time. One (mine) was done charging in about 1.5 hrs. The second (my wifes) took closer to 2.5 hrs. I swapped the batteries and my phone turned on without problem, with my wifes battery in it. While hers seemed to have trouble getting going, I had to take the battery out and replace it before I could get it to boot. They are both up and running, with similar services running as well. I will continue to observe throughout the day to see how they drain in comparison to the other.
Is it possible that the phone is not charging the battery properly? If this is the case then my wifes phone would have worse battery life with my battery in it, but it would actually be my phone that would be the problem. I think that I am going to have to take both phones through at least one more charging cycle to see where the problem lies.
I am certainly leaning toward exchanging it for another though. What is the time limit for returning without question at T-Mobile US?
I have been watching both phones this morning. I have noticed that the signal strength on my phone bounces all over the place while sitting still on the table. My wifes phone sitting right next to it will generally hold a steady 2 bar 3G signal. This bouncing around of the signal strength and the searching for a signal is probably what is causing the battery drain. Just as I sit here and type this my phone has gone from a 1 bar EDGE signal to 3 bar 3G signal.
I have come to the conclusion that my phone is messed up and I will return it. I think that I have 14 days to make this return but I am not sure.
here are some battery saving tips that helped me, I hope the work for you without having to do a return
Turn wifi off when not in use, the 3g connection seems to use far less battery power. Also make sure establish data connection is turned off.
Turn off push and anything that auto downloads like weather and email.
Before locking the phone, open task manager and close pretty much anything open.
That should improve things greatly.
Thanks ... most of those I have done but it still continues to have the problem. I am not sure about the "establish data connection" though. I assume you are talking about the toggle in the wireless settings for "data connection". What exactly does this do? If it is switched off I assumed that it would not make a data connection at all. Does it instead keep a constant data connection when turned on?
NickPDX said:
I am certainly leaning toward exchanging it for another though. What is the time limit for returning without question at T-Mobile US?
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Click to collapse
14 days is exchange without question/problems.
NickPDX said:
Thanks ... most of those I have done but it still continues to have the problem. I am not sure about the "establish data connection" though. I assume you are talking about the toggle in the wireless settings for "data connection". What exactly does this do? If it is switched off I assumed that it would not make a data connection at all. Does it instead keep a constant data connection when turned on?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's just a switch to change states whenever you want to manually...if 3G is activiated by some program, the switch moves to "on", and you can go in there and switch it to "off" if you want to kill the 3G while it's not needed. It will stay off until either 1) you use that same switch to turn it back on, or 2) some app/process (weather update, gmaps, etc) turn it back on. There are cabs available if you want to keep 3G switched off to the point where even apps can't switch it back on, and they're forced to use EDGE.
And yes, any time that switch is "on", you're maintaining a live data connection with the network, which is a battery drainer even if you're not actively passing data for an app.

battery issue

Last night I left my phone charging over night. This morning once I took ot off the charger the battery was reading one percent. I went ahead and put it on the charger thinking the mini USB cable connected to the charger (att OEM charger) might have slipped off. Well after charging it from my car for another 30 minutes it was still reading one percent battery. I went ahead and reset my phone and voila it registered as fully charged. The weird thing is that while it was in critical battery mode the phone was performing very slow. Just wondering if anyone ejse has experienced that.
Battery issue?
I had the same problem when I checked my phone this morning. I had it on the USB cable almost all day yesterday and I showed a full battery when I when I went to bed. This morning I had 1% battery. I am charging now on the USB cable again and it does seem to be charging so we'll see.
Tony
I don't know how windows manages their memory on this os. I know they said they wouldn't have multi tasking but thus far I have realized that they do allow some apps to run in the background. I know in previous windows os the biggest issue was apps staying on in the background and eating up memory . So I hope the battery issue and the lagging isn't a direct result from that .
The battery on my phone charges but seems very slow.
Well, i have GPS turned off, wifi off and it takes about 2 hours to charge with the screen being off. i get about 3+ days of normal use from a fully charged battery. Maybe you have many things turned on and as such the phone us using power to feed those and less to feed the battery?
enjoythemusic said:
Well, i have GPS turned off, wifi off and it takes about 2 hours to charge with the screen being off. i get about 3+ days of normal use from a fully charged battery. Maybe you have many things turned on and as such the phone us using power to feed those and less to feed the battery?
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yesterday I got a good 20 hrs or so with heavy data and push emails.. today I barely got 12hrs.. the only difference today for me was that location services was on.. So I think the battery drain comes from GPS mostly and definitely wifi if you keep it on
Yes, GPS and wifi can really be drains, bluetooth not so much it seems. As many of you know, if you are charging your phone using your computer's USB port it may be far s-l-o-w-e-r than using the faster AC adapter.
Ok and thanks for the tips. I have been using the wall charger. I will turn off location and see how that goes. Most of the time I don't need it anyway. I know where stuff is where I live. HAHAHA.
I've had my Focus for three days now and the battery never lasts more than 12 hours - and I haven't made any calls with it! I have it for testing, so it's not my main mobile but I've been using it for everything else. Internet, email sync, Zune, social networking, etc.
I turned off wifi, location, bluetooth, set the screen to low brightness and still only ~12 hours.

[Q] EPIC 8 hour max battery life -- is this normal?

I am LUCKY to get 8 hours of battery life on my brand new stock Epic.. I usually get 4-6 hours. It will NOT last through a normal day of work without putting it on the charger around lunchtime. I take it off the charger around 6:30 AM and I am usually home by 4PM and have to immediately go and charge my phone.
Even if I put it on airplane mode, kill all running applications, and shut the screen off to standby, the phone still seems to suck battery life down very quickly (~5% in 20 minutes on airplane mode, wtf???).. So airplane mode doesn't help.. And I really DON'T want to put it in airplane mode to conserve battery because then my phone is completely useless -- it won't even ring when my wife calls..
Is my battery defective? Please tell me it is... This can't be right..
Are there processes still running that use lots of CPU, even when the stock sprint "task manager" program shows that nothing is running? Is there anything I can do to improve this if I root the phone? How about custom roms? I would really like to run Froyo/Gingerbread anyway.. If anyone has any suggestions to help to make my battery life not such an EPIC FAIL, I would greatly appreciate it.
EDIT: Also wanted to comment on the SLOW CHARGING. With the stock Samsung wall charger, it takes at least a couple of hours to get a full charge. With a USB cable plugged into a PC overnight, it only gets to about 50%. Compared with my previous phone, the HTC TP2, this is really really REALLY slow. It charged in 30-60 minutes and the battery lasted much longer.
I did notice that Samsung only provides a 0.7 amp charger, versus a 1.0A charger for the TP2. Why does Samsung limit the charge current like this? And apparently there is no nueBattery mod driver for android
UPDATE: JuiceDefender looks very promising. Installed the free version and my battery is only down to 95% after one hour. Thanks for the suggestion.
FWIW, I'm getting about the same 8ish hours on mine running DK28. I'm losing about 4% an hour without touching it. I'm seeing some people claiming insane battery life (18 hours with heavy browsing on wifi) I wish I knew how they were managing that.
Wait, it won't even ring when you're wife calls? and you're complaining?
First, the airplane mode means you switch the phone to airplane mode first then switch it back so you won't have time without signal problem which can cause battery drain.
I am able to get 10+ hrs at least by doing the following
1) use airplane mode trick so no TWS
2) use titanium backup to remove a bunch of stock junk
3) use titanium to freeze certain applications (DRM, MediaHub, Qik etc)
4) Have as few applications as possible that constantly pull data
Just yesterday I had 1 day 17 hours before switching
Yesterday when it finally gave up the ghost with the battery indicator blinking i checked my stats.
I had 1 day, 17 hours unplugged. Screen time was around 2 hours and some minutes. I had 45 minutes of talk time.
One thing i will add is I purchased a charger with two batteries off Ebay. Previously when charging with the stock charger as soon as I pulled it off the charger it would read 97%. With the seperate charger it reads 100% for quite awhile before it starts to drop.
And for the record I purchased this charger and two batteries of Ebay for a winning bid of $0.01, plus $9.95 S&H. It was a steal in my opinion.
Unless you are getting near 12 hours of battery life, one of 3 things is occurring:
1) You are using the phone an insane amount
2) You messed something up
3) The battery is defective
For the record, its almost always number 2.
I suggest doing a Factory reset, which will wipe everything off the phone. Then without installing anything or setting your facebook to update every 15 seconds, see how long the battery life lasts. If it is still only 4-6 hours, then your battery is most likely defective.
well of course it won't ring if your wife calls if its in airplane mode. That radio is turned off.
8 hours? That's it? I wouldn't call that normal, but that's just me...
I just plugged my phone in after 4 1/2 days (108 hours) running on a stock 1500maH battery, running Quantum Rom 1.5 (DK17), no special apps running to disable data (aka Juice Defender, etc.), not in airplane mode at all, with the DRM software running, in other words, a more or less 'Stock' configuration (taking into account any differences in the base Rom).
Granted, I barely used the phone in the last 4 days though
muyoso said:
I suggest doing a Factory reset, which will wipe everything off the phone. Then without installing anything or setting your facebook to update every 15 seconds, see how long the battery life lasts. If it is still only 4-6 hours, then your battery is most likely defective.
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Click to collapse
I'll do that. For the record, I've got fbook set to never update, and seesmic once every 6 hrs.
Koadic said:
8 hours? That's it? I wouldn't call that normal, but that's just me...
I just plugged my phone in after 4 1/2 days (108 hours) running on a stock 1500maH battery, running Quantum Rom 1.5 (DK17), no special apps running to disable data (aka Juice Defender, etc.), not in airplane mode at all, with the DRM software running, in other words, a more or less 'Stock' configuration (taking into account any differences in the base Rom).
Granted, I barely used the phone in the last 4 days though
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Click to collapse
LOL at screen on for 52 minutes total. That is 11.5 minutes a day.
muyoso said:
LOL at screen on for 52 minutes total. That is 11.5 minutes a day.
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Click to collapse
Like I said, barely touched my phone in the last 4 days... been feeling a little under the weather so have been at home a lot and in bed doing all my internet stuff and gaming (pogo) on a laptop instead of on my phone.
Since I updated to the leaked Froyo, my battery life has plummeted. It lasts maybe 1/3-1/2 as long as it used to. Turning off 3G has helped immensely though, so that must be the culprit. I used to be able to leave 3G on while at work and make it to bedtime before having to charge it. Or if I shut it off at night (which I usually do), it would make it through my commute to work the next morning. Now, I'm lucky to get through the work day unless I turn off 3G. Huge difference in battery life for me since updating. I'm hoping they fix this in the official release of Froyo.
Well, I've recently found out that if you flash via update.zip while the USB is plugged in, you'll mess up the battery calibration of your device. This is what I did, and i'm pretty sure the cause of my problems. I did find a fix, and here it is:
siliconaddict said:
This is the procedure that works for me:
The following steps should significantly extend the battery life on your phone:
1. Let the battery drain close to empty (5% or less).
2. Connect the phone to the charger (AC or USB, USB is better) while powered on and allow the phone to charge until the notification LED is green, indicating the device is fully charged and untill the voltage is at least 4187mV. A higher voltage like 4192mV or more is even better. Use a tool like Overcharged or Battery Indicator to monitor this. Note that a green notification LED does not automatically mean that the voltage is good too.
A higher voltage means in practice that it will take longer to discharge, a lower voltage means that the battery will discharge a lot quicker! The difference can be quite significant!
3. Disconnect the phone from the charger and power it off.
4. Reconnect the phone to the charger while powered off and allow the phone to charge until the notification LED is green. The notification LED may turn green immediately. Leave it on the charger for another hour.
5. Disconnect the phone from the charger and power it on.
6. Once the phone is powered on completely (has restarted fully) wait 2 minutes and power it off again.
7. Reconnect the phone to the charger while powered off and allow the phone to charge until the notification LED is green. The notification LED may turn green immediately. Leave it on the charger for another hour.
8. Leave the phone on the charger and reboot into the ClockWorkMod recovery menu and wipe the battery stats via -> Advanced -> Wipe battery stats.
9. Disconnect the phone from the charger, restart the phone and start using it as normal.
From then on always let the battery drain close to empty (5% or less) as often as possible and then charge untill the voltage is at least 4187mV. A higher voltage like 4192mV or more is even better.
Normally you will have to do this only once. However, on all Android ROMs, if you flash a ROM while charging or during the first boot screen on, first boot mucks up the levels Android thinks the phone is at, i.e. Android will think you’re at 100% when maybe you’re only 90% or whatever. So in theory you will need to repeat this every time you flash a ROM while charging!
Better is to make sure the battery is charged before you flash a ROM and just remove the USB/charge cable before you flash a ROM. Put it back in (if you must) after the first boot screen (when the custom screen or whatever shows).
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Click to collapse
There is a shorter version that also seems to work well:
vidler said:
So combining the two bits of info we've compiled, the best way to calibrate your battery is as follows
1: Charge phone whilst on till LED is green.
2: Disconnect phone from charger, power it off.
3: Reconnect to charger with phone powered off and allow to charge till LED is green.
4: Disconnect the phone from charger, power it on. Once completely powered on, turn it off again and reconnect to charger until LED is green.
5: Reboot into recovery (back button held at same time as power button) and wipe battery stats.
Battery should now be calibrated.
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From what I've been told, you don't have to wipe the stats (you need root to do that) but it helps if you can.
I think this may also stem from interrupting the inital charge of the device. I know I did this on both my wife's device and mine (plus my added fubar of flashing with the USB in). Anyway, hopefully I can report some good news tomorrow.
If y'all are really interested in reading a 51 page thread on this, go here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=755903
I get 4 or 5 hours if that. I can barely make it to 6. But i probably use my phone more than the average person. Because i take public transportation and browse, stream, email and have 4g connected on my commute back and fourth.
diego1985 said:
I get 4 or 5 hours if that. I can barely make it to 6. But i probably use my phone more than the average person. Because i take public transportation and browse, stream, email and have 4g connected on my commute back and fourth.
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Click to collapse
I've been running JuiceDefender for about 5 hours now and I am loving it.. I still have 75% and I can still receive calls just fine.. It turns off data when the screen is off, but turns it on at scheduled times (default is 1 min every 15 min) so that your emails/twitters/etc can update like normal. The paid version has even more features so I bought it..
Never mind im dumb for not reading his post. Already answered my question sorry.
sleebus.jones said:
Well, I've recently found out that if you flash via update.zip while the USB is plugged in, you'll mess up the battery calibration of your device. This is what I did, and i'm pretty sure the cause of my problems. I did find a fix, and here it is:
There is a shorter version that also seems to work well:
From what I've been told, you don't have to wipe the stats (you need root to do that) but it helps if you can.
I think this may also stem from interrupting the inital charge of the device. I know I did this on both my wife's device and mine (plus my added fubar of flashing with the USB in). Anyway, hopefully I can report some good news tomorrow.
If y'all are really interested in reading a 51 page thread on this, go here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=755903
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Decided not to quote the whole thing but I'm in the process of doing this right now! Took 2 hours to drain my batt from full (running everything and keeping my phone searching for gps constantly in a place where it would also be searching for signal makes quick work of a battery!).
knyque said:
Wait, it won't even ring when you're wife calls? and you're complaining?
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Click to collapse
*golf clap*
diego1985 said:
I definitely need to try that out. Can you still receive calls or no?
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
Yes, with juice defender I can receive calls and my gmail/twitter/facebook/etc. are all already up-to-date whenever I pick up my phone. It works exactly as before, except my battery is not constantly being drained now.
I guess the downsides are that I might not get a new email notification for 15 minutes, and that there is a service running in the background that may cause some slowdown. Neither has been a problem for me so far. I highly recommend this application for Epic 4G owners. Problem solved, basically.
I usually get 12hrs with moderate use (~2hrs with screen on, half of that is usually on the browser). I turn background data off bc I don't have a twitter and I rarely check Facebook so when I do I just use the browser.
I also noticed that wifi burns more battery on DK28, on 2.1 I would hardly lose any battery on standby with wifi, now I get a 3-4% drain per hour... But with 3g on now I lose less then 1% an hour, it used to be a battery hog.

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