

Battery life suggestons - Rom/Widgets, etc

Discussion in 'Android Devices' started by lraymond, Feb 13, 2011.

  1. lraymond

    lraymond Lurker
    Thread Starter

    ok 1st post here, be gentle :)

    I read a few olders posts and maybe looking for more suggestions, help as naturally none are an exact post. Well its an EVO, currently running cyanogenmod (latest version), but yesterday is a great daily example. Went to disney (tough life), but I left around 9am with a full 1800ma battery which was dead by around 3pm. I put another fully charged 1800 in which lasted till around 8, then I had the stock 1500ma which was 43% which didn't even get me till 11pm.

    I have OS monitor installed, but curious as to how I see what's the biggest drain. I am thinking now that I look that it's widgets. I do have (4) mimimalistic text ones (battery, weather, time), etc. to look 'cool' but it's those, facebook / twitter and the beatuiful widgets for 5 day weather and that's it.

    Note I also had GPS and WiFi disabled the entire day as well, meanwhile my old 4 year old iPhone that my wife used throught the day was as 55% by the day's end adding salt to the wound!

    So is there either a battery app that shows current drain, a ROM that's more gentle or is it simply the widget's?

    Thanks for all reads and comments ...

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  2. Internetpilot

    Internetpilot Well-Known Member

    Others more knowledgeable than I will be along shortly, but given your situation it does seem that the widgets are the culprit. What does your battery use properties report?

    A ROM in and of itself does't usually cause more battery drain. It depends on the frequency settings of your sync, how much you're actively using the phone (you were at Disney - were you using the camera a lot?), etc.

    You may want to look into a kernel, as that is where you'll start seeing battery improvements. Also underclocking with an app like SetCPU helped me a lot. I'm actually over and underclocked with Netarchy Toastmod No-SBC CFS HAVs more kernel and using the stock battery and with infrequent use my stock battery will last >24hrs easily. With moderate phone use it will easily last even a long day. Keep in mind that there is no magic cure if you just plain use the phone a lot.

    I would advise researching kernels and SetCPU. Those two things usually generate a few more questions along the way so you'll probably need to ask more specific questions in this thread after doing so.
  3. akazabam

    akazabam Android Expert

    That kind of battery drain is certainly not normal. You would have to use the phone *a lot* for it to drain that fast. I'm guessing it spent at least a few hours without you using it, right? Are you still having this battery drain now? Here's what you need to do:

    1) Install Spare Parts from the market
    2) Plug the phone in briefly, then unplug it
    3) Let the phone sit for 3 or 4 hours
    4) Open spare parts, and select Battery history
    5) For the top dropdown, select partial wake usage
    6) For the second dropdown, make sure it says since last unplugged

    You will be given a list of processes that held wake locks (kept the phone awake). If anything has a very high percentage, that's likely the problem. Start with that, and we can take it from there.

    Likely, this is not an issue with the kernel. The stock CM kernel should be fine. After we figure out what the problem is, you can consider a different kernel if you want to try to get better battery life or performance, as you might be able to. That being said, you'd need an AOSP kernel. Netarchy is a Sense based one, and should not be used on an AOSP ROM.
  4. lraymond

    lraymond Lurker
    Thread Starter

    Cool, thanks for both replies.

    @Ipilot - yea using OSMonitor I did have the CPU set as 'ondemand' with the lowest freq as the low and can watch how quickly it drops to nothing. Disney, the odd thing is I took 1 picture that was it, and 2 or so txt messages so phone usage was really nothing, which is why it's more than a CPU deal.

    @akazabam - that's I think what I was looking for. I will download/install 2nt and tomorrow morning take care of the 3-4 hour idle while at work and see what results I get.

    I don't mind average use, but (2) 1800 batteries and 1/2 of a 1500 when 90% idle is definitely an issue.

    Thanks to you both and will report tomorrow with findings.
  5. akazabam

    akazabam Android Expert

    Yes, you've definitely got a problem there, then. Spare parts should tell you exactly what is going on while the phone is sleeping. Another thing to check is uptime vs awake time, which can be found under menu->settings->about phone->battery. If awake time is far higher than the amount of time you know you've used the phone (or just flat out equals uptime), then your phone isn't sleeping. That's where spare parts comes in handy.
    lraymond likes this.
  6. lraymond

    lraymond Lurker
    Thread Starter

    done .

    As I said I had 4 'minimalistic text' widget's, basic time, day of week, then had 2 more for battery % and one for current weather, MPH, etc. After leaving idle for 3 hours and down to 15% battery, sure enough it was that widget (not sure which) but I tested by putting in the 2nd battery at 100% just before bed and removing the widgets. It's now around 12 hours later, a few phone calls, some text messages and I am still over 60% left.

    Exactly the app I was looking for, with so many apps and names that don't always match (battery logging = spare parts), it's tough which is why forums are just perfect!

    Thanks again ...
  7. akazabam

    akazabam Android Expert

    Yep, spare parts is widely considered the best app for determining what is hogging the battery. Glad it helped you out.
  8. Mr. Ed

    Mr. Ed Extreme Android User

    are you at disney frequently? I am curious what your daily time without signal is? I have noticed that in highly congested area, public events, sporting events etc that my signal drops due to network congestion..my battery drops in minutes.

    just a thought

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