This started on suiller's ROM guide, but I feel it's really OT so I should take it outside.
I've had battery issue ever since I got the Diamond. With moderate use (maybe ~15-20min of call per day, email check every 30 min, moderate web browsing) the battery level can drop by ~ 15-20% per hour on average. This means the battery would only last 5-6 hours without charging, which is not good enough to last through a day.
I first looked at whether the phone has any serious battery drain application, and it doesn't. With BatteryStatus I see the battery drain is ~ 100-150mA with GSM on, BT on. When I'm downloading email, or browsing the web, it does go up to 200 ~ 300mA briefly, but that is only when it's transmitting / receiving data. In standby mode with screen off it drains less than 50mA. These numbers seem pretty typical from my experience.
And here's the weird thing - on a typical day, when I wake up, and take the phone off the charger, it can drop from 100% to 93% within 30 min. On the way to work, when I would browse the web lightly, it can easily drop from 93% to 80-85% within an hour. That's pretty bad battery life.
Yet there are instances when I've been browsing the web, or playing MP3, or using YouTube for a good 10-15 min, but the battery level would not drop.
I figure maybe the battery needs to be re-calibrated, so I decided to discharge the battery and recharge it. I know this doesn't help improve the battery life of LiIon batteries, but I was trying to recalibrate it.
What happened, when I was discharging the battery, was I found the battery drop was very quick from 100% down to ~ 50%. From that point on, the battery drop is much slower.
And from 50% to 25% the battery seems to last forever. The most interesting thing is with the battery down to 15%, I did a lot of 3G web browsing, listening to MP3's, turn wifi on, and that 15% of battery lasted a good 3.5 hrs with heavy use until it's so low the phone stopped working.
The whole discharging process ended up taking 10 hours, and that's with HEAVY use for the last 3-4 hours too. That's actually acceptable for battery life (not great, but at least it'll last me through a day outside with moderate use) and obviously doesn't jive with the 15-20% drop per hour when I'm operating in the 50-100% full range.
When I'm charging the battery, I also noticed the level went up from 0% to 70% very quickly ... pretty much over 40 min. BatteryStatus shows it's being charged at +600-700mA.
As the battery gets full, the charging is much slower ... BatteryStatus shows it is charging by ~ 100-200mA only.
With the battery level up to 99%, it took almost forever to finally get up to 100%. I think it took at least 20 min.
So after a full discharge - recharge, I used my phone as normal this morning to see if it's been calibrated, but nope. It still drops from 100 to 93% within minutes of doing virtually nothing, and easily drop to 80% after an hour ride to work.
Does your battery perform the same way? Should I replace my battery? Or is there a way to properly calibrate the battery?
btw location and reception has nothing to do with it. I have good to excellent reception throughout this test.
I'm having the same problem but not with every rom (don't know wich ones, tested almost every rom hero) So is this a piece of software wich shows the live that doesn't work ?? or is it the battery ? As i can see it it's depending on rom thus it's not hardware
But hey I'm n00b
i've noticed that a soft reset or power up will use 3-7% of battery depending on the weather (what else could it be )
don't have the ability to discharge but i agree that in many cases the battery usage drops drastically & there is no reasonable cause
hope someone can figure this out!
From 4pda.ru
http://4pda.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=85754&st=100&p=2338080&#entry2338080
1. discharge the battery completely (by playing video, audio, etc.)
2. Remove the battery and wait about 1min then place it back (do not power on the phone)
3. Full Charge the phone, wait when LEDs stop blinking (do not power on the phone)
4. When fully charged - remove the battery (do not power on the phone)
5. Wait about 1min then place the battery to the phone and now you can power it on.
If battery is more or less OK it will re-calibrate.
I hope it will help!
STM123 said:
From 4pda.ru
http://4pda.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=85754&st=100&p=2338080&#entry2338080
1. discharge the battery completely (by playing video, audio, etc.)
2. Remove the battery and wait about 1min then place it back (do not power on the phone)
3. Full Charge the phone, wait when LEDs stop blinking (do not power on the phone)
4. When fully charged - remove the battery (do not power on the phone)
5. Wait about 1min then place the battery to the phone and now you can power it on.
If battery is more or less OK it will re-calibrate.
I hope it will help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. I tried those steps yesterday and my phone is pretty much behaving the exact same way after the battery cycle.
After all the steps, the battery shows it's 100%. I unplug it, and it drops to 97% within MINUTES literally. Now I plug it back in, and it takes forever to get from 97% back to 100% (> 1hour)
I think it may be a battery problem and not a calibration problem. The drain averages ~ 120-150mA when phone on, screen on, no data, and below 100mA with phone on in standby mode. That seems pretty typical? I'd think the battery should last longer than 8 hours (till it completely dies) in that case.
Where do you guys suggest I buy a new battery for the Diamond (other than HTC directly)? I bought one from DealExtreme but the battery runs ~ 10C hotter than normal all the times ... I don't think I want that as my primary battery.
If you get through a full day with moderate-heavy use on your battery, I say that is normal and good battery life on a Diamond. So, why bother that the percentage is not proportional? I would not get a new battery for this since the problem is only in the reported percentage, not the battery life itself.
I've had plenty of cars that went from full to half tank on the meter significantly faster than from half to almost empty. You know about it and adapt to it, simply.
Hello !
I'm understand you, i have a ELF (Touch P3450), and a Diamond, the same problem appear for the two phones!
Every Morning, when i disconnect from charge my diamond, my level battery go to 93% in 10mns without reasons (One sms, no 3G, no Wifi etc).
My battery go down to 50~70% around 14H (2H pm), and stays at this level for many hours (4-5hours ~), i think it's not a problem with our battery, but a dysfunction of the sensor battery, which shows wrong data =/
By the way, that problem doesn't appear every day, for example, today my battery has that level : 83% (15h43), so today it has a good level.
Since i have flash that ROM : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=521941, with radio 1.13.25.24, i have less less issues with my battery, it's more stable!
That's all, hope that helps you.
Ok guys, I've made a few discoveries that I figure I could share with everybody. Maybe you'll find it useful.
Last week I went on a trip and turned off the data connection while I was out of the country. Instead of letting the roaming charges kill me, I was relying on wifi to check emails and browse the web.
I ended up checking emails just as often, because where I worked had wifi AP.
Now, I could usually get 8, maybe 9 hrs out of my battery with moderate use before it's completely empty previously. So I was very surprised to find that with a similar usage pattern, but using wifi instead of EDGE/GPRS I still had 30-50% battery left at the end of 8-9 hours day everyday during the trip. I know data uses a lot of battery, but I always thought wifi drains even more, so that's quite a stunning discovery.
Now, I don't think it was due to wifi draining less than GPRS/EDGE (can't be true), so it must be something else. In trying to figure out what made the difference, I did a bunch of tests after the trip, and this is what I find-
1. Data channel dis-connection / re-connection is BAD
I used to always set my phone to auto-disconnect data channel (EDGE/GPRS) after 5 min of inactivity, in an attempt to save battery. What I found, was keeping the data channel open does NOT actually drain more battery than leaving it off at all. Transmitting data drains battery, but not leaving the channel open. However, disconnecting it, and re-connecting it all the times actually drains quite a bit of battery. I set my phone to check email every 30 minutes, and then there's also the odd weather forecast that needs data channel. In a 9 hrs day, that means channel disconnection + reconnection of about 40 times.
The last couple days I have left my data connection ON all the times, and I actually get more hours out of my battery. My battery used to drop ~ 10-15% per hour with moderate use. By keeping the channel on all the times it's been kept to under 10% per hour!!! I've only tested it for a couple days. I'll report more on it once I get to test it for longer, but the idea that 'keeping data connection off when you're not using it to save battery" seems to be a complete myth. The opposite actually saves battery!!!! And as a bonus, I don't even have to wait for the data channel to connect when I need it!!
2. Recycling the radio is VERY BAD
Everybody knows 3G is a real battery killer. However, similar to EDGE/GPRS, keeping the 3G channel open does NOT drain any more battery than turning it off, or turning on EDGE/GPRS channel. When the data channel is idling, it doesn't matter whether it's on EDGE, GPRS, 3G, or even completely turned off, the battery drain is close to zero in all cases.
Now, you do see a 1.5 - 2 times battery drain with 3G compared to EDGE/GPRS, so I've always turned 3G on only for web browsing or watching YouTube, and use GPRS / EDGE for regular emails update. The thing is though, if you're not transmitting much data (which you won't for regular email update), the difference in battery drain is minimal. SWITCHING between 2G and 3G though, requires a radio power cycle (turn off then back on to switch frequency) and THAT drains a lot of battery!!!
So if you're often switching between 3G and 2G, and you only transmit little data in 2G mode, you might actually be better off keeping it in 3G all the times instead of forcing the radio to power-cycle all the times.
I've tried keeping it in 3G all day long and I noticed minimal increase in battery drain. However, there might be another reason you want to consider - RADIATION. 3G not only drains more battery than 2G, it also transmits at a stronger power than 2G and as a result create more radiation. For that reason, I'm still keeping my phone to 2G for email updates and what not, and switch to 3G only for web browsing. For radiation you may try this thread if you want to read more about it.
3. VGA screen is a REAL battery killer
I do quite a bit of reading on my phone (ebook, on-line magazines etc) and reading ebook was never a battery concern in my days with the Touch (QVGA screen).
That's why I was quite surprised on the Diamond, reading the ebook for 1 hour, with EVERYTHING else turned off (GSM, EDGE, GPRS, 3G, BT, wifi), my battery level went down by 12% in ~1 hour.
The VGA screen drains a lot more battery than the QVGA screen. Now, if you need to use the phone you need to use the screen, there isn't much of a choice. It does make sense, however, that if you're using the screen for a while (like reading ebook) switching from a high brightness level to a lower brightness level.
Oh, and the auto-adjust brightness thing? That doesn't help you save battery at all. This is because it polls the light sensor every 2 sec (default value, but you can change it) and adjust screen brightness accordingly. This mechanism drains battery in itself, and in most cases end up using more battery than keeping the brightness constant at a low to medium level.
The auto-adjust thing is cool, and in theory it sounds like it can save you battery, but unless you constantly set the brightness to max even when you're in a dark environment, disable the auto-adjust and just set it to a constant 50-60% instead.
These are the few things I've noticed and I'm still trying things out, but over the last 2 days I've seen a significant drop in battery drain. I would be lucky to go through a 8-9 hrs day with moderate to heavy use before, the first 2 days I tried this I still had 60% battery left after 5 hrs of moderate use. The Diamond is very weak on battery life so every bit helps! I hope these tips are useful to you!
Thanks for your share
number16 said:
When I'm charging the battery, I also noticed the level went up from 0% to 70% very quickly ... pretty much over 40 min. BatteryStatus shows it's being charged at +600-700mA.
As the battery gets full, the charging is much slower ... BatteryStatus shows it is charging by ~ 100-200mA only.
With the battery level up to 99%, it took almost forever to finally get up to 100%. I think it took at least 20 min.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's exactly what the charging process is supposed to do.
Read more here:
The charge time of most chargers is about 3 hours...
Increasing the charge current does not shorten the charge time by much. Although the voltage peak is reached quicker with higher charge current, the topping charge will take longer.
Some chargers claim to fast-charge a lithium-ion battery in one hour or less. Such a charger eliminates stage 2 and goes directly to 'ready' once the voltage threshold is reached at the end of stage 1. The charge level at this point is about 70%. The topping charge typically takes twice as long as the initial charge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
source:batteryuniversity (dot) com
I don't get it, After 8 hours and 20 minutes of uptime, my Wi-Fi has a usage of 5% whereas Cell standby has a usage of 10% under battery use. What is Cell standby anyway and why is it eating so much battery?
I think thats pretty normal. My cell standby is normally at about 20% (little bit above WiFi). Well in the end it depends on what you do. If you dont use your phone at all, Cell Standby would probably have around 60% or more (relative values).
One more thing is, that these values are often wrong and nreliable. In my case Android System is always using 40-60% (cell standby around 20% and some small other stuff) no matter what i do with the phone, which cant be true because my battery life is quite normal. I just think, that these statistics are crap on some phones though i dont know the reason....
BTW: Cell Standby is just the normal communication between phone and GSM-Antenna, so that calls and messages can reach you. Its a kind of idle communication. Switching between bands (2G/3G) p.ex. consumes a lot of power in this respect....
Every night I charge my DHD while I sleep so it makes it through the day. The phone is always in aeroplane mode, screen off, wifi off etc.
Last night after copying files to and from my computer, with my DHD connected to my computer via USB I found it fully charged. I figured there was no point plugging it in overnight if it's only at 100%. So I unplugged it, put it on aeroplane mode locked the screen and left it overnight.
This Morning I expected a maximum of 5% drop in battery overnight but was shocked to fine 47% had trickled away overnight. I checked the battery usage in 'About Phone'. Very little was listed, things like Display with a time on of 4min, Android OS is listed with a CPU load time of 44s and 5.21KB of data sent. All of these are very small drains but at the top of the list is 'Phone Idle' which just states its been idle for 8hr and 33min.
So Why did my phone drain so much power overnight? These are the only things listed in battery use and none of them seem enough to drain almost half my battery.
I can comfirm overnight I'm sure aeroplane mode was ON, because I had to turn it off this morning.
Wi-Fi was OFF because I rarely use my phone for internet at home on my Wi-Fi, my tablet is for that.
The screen was OFF because battery usage only says 4 Minutes that it was on.
Anyone have any idea what's draining.
Try Battery Monitor Widget and look how many mA/h it drains when in idle. It should be about 1-10mA
Sent out of my Free-Candy-Van. Your kids are safe in there. Trust me.
Flussen said:
Try Battery Monitor Widget and look how many mA/h it drains when in idle. It should be about 1-10mA
Sent out of my Free-Candy-Van. Your kids are safe in there. Trust me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After 1 hour of leaving it with the battery monitor with the widget on my home screen, it shows 13mA. Is this acceptable? Mobile network was on but not sending any data, the screen was off the entire time.
I will monitor overnight to see what the drain is like then.
Sounds quite okay. Don't forget to add the widget to the homescreen. Then you can check the history in the app so you can see how much it drained over night.
Sent out of my Free-Candy-Van. Your kids are safe in there. Trust me.
Left my phone is same conditions last night, only drained 7%, weird. Battery Monitor measures throughout the night 1-5mA drain. Seems normal. Just weird that it drained so much one night and hardly any another night.
Had the same problem mines was a faulty battery had htc replace it for free, they didnt ask for the old one back...
Hi... I have an Xplay rooted on 2.3.4 and removed light bloatware, but still my battery drains fast...
I must charge phone every day and I dont use a lot of heavy gamming... I only play in bed at night and normaly to drain the rest of the battery before charging.
I almost never use 3G, but have always wifi turned on...
So, resuming, my battery only lasts about 12h-14h per day...
As you can see, in the attachemt I have 2 times the same thing (portuguese language, but will translate):
- Inactividade do telefone 28% (Inactivity off phone)*
- Wi-Fi 21%
- Telefone inactivo 15% (Phone inactivity)*
* This 2 things arent the same?
I have a few questions:
1º - I have read about people who can have phone about 2 or 3 days, others with 20h or more. What is the most accurate and normal on this phone?
2º - If wi-fi always turned on, will drain battery?
3º - Why most off % is used when phone is inactivity?
Sometimes the phone dont loose battery when "sleeping" (it take 2h to loose 1%), but other times, when sleeping, battery drains 10% or more in one hour. I have read about a bug in Android OS that drains battery when phone sleeping. Does this bug applys in ALL ANDROID phones, or only Samsung? Read it on here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1290020
If I charge phone every day will get battery "addicted"?
One thing im shure: the 3 first itens on the screenshots are draining my battery whitout a reason (i can understand wi-fi, but can't understand why 2 things saying phone inactivity, uses 43% of battery)
In that screenshot, battery is on 60%, so I losted 40% in 6hours with 20 minutes of gaming... and on those 6 hours, almost half, phone was "sleeping", again, it shouldnt drain battery when sleeping.
Thanks in advance for your help
What's shown as draining your battery the most is your phone's cell standby (your 3G & 2G network, or 4G if you have it). The third on the list describes your phone when it's not in use (screen off). Don't worry about that one, a higher % only means your phone is often in standby.
Having Wi-Fi on will often use more battery than using your phone's own network. To save even more battery, turn off 3G connectivity when you're not using it (you will still receive calls, just no internet, but you use Wi-Fi anyway).
Charging your phone every day is perfectly fine, just make sure you unplug it once it hits 100%. If you leave it plugged in while it's fully charged, it gets bad for the battery after a while.
That article about the battery drain in standby is likely just for Samsung devices. What is likely draining your battery are apps and services that run in the background and use the internet while in standby.
jacklebott said:
What's shown as draining your battery the most is your phone's cell standby (your 3G & 2G network, or 4G if you have it). The third on the list describes your phone when it's not in use (screen off). Don't worry about that one, a higher % only means your phone is often in standby.
Having Wi-Fi on will often use more battery than using your phone's own network. To save even more battery, turn off 3G connectivity when you're not using it (you will still receive calls, just no internet, but you use Wi-Fi anyway).
Charging your phone every day is perfectly fine, just make sure you unplug it once it hits 100%. If you leave it plugged in while it's fully charged, it gets bad for the battery after a while.
That article about the battery drain in standby is likely just for Samsung devices. What is likely draining your battery are apps and services that run in the background and use the internet while in standby.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
95% of the time, 3G connection is OFF. I use Wi-fi connections, because I have many hotspots for it...
I don't have many APPs and the ones that I have installed (non-stock apps), dont run in background.
Today, I turned off wi-fi, and only turned on when need, and for more than 2 hours, only losted 1% of battery (have takken photos, and made phone calls only).
After this I used wi-fi for 20 minutes, and losted 8% off battery. So I think, Wi-fi is the problem. Please correct me if im wrong:
- If I have wi-fi always on, phone is always searching for wi-fi connections, even when sleeping, so battery drains much faster.
As you can see on the screenshot, with no wi-fi, for a little bit more than 2hours, only 1% of battery losted
Well you answered your question. Wifi is the problem. If it searches for wifi networks all of the time the battery will surely drain.
Definitely Wifi. It absolutely murders my battery when I forget to turn it off when I'm not using it.
Yes... for shure... its crazy like hell... lol... half an hour playing... half an hour surfing (youtube for my son... i put videos for him, once in a while)... and wi-fi drained more battery than gamming (FIFA 2010, Angry Birds, Spider-Man... also my son played)... funny thing, he has 20 months old, and love Xplay, more than me...
So... the hole day, I kept wi-fi turned off, and only turn it on, when needed... more than 12h latter, still have 62% off battery... and for the first time, will not charge this night...
Was so simple, as turning wi-fi off... check the screens...
Thanks all that helped
Basically when I first got my phone it would loose maybe 1-5% battery overnight and in some instances still say 100% and I could get to the evening of the next day on the same charge, only using around 40-45% battery before I went back to sleep.
Now thought it's being a right git.
Took it off charge last night and woke up to find it only on 68% battery that's way too much drain overnight, in the processes 50% of that was phone idle, of which it used 60mAh.
Wifi was on but everything was disabled in the power settings, and I have left it on before and those were the nights i usually lost about 6-7% battery but never to this level.
I have no idea what's causing it
This has been happening to a friend of mine with his G4, and we were able to 'fix' it by switching the network to CDMA only. I know that it's not really a fix, especially if you don't have Wifi and use the internet a lot, but it'll let you use your battery for at least a day.