Develop Bugs

[Official][MODS LOOK!] Best kernel/ROM combinations for increased battery life!

When I first joined this forum, I was very impressed with how responsive the XDA community was to answer my questions. I have gained loads of valuable information that has helped me along my way with my EVO. I had one goal in mind; I wanted to customize and modify to increase my battery life. the Q and A forum was the first one that I turned to. I would instinctively try searching for things such as "best battery saving kernels" or "Which rom will provide me with the best battery life" and etc. Of course there are hundreds of threads with people asking these types of questions, the only problem is that they are outdated! I have only been active in this forum for a better part of 2 weeks and it seems like there is a new or beta out every other day!
Developers are quicker than ever releasing new kernels and roms so it makes it difficult to get a defined answer! I figured that the best solution to this would be to have a stickied thread with the community posting there results through testing or just opinion in general, that way it will help stop all of the "best rom" or "best kernel" threads. It would be a great resource to not only people that are new to the forum but for those looking to stay up to date with the best of the best.
Now onto the purpose of this thread.
I realize that everyones phone is different. And that what is best for one phone, may not be best for another phone.
Still I think that a generalization would be very helpful when trying to decide what's best.
Here goes:
Kernel Testing Reports: AOSP and Non AOSP Kernels here: http://home.comcast.net/~ttechnology/htc.html(Not my work, all credit goes to Skyler.
What are your favorite kernel/rom combinations for saving battery life?
Feel free to report your testing results and attach screenshots of juice plotter and etc!
Hopefully the whole XDA community can help keep this updated for reference at any point in time!
With all that said, hopefully I will catch a mods attention and have a chance of this getting stickied.

11/2/2010Myn's 2.2 with Baked Kernel #6
This was my first day testing this combination with moderate to heavy usage. Battery life was not very good for me. I will be trying this again tomorrow to give my phone time to adjust better. Screenshot attached.

Bump...report your kernel/rom history and what has worked best for you!

Well I thought it was a good idea anyways

my battery life on CM6.1. Stock kernel.

david279 said:
my battery life on CM6.1. Stock kernel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's awesome battery life...how was your usage? Like your dock btw, is that LauncherPro?

jhoffy22 said:
That's awesome battery life...how was your usage? Like your dock btw, is that LauncherPro?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used it sparingly. Some twidroid, some browser, some freecell, a call or two and EVAC(great game). Yea its launcher pro. I grey'ed out everything like the status bar and notification bar. Made it gingerbread like. Or what rumors say gingerbread will look like.....

fresh 3.4, nets 4.2 bfs agressive , been getting 90ma screen off and around 200ma screen on.
i'm really interested to see other battery draw compared to mine.

david279 said:
I used it sparingly. Some twidroid, some browser, some freecell, a call or two and EVAC(great game). Yea its launcher pro. I grey'ed out everything like the status bar and notification bar. Made it gingerbread like. Or what rumors say gingerbread will look like.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very cool, hopefully more people will become involved with this thread and it can stay up to date. Thanks for you input!

i just got 1d 6hrs out of my evo.
I would categorize my usage as moderate (facebook, texting, phone calls, some game playing, maps, music playing)
Fresh 3.2 w/ launcherpro mem set to high (sense removed)
Stock Kernal 2.6.32.15-g3a8614e
Underclocked w/ SetCPU (screen off 245/screen on 652 max)
Autokiller set to "Extreme"
4g turned off most part of day since i dont get a signal at work.
Turned airplane mode on the second night (went to bed with 6% left...woke up with 6% haha).
Forgot to add
I have always on mobile turned off and background data disabled (only thing noticed with these settings is that 3G wakes up a lil slower when turning on screen and you cannot go to the market unless you turn background data which is okay for me because i pretty much have all the apps i want.)

evo4ger said:
i just got 1d 6hrs out of my evo.
I would categorize my usage as moderate (facebook, texting, phone calls, some game playing, maps)
Fresh 3.2 w/ launcherpro mem set to high (sense removed)
Stock Kernal 2.6.32.15-g3a8614e
Underclocked w/ SetCPU (screen off 245/screen on 652 max)
Autokiller set to "Extreme"
4g turned off most part of day since i dont get a signal at work.
Turned airplane mode on the second night (went to bed with 6% left...woke up with 6% haha).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
autokiller...like the old autokiller app used back with the sprint hero. I don't think thats needed with froyo.

evo4ger said:
i just got 1d 6hrs out of my evo.
I would categorize my usage as moderate (facebook, texting, phone calls, some game playing, maps)
Fresh 3.2 w/ launcherpro mem set to high (sense removed)
Stock Kernal 2.6.32.15-g3a8614e
Underclocked w/ SetCPU (screen off 245/screen on 652 max)
Autokiller set to "Extreme"
4g turned off most part of day since i dont get a signal at work.
Turned airplane mode on the secondt (went to bed with 6% left...woke up with 6% haha).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like Fresh 3.2 stock is very good battery life. I have heard this before just never tried it out. 30 hours is a long time on a single charge with moderate usage.

david279 said:
autokiller...like the old autokiller app used back with the sprint hero. I don't think thats needed with froyo.[/QUOTE/
I've heard the same thing, that Froyo does a great job of managing background apps and etc. However, when I look in my systempanel app I still see a lot of background stuff running that I didn't even know about, and a ton of apps running in the background.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I don't get many apps running wild in the background for me. Um...

I'm pretty new to all this and just recently started trying a non-stock setup and it has been giving me really nice battery results. I don't have have any graphs or screen shots, but the first time i tried to fully drain it on purpose had me laughing hysterically. I was running 100% brightness, wifi, gps, bluetooth and pandora. The darn thing ran for like 5-6 hours straight. I couldn't believe it. seemed ridiculous.
took it to disney yesterday on a full charge. made a handfull of calls and a bunch of texts. checked the weather and a few other misc. things.
came home with 80-75 battery life. was very impressed.
i never got this kind of performance on stock.
Here's my setup:
Myn's TwoPointTwo RLS2
netarchy 4.1.9.1 NoHavs Universal
Collin_ph Battery Tweak by Myn

SpaceMonky said:
I'm pretty new to all this and just recently started trying a non-stock setup and it has been giving me really nice battery results. I don't have have any graphs or screen shots, but the first time i tried to fully drain it on purpose had me laughing hysterically. I was running 100% brightness, wifi, gps, bluetooth and pandora. The darn thing ran for like 5-6 hours straight. I couldn't believe it. seemed ridiculous.
took it to disney yesterday on a full charge. made a handfull of calls and a bunch of texts. checked the weather and a few other misc. things.
came home with 80-75 battery life. was very impressed.
i never got this kind of performance on stock.
Here's my setup:
Myn's TwoPointTwo RLS2
netarchy 4.1.9.1 NoHavs Universal
Collin_ph Battery Tweak by Myn
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very nice to see others having success with the battery tweak! It is still my primary go-to for when I know I count on good battery life. Did you happen to check out my guide in my signature?

well from what i read autokiller is not like a "task killer". It modifies/improves how android kills processes if that makes any sense.
been working for me...

We need to be using more descriptive scripts/apps to be comparing such.
For example my ROM is heavily stripped down/modded.
Also consider that everyone should be clearing caches and allowing them to rebuild before testing.
Not to mention anyone who has a flush active (use "top -m 5 -n 1" to see) will have much lower performance.

Neotelos_com said:
We need to be using more descriptive scripts/apps to be comparing such.
For example my ROM is heavily stripped down/modded.
Also consider that everyone should be clearing caches and allowing them to rebuild before testing.
Not to mention anyone who has a flush active (use "top -m 5 -n 1" to see) will have much lower performance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How long do think your phone needs to rebuild a clean cache? A couple days or so?

jhoffy22 said:
How long do think your phone needs to rebuild a clean cache? A couple days or so?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Probably a couple hours of usage with some reboots in-between.

[Q] Desire eating battery more than usual

Currently I am using this RomHere
(I was forced to because when I flashed an update to the Superuser app, it worked fine, but when I turned it off for the night, the phone wouldn't get past the 'HTC' startup screen, and trying to factory reset/ flash an RUU didn't work)
When I was using stock Froyo, the battery life was moderate. It *normally* used to go down around 1% every 2 hours or so in idle. Since I've flashed this new rom, it seems to go down 1% every 30 minutes instead, Even with the screen off and the phone fully off, the battery drains horribly quickly.
Any solutions?

That is the rome, dude. Sense2.1+3.0 drains more battery than stock froyo. That's the price. And 2%/h is not bad for sense roms.

MatDrOiD said:
That is the rome, dude. Sense2.1+3.0 drains more battery than stock froyo. That's the price. And 2%/h is not bad for sense roms.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's that bad? Is it the whole of Sense which drains it, or more specific apps/widgets?

Zenamez said:
It's that bad? Is it the whole of Sense which drains it, or more specific apps/widgets?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, imho it's not.
Sense and the inherent runnig apps/widgets.
But with setcpu and a screen off profile (245 min 245 max @ondemand governor) you can really improve your battery standby power. You can download this paid app here for free, because you are an xda user:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=505419

MatDrOiD said:
No, imho it's not.
Sense and the inherent runnig apps/widgets.
But with setcpu and a screen off profile (245 min 245 max @ondemand governor) you can really improve your battery standby power. You can download this paid app here for free, because you are an xda user:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=505419
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Out of interest, does it damage the phone if it's underclocked? I'm just worried that I'll burn the CPU out f it is underclocked and clocked back to stock if I frequently turn the screen for mundane tasks like checking the time.

I recently flashed to that ROM too - and I agree, battery power seems to be draining slightly more quickly than what it was originally (it could be because I'm playing around with settings and exploring new features). But probably not so much more that I'd be worried... left it charging overnight, and seems like I will be able to get a full day of normal use out of it (currently ~65% left and ~3hrs till i get back home).
Maybe double check your sync settings? possibly they've reverted back to sync-ing more often?
Otherwise, I guess you can go for a lighter ROM (i believe cyanogenmod will use less battery since it doesn't have Sense UI).

Actually, the battery does go down faster on InsertCoin 1.0.8 if you use all the Sense 3.0 goodies for example the weather lock screens, weather widgets, and the windmill-thing live wallpaper, which also changes its apperance with the weather.
Those literally suck the battery out, 40% only in 3-4 hours.
I have tried to deactivate those and the battery live is back to normal.
...the only problem is...those goodies will make your Desire super duper beautiful...it was for me a very hard choice to turn those off

Zenamez said:
Out of interest, does it damage the phone if it's underclocked? I'm just worried that I'll burn the CPU out f it is underclocked and clocked back to stock if I frequently turn the screen for mundane tasks like checking the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dunno about that but nothing bad has happened by me and I have been using setcpu for more than 8 months.
I use set cpu to speed up my Desire a bit, I set it to 128 - 1136 with smartass governor. (carefull by setting higher frequencies)
tips for battery saving:
- turn off sense sync and any unwanted syncs
- reduce sync intervals.
- turn off automatic brightness control, and set it as low as possible but keeping it still visible.
- use smartass or interactive govenor on setcpu.
- turn the internet connection off if you are on low signal strength.

aaa said:
Actually, the battery does go down faster on InsertCoin 1.0.8 if you use all the Sense 3.0 goodies for example the weather lock screens, weather widgets, and the windmill-thing live wallpaper, which also changes its apperance with the weather.
Those literally suck the battery out, 40% only in 3-4 hours.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, the more animation, the more battery use. I think the only one I use now is the weather widget... though I actually prefer the old sense 'simple' animation, not a fan of the sense 3.0 videos... got to find a way to revert to the old one! (using clock lock screen.... prob chews up bit more battery than plain wallpaper, but oh so pretty!)

Battery ??

I'm down to 25% after only nine hours and I don't understand why.. Lol I'm confused for real I thought rooting would improve it. And I've only actually used the phone for probably 50 minutes. Any help or suggestions
Sent from my Dinc running cm7 with incredikernel

search around for suggestions. to start off control data usage,sync control,use auto brightness,turn toggles off you don't need uninstall or freeze apps especially those that run in background for no reason that fail to cache. use a different kernel. do some undervolting. overclock and underclock when necessary.use tasker to setup screen off/on profiles for different min/max frequency ranges and governor selection,use apps to monitor usage such as drain guard and cpu spy. check apps that hog too much unwanted usage. the list goes on. if you do your research you could save yourself 70% of battery usage. using tasker alone saved me around 30%. for example my phone is fully charged before bed,I sleep about 6-8 hours while listening to music and I have about 80% once I'm awake.nothing on besides the phone's cellular radio,no gps,no data on,no 3g,no wifi,etc. not even airplane mode so sms isn't queued all night. tasker can also auto turn off gps once gps based apps are killed so it's not always on,plenty of threads on battery saving tips,majority aren't all device specific so they're universal tips

wayneb02 said:
I'm down to 25% after only nine hours and I don't understand why.. Lol I'm confused for real I thought rooting would improve it. And I've only actually used the phone for probably 50 minutes. Any help or suggestions
Sent from my Dinc running cm7 with incredikernel
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Rooting by itself won't do anything for battery life.

douger1957 said:
Rooting by itself won't do anything for battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought the kernel helped it. But Never mind on this post, I didn't realize that a friend downloaded a couple of apps that were running constantly in the background.
Sent from my Dinc running cm7 with incredikernel

wayneb02 said:
I thought the kernel helped it. But Never mind on this post, I didn't realize that a friend downloaded a couple of apps that were running constantly in the background.
Sent from my Dinc running cm7 with incredikernel
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
agreed rooting won't do anything for your phone unless you put it to good use (uninstalling bloat apps, loading a custom more battery and performance efficient kernel, same with a better ROM, as well as countless performance/battery mods)
There are so many ways to improve performance and battery life on your phone with root, but you have to actually apply them to your phone.

POQbum said:
agreed rooting won't do anything for your phone unless you put it to good use (uninstalling bloat apps, loading a custom more battery and performance efficient kernel, same with a better ROM, as well as countless performance/battery mods)
There are so many ways to improve performance and battery life on your phone with root, but you have to actually apply them to your phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you mean battery mods? I'm new to all of this in case you can't tell lol
Sent from my Dinc running cm7 with incredikernel

wayneb02 said:
What do you mean battery mods? I'm new to all of this in case you can't tell lol
Sent from my Dinc running cm7 with incredikernel
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well I probably worded that wrong. There's mods you can do that will improve battery performance.
Check here and scroll down to the bottom where it shows performance mods:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=969371
As a personal suggestion.
ROM: CM7 latest nightly
after you flash the ROM, flash the latest Gingerbread [AOSP] kernel:
http://www.incredikernel.com/?page_id=10
2.6.38.8 incredikernel 10/08/2011 (3277)
Then apply:
Adrenaline Shotv12.zip - found on
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1236779
Convert2Ext4_no_data_limit_dalvik_moved.zip - found on
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1315372
Then proceed to uninstall the crap apps you don't want.
Then customize the mutha lovin hell out of your phone with these apps:
Widget Locker
Launcher Pro Plus -or- Go Launcher
And use Android Kitchen to finish the sexification of your phone:
http://uot.dakra.lt/
You'll end up with an amazing phone that you'll cherish forever <3

POQbum said:
well I probably worded that wrong. There's mods you can do that will improve battery performance.
Check here and scroll down to the bottom where it shows performance mods:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=969371
As a personal suggestion.
ROM: CM7 latest nightly
after you flash the ROM, flash the latest Gingerbread [AOSP] kernel:
http://www.incredikernel.com/?page_id=10
2.6.38.8 incredikernel 10/08/2011 (3277)
Then apply:
Adrenaline Shotv12.zip - found on
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1236779
Convert2Ext4_no_data_limit_dalvik_moved.zip - found on
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1315372
Then proceed to uninstall the crap apps you don't want.
Then customize the mutha lovin hell out of your phone with these apps:
Widget Locker
Launcher Pro Plus -or- Go Launcher
And use Android Kitchen to finish the sexification of your phone:
http://uot.dakra.lt/
You'll end up with an amazing phone that you'll cherish forever <3
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All of this.
-My life is a shooting range, people never change-

Thanks a lot, guess I'm gonna have a fun playing with my phone tonight lol.
Sent from my Dinc running cm7 with incredikernel

before i flash adrenaline am i supposed to wipe anything?

Rooting doesn't improve battery life. usually a custom kernel or rom will improve battery life. It all depends what you are running in the background. With Nil's Gingersense 3.5 (2.2) and tiny's latest kernel I am getting unbelievable battery life. This is in part to how well both of these things work together along with the removal of all the bloatware. I have found that if you run Yahoo IM, it tends to kill your battery faster as well. Make sure to set most of your sync options to manual or every few hours as well. It won't impact your gmail or gtalk settings.

I understood that just rooting wouldn't change a thing. I just miss worded it lol. I was already running cm7 and incredikernel. I just hadn't realized I had 2 apps running in the background killing my battery

just flashed tinys last night and waiting to see how it works. I have two batteries and one lasts much better than the other and they have both been treated the same as far as charging and discharging....

Battery Life Short - Screen Drainage

I just installed CM7.2 v1.6 because I heard its very stable and have good battery life. However, with light usage, I only get 6 hours of battery life (I used to get at least 15 hrs with the same type of usage with my old incredible 1 using OMGB rom). I checked the battery history. Apparently, my screen has been draining battery DESPITE being off. Do you guys have a solution for this? Is it my kernel?

It very well could be. You are running stock kernal?

sjpritch25 said:
It very well could be. You are running stock kernal?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm running the kernel that came with the rom. The ICS 10.5 one.

What kernel settings are you using?
Sent from my ICS Dinc2

cstone1991 said:
What kernel settings are you using?
Sent from my ICS Dinc2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
245/1034 SmartassV2

My guess is it very well could be the kernel... but there is the possibility its the ROM.... I know with most ROMs I have tried I lose hours off my battery with them no matter what kernel I use.... try a different kernel but if it is still short I would suggest a different ROM.
Sent from my Incredible 2 using xda app-developers app

I used that kernel & didn't get good battery life either. I would try aeros v9 & see if that helps. I would wipe cache & dalvic cache & then let your phone drain completely. Afterwards, I would charge it fully & you should get at least a day & half
Sent from my HTC Incredible 2 using xda app-developers app

I use IC Tazz sense 3.6 and it seems to have a great battery life. You might want to give that one a shot.

i been i ituryar
wr442 said:
I use IC Tazz sense 3.6 and it seems to have a great battery life. You might want to give that one a shot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sweet. How many hours do you get with 3G on with minimal usage?

It's important to check, adjust & optimize your widget settings, and APPS running in the background, i.e. News & Weather, Mail & Gmail (push, updated every xx minutes,) timeout for screens (30 sec. vs. 2 minute) - along with Friendstream/Facebook & Twitter that are constant "on" - even GPS updates, as all these will "wake" up the phone, switch on 3G signal or WiFi radio, and discharge/drain the battery.
With very conservative and minimal data settings, wife's DI2 is running Skyraider's Zeus V1.3 custom Rom, #79 kernel & .312 radio, and getting as much as 5 days (100+ hours) of standby time with short voice calls, no web browsing or SMS/MMS usage.
Running Sense 2.1/3.0 custom roms, my results are worst, but typically 40 to 60, maybe 70 hours usage - with CM7 and CM9 unoffical roms, 30 to 50 hours are typical for me - the newer roms are power hungry - 20 to 40 hours running 4.x.x.x on my DI2, running modest OC (1.2 Ghz, SmartassV2 governor) with .312 radio and #21 kernel, or, Aero's 10.5 or 12 kernel.
Individual results will and do vary - generalization should be noted simply as such ...

[Q] ViperX battery drain problem?!

Hello, Guys
How can i solve this problem?. I use the Rom ViperX,
What Rome is better than ViperX for battery life?.
Please can you post Rom for me I'm new here.
Regards,

mkjacc said:
Hello, Guys
How can i solve this problem?. I use the Rom ViperX,
What Rome is better than ViperX for battery life?.
Please can you post Rom for me I'm new here.
Regards,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there's no solution to this, do not use your phone and that issue will be gone... ordroid has the best battery life out there.... however moderators don't like this kind of question so next time try by yourself and choose the best one

Turn off Google location service. It's causing battery drain on JB roms.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda app-developers app

i confirm viperx drains battery very fast...maybe turn the settings auto backlight lower can help

ViperX Rom has a lot of addons so has a big battery drain.
You can use battery apps (like Juice Defender or DS Battery Saver) to minimize battery using when the screen off

naytci said:
ViperX Rom has a lot of addons so has a big battery drain.
You can use battery apps (like Juice Defender or DS Battery Saver) to minimize battery using when the screen off
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me those kind of apps only reduces my battery life. And btw my battery life with viper is pretty good.
I think some app is causing you drain.
Sent from my HTC One X

AW: [Q] ViperX battery drain problem?!
bry590 said:
i confirm viperx drains battery very fast...maybe turn the settings auto backlight lower can help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Im fine with the battery drain of the Viper Rom. On my device it's a quite good improvement compared to Stock, but you should test youself which Rom is the best for you.
Cheers