Develop Bugs

Solution to battery drain issue

Hi all, based on my experience of flashing various different ROMs, most of the ROM shouldn't have the battery drain issue. However, I discovered some times after flashing a new ROM the device gets much warmer and the battery drains very quickly.
When this happens the best solution is to shutdown the device, pull the battery out for 5 minutes or so to let it cool down. Then put it back and turn on the device and the battery drain problem should be resolved.
I haven't been able to find the reason behind that but it does make a big difference. With one of the ROM I flashed, the battery went from 100% to flat in less than a day even when no WiFi and no bluetooth are turned on. Then I recharged the device, pulled the battery out to let it cool down and put it back. After that the battery went back to normal with only around 3% consumption overnight.

I guess this is because with a flash of a new ROM the learned parameters for the battery will be erased, too:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20020105303.html
So the more charging/draining cycles you do this should improve again.

[Q] Huge Battery Drain after Phone reparation

I've brought my Desire Z back for reparation (Mainboard died and replaced by an official repair center).
I've bringed it with my stock Battery fully loaded (I took it from the charger and 30 minutes later it died). When i picked it up, the battery was totally empty. Nothing in it. The Phone didn't even turned on!
It taked a while on the charger, but finally it turned on and was charged to 100% in normal time.
Since that, I experience a huge battery drain. When I release my phone from the charger on 7.30AM, it is dead on 4.30PM with no use! No SMS, phonecall, nothing. Only Gmail sync.
I've tried different ROM's (With- and without sense) and did restore my phone to stock. It doesn't solve my problem, the drain still stays huge, even with no apps installed!!!
I've tried another battery > same problem!
What can this be? Normally, my Desire Z last about 1,5 days oder 2 days when nothing happens. Why it's draining so fast, even if it's not used?
What can I do to resolve this ??

JassyNL said:
I've brought my Desire Z back for reparation (Mainboard died and replaced by an official repair center).
I've bringed it with my stock Battery fully loaded (I took it from the charger and 30 minutes later it died). When i picked it up, the battery was totally empty. Nothing in it. The Phone didn't even turned on!
It taked a while on the charger, but finally it turned on and was charged to 100% in normal time.
Since that, I experience a huge battery drain. When I release my phone from the charger on 7.30AM, it is dead on 4.30PM with no use! No SMS, phonecall, nothing. Only Gmail sync.
I've tried different ROM's (With- and without sense) and did restore my phone to stock. It doesn't solve my problem, the drain still stays huge, even with no apps installed!!!
I've tried another battery > same problem!
What can this be? Normally, my Desire Z last about 1,5 days oder 2 days when nothing happens. Why it's draining so fast, even if it's not used?
What can I do to resolve this ??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
try a new battery? Reset battery stats and give it a few days to actually get accurate readings? 8 hours isn't unheard of especially if your battery is giving up the ghost. give those thigns a try and maybe turn off sync and/or data to see if that makes a differance.

killj0y said:
try a new battery? Reset battery stats and give it a few days to actually get accurate readings? 8 hours isn't unheard of especially if your battery is giving up the ghost. give those thigns a try and maybe turn off sync and/or data to see if that makes a differance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! I've already tried a new battery, but that makes no sense.
I'm now draining it to zero, i.e. when it's fully dead, and then charge it to 100% for 8 hours. When it's charged, i'll wipe battery stats. Let's see.
When anybody has more tips, i'm pleased to hear them!

Here's a tip: don't drain your battery to zero. This is a great way to shorten the life of the battery, or completely ruin it.
For purposes of battery meter calibration, draining to 10-20% is plenty sufficient.

There should be no problem draining a battery to zero as shown by software. There is a myth/misunderstanding that this is a bad thing because people confuse it with the fact that Lithium Ion batteries can be permanently damaged if they are drained too low.
BUT any device using such batteries will have its circuitry setup to have 0% set to a point above this damaging threshold.
So the "too low" point in hardware is likely to be below the zero point that the phone's firmware and software will let you go to.
Sent from my Desire Z running CM7.

redpoint73 said:
Here's a tip: don't drain your battery to zero. This is a great way to shorten the life of the battery, or completely ruin it.
For purposes of battery meter calibration, draining to 10-20% is plenty sufficient.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
x2 I concur with this. No need to fully discharge the battery, one it probably doesn't even fully discharge because I'm pretty sure the software is saving you from yourself, plus when the battery stats are uncalibrated I'm fairly certain it reads as discharged but in fact is only partially thus the calibration is off. Lastly I'm if the opinion that throwing different charge levels works better because it more closely resembles real life charging situations. Also letting it charge for that long does nothing because the phone charges only a trickle when full in order to not ruin the battery, similar to a laptop. Overcharge protection....

Thanks again!
Now I did charge it to full and wiped Battery stats.
After 1hour 30 minutes, it lost 10%. Did only send 2 short mails with Gmail.
Here is the usage chart:
- Screen 54% (Time active 4m 51s), Brightness ~20%
- Mobile Stand-By 20% (Time active 1u 26m 13s)
- Phone inactive 18% (Time Active 1u 21m 21s)
- Gmail 5% (CPU Total 31s, CPU Foreground 25s, enabled 51s)
- Android OS 3% (CPU Total 21s)
CPU is on idle ~10%, as always. I don't see any apps that are burning my battery.
s there something abnormal here?

just compared it with my statistics (running virtuous affinity)...
Mobile Stand-By seems to be very high... i have 4% (time active 2 h 30 m)
maybe radio related?

hoffmas said:
just compared it with my statistics (running virtuous affinity)...
Mobile Stand-By seems to be very high... i have 4% (time active 2 h 30 m)
maybe radio related?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This stats come from Virtuous Affinity also. I'd had never had any problems with such a drain with my 'old phone'. As soon as I got it back from the repair center, the battery drain is huge.
I've reflashed the latest radio for my phone, made a Superwipe and made a fresh install of Viruous Affinity. Let's see.

I think that 'Cell Standby' is killing my battery. It is at the top of the usage list with 38% and it's all time active. My phone was left it's charger at 7.15AM, now at 9.00AM it lost 20% of it's battery on idle use only. On 9.00AM, I've turned my phone on airplane mode. Let's see if that works.
I will recover the phone to stock tonight. If this isn't working, I'll return the phone to the store.

Even with the phone on airplane mode the battery is heavily draining. My last escape is to remove the SD Card. If the draining continues, then I will bring my phone back.

Does the battery came hot? Like more than normal?
With temp+cpu app you can monitor your temperature.
Because if on idle the temperature's around 25-28 C, you should be alright.
And then you can consider what steviewevie said; lithium battery can be damaged if you go on a too low voltage. Even if the phone as his ''protection'' to not get the battery to a critical level, the battery can loose power even if its not used.
Lithium ion, its cool but not perfect.
Try a OEM brand new battery.

steviewevie said:
There should be no problem draining a battery to zero as shown by software. There is a myth/misunderstanding that this is a bad thing because people confuse it with the fact that Lithium Ion batteries can be permanently damaged if they are drained too low.
BUT any device using such batteries will have its circuitry setup to have 0% set to a point above this damaging threshold.
So the "too low" point in hardware is likely to be below the zero point that the phone's firmware and software will let you go to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've seen plenty of people on XDA with this phone and others that have rendered their battery unable to charge by letting it discharge to zero. Yes, there are failsafes meant to prevent over-discharge, but they apparently do not always work. The damage is not "permanent" in that its just the protection circuit of the battery kicking in. But the only way to bring the battery back from "sleeping" is with a special battery meter with boost function, which most people do not have access to. So for all practical purposes, its cheaper to just buy a new battery.
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/low_voltage_cut_off
Yes, over-discharge will not LIKELY kill your battery in this way. But there is no point in taking the risk. The battery meter is far from accurate in the best of conditions. So there is zero benefit to letting the battery drain to zero, as opposed to 10 or 20 %, just for the benefit of calibrating the battery meter.
Also, even if over-discharge does not instantly "kill" the battery, running full cycles at the least will shorten the overall life of the battery. Its best to avoid full cycles and charge often.
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/do_and_dont_battery_table
Now this is just my experience from reading the experiences of others on XDA. I know there are hardware techs that can give much more first hand experience with batteries and may disagree. But as I figure, better safe than sorry. Especially when you consider there is no real benefit to letting it drain to zero on purpose.

oVeRdOsE. said:
Does the battery came hot? Like more than normal?
With temp+cpu app you can monitor your temperature.
Because if on idle the temperature's around 25-28 C, you should be alright.
And then you can consider what steviewevie said; lithium battery can be damaged if you go on a too low voltage. Even if the phone as his ''protection'' to not get the battery to a critical level, the battery can loose power even if its not used.
Lithium ion, its cool but not perfect.
Try a OEM brand new battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The temp of the battery don't exceed 28 degrees, I test this with Battery Indicator Pro. When discharged, the Voltage is around 3,6 (Which is normal behaviour). When charged, it,s 4,2V which is normal also.
I have already tried a new battery, and it doesn't make sense. Same behaviour.
I'm really clueless, because it drains the battery always. Airplane mode an removal of the SD card makes no difference.
I will return to stock tonight, charge again, and see if it behaves the same. When yes, then I will return the phone as I don't accept such behaviour (Normally, my Battery last 30+ Hours on idle).
Thanks for your tips and help for so far! I will report.

[Q] Verizon Nexus Battery percentage going up?

I have been noticing something strange. I have gotten in the habit of draining my battery down to single digits before charging in an attempt to keep my battery life up. I usually use netflix on 4g to do this as it does a pretty good job of sucking the juice down quickly.
A few times I have noticed that after I shutdown netflix and let the phone sit a little while that the percentage actually goes back up. For example, I kill netflix at 4% battery left. I set the phone down for a bit and when I pick it back up the battery is at 10%. I have seen this multiple times.
Just curious if anyone else has noticed this and anyone has an explanation for why this happens.

I believe it has to do with the battery meter displaying how much battery you have left based on what you are doing? So when you stopped being resource intensive it adjusted itself.
That's one explanation I have heard.. there is also one that has to do with the amount of current going to the battery.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

trevoryour said:
I have been noticing something strange. I have gotten in the habit of draining my battery down to single digits before charging in an attempt to keep my battery life up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't answer your question directly as there could be multiple reasons. (Battery capacity estimation is tricky business, and I don't know what algorithm they're using.)
But I can tell you that the common belief that one ought to discharge batteries before recharging them is not applicable to modern lithium batteries.
I was (to some extent) true for old-fashioned NiCd cells, but modern Li-ion cells shouldn't be excessively discharged. If you want to prolong battery life it's more important to keep the battery cool. (Lithium cells degrade much faster at elevated temperatures.)
(To contradict myself I have to add that the battery capacity calculation can be improved by discharging the battery completely from time to time - but again, this depends on the battery capacity calculation algorithm they're using.)

I understand the way current battery tech works. The discharge is not for the battery itself. Its for the Android OS. I have noticed that whenever I plug my phone in in the middle of the day, the next day my battery doesn't last as long. In fact the poor battery life will remain an issue for about a week until it levels itself back out. I have noticed this behavior on multiple phones by multiple manufacturers.
You end up going in a circle. You use heavy data one day and as a result you have to plug in in the middle of the day. The next day your battery doesn't last as long so you plug in again. Unless you allow your phone enough time to level back out then it will always appear that your battery life is aweful. Since i've been discharging my battery I am able to unplug my phone at 7:30 am, use it moderately all day with GPS, Bluetooth, 4G on/wifi off with a live wallpaper running. At 11:30pm when its time for bed I still have around 60-70% battery remaining. I find myself having to watch a few hours of netflix on 4g in order to drain the battery so I can plug it in.
I'm not sure if this behavior is a result of an issue with the battery stats file or what but I do know that when I flash a new ROM it appears my battery life is reset to how it was before I had shortened it by plugging in the middle of the day.

many of us have seen the percent rise slightly, its normal. when under heavy load watching videos or something and then you are finished, the voltage gets relaxed and pops up some. since this phone uses some type of voltage calculation to determine percent, it will jump up once in a rare while, typically right after you placed it under heavy load then went to idle.
it's normal..

Battery Meter or Voltage Meter problem?

My G2 gets ghastly battery life. I've tried Juice Defender and I've recalibrated more times than I can remember. Most notifications are turned off and I'm conservative about powering off the various radios when I'm not using them. It wasn't always like that. I felt like I was getting most of a full day on one charge and loving it for many months, but something happened last summer I think. Maybe dust or moisture affected the phone. I've got a total of six batteries and three external battery chargers. No battery whether it's the OEM original, 1500mah spares that were amazing before, or the new 1800mah evo shift 4g batteries I tried out, will last more than about four hours from full charge to the 15% warning sound.
I've tried only charging in the phone. I've tried rotating batteries charged in the external chargers. Like I said, I've tried calibration scenarios of various kinds.
Last night, I took a fully charged 1800mah battery and put it in my phone and then charged the battery in the phone. The orange led never turns green when the phone is off. When the phone is on, I can just barely get the led to turn green at about 91% (starting from what should be a full charge that is reported as 80% by the phone). This takes a good 10 hours of charging. As soon as I woke the phone this morning, the battery meter started dropping while the phone was still plugged in. After unplugging, the meter drops to 80% in a matter of a few minutes.
Like I said, I tried juice defender. It only helps a little but the cost is waiting for the data radio to reconnect every time I wake the phone. I thought BT was the culprit for a while, but now it really doesn't matter if I leave it on or turn it off.
At the other end of the charge, the phone can run for several hours when the battery is supposedly between 1 and 3%. I know we are told to start charging again at 15% but my phone drops to that level in 3-4 hours of regular use. I haven't seen the phone report 100% charge on any battery in six months time, but it runs and runs at 1%. This is what bugs me. Is the phone just mis-reading how many milivolts are coming out of the battery? Why can't I complete the first step of calibration (charge overnight to the 100% mark)? Is there a hardware component that can be causing this or should it be entirely fixable in software?
Thanks for any ideas or tips

Did you wipe battery stats?
Sent from your phone

waxinpoetic said:
Did you wipe battery stats?
Sent from your phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I have many times but thanks for the suggestion.

Figured so.. Too bad, would have been too easy. I'm starting to see some batttery drain on my desire z now too. Im wondering if mine is a radio issue.
Sent from your phone

waxinpoetic said:
Figured so.. Too bad, would have been too easy. I'm starting to see some batttery drain on my desire z now too. Im wondering if mine is a radio issue.
Sent from your phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I changed radios and did RIL matching last fall based on other's comments about better battery life, 4G and GPS. While I've had faster GPS locks and maybe better 4G performance, my battery life did not improve. It may have even gotten worse.
Today I'm trying out some different CPU governor settings. The CM 7.2 RC1 default is 'interactive' and I wouldn't normally touch those settings. I think the powersave governor helped a lot, but the phone became almost unresponsive. Trying 'conservative' now. I should have read This long ago, but just got around to it today. I might invest in the SetCPU app as well.

OK, I can count on a good six hours of normal use if setCPU is holding down the max cpu frequency at night or when the screen is off. I'm still tweaking. Today, the phone crashed while playing music over A2DP and tracking a run with runkeeper. I think it needs to tick faster than 368Mhz when the screen is off.

Are you seeing improvement? I changed radios and like you havent seen much improvement. But I am a little better off than you are. My battery drain is terrible (1-3%per minute) only when connected to the internet (4g or wifi) or using navigation. If the screen is off, or if Im using non-internet apps I seem to get regular battery use. Good luck with your cpu settings.. I have ordered a new battery, but I doubt it will solve my issue. I may try tweaking my settings too soon, but Id better research more.

Just wondering do you have SuperCharger V6 installed? On my Desire Z I had some serious battery problems just as you mentioned. After I would flash my ROM (wiping the caches + reinstalling) my battery life would return to normal. But whenever I would flash SuperCharger v6 my battery life would spiral out of control. My suggestion for a ROM that handles battery life fairly well is Andromadus Audacity B2, just make sure you download and flash GAPPs (google apps). For example running that rom I have been getting very good battery life, approx. 16-20 hours of battery life with moderate use) with default CPU settings and data always turned on. I'm sure if you use Juice Defender to control your data you'll get above average battery life.
Note: Andromadus is an ICS (android 4.0) ROM

Qwerty_Uieo said:
Just wondering do you have SuperCharger V6 installed? On my Desire Z I had some serious battery problems just as you mentioned. After I would flash my ROM (wiping the caches + reinstalling) my battery life would return to normal. But whenever I would flash SuperCharger v6 my battery life would spiral out of control. My suggestion for a ROM that handles battery life fairly well is Andromadus Audacity B2, just make sure you download and flash GAPPs (google apps). For example running that rom I have been getting very good battery life, approx. 16-20 hours of battery life with moderate use) with default CPU settings and data always turned on. I'm sure if you use Juice Defender to control your data you'll get above average battery life.
Note: Andromadus is an ICS (android 4.0) ROM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks (and thanked) Ive been waiting till ICS roms are bug free and having working cameras, but I think I may just jump on it now. My battery issues are untenable at the moment on a CM7 based rom. Thanks for the advice.

I was seeing some improvement due to SetCPU profiles. However, now if I have GPS and Bluetooth on so that I can listen to music and track my run in runkeeper, the phone seems to 'crash' after about 35 minutes or so. The battery meter shows that the battery takes a nose dive and I think the phone shuts down at 1%. If I restart the phone, it might say I have 30 or 40% charge left but then it drops rapidly again. It seems like it hates the warmth of my pocket. If I let the phone out in the cool air like on my desk, I can reboot at get back to 60 or 70% even though it was just saying 3%. I'm not running SuperCharger.
I'm trying to find cheap G2s for parts on ebay now. Maybe I can at least test out my six batteries in a different phone to see if any of them are shot. They all seem to have the same problems in my phone.

This will be my final update. I bought a used G2 off ebay. The same batteries I used before now show as fully charged when I expect them to be fully charged. I will be getting a feel for general battery life over the next few days, but I expect battery life to be roughly the same. I just won't have to guess at what the current battery level really is.
I'm seeing now that the new phone will show a 60% charge when the old phone shows 15% for the same battery at about the same time.
The new phone shows 100% when topped off but if I put the topped off battery in my old phone, I see 75-80% charge.
I may try sending the old phone to HTC depending on what they offer for repair services.

revwillie said:
I bought a used G2 off ebay. ... the new phone will show a 60% charge when the old phone shows 15% for the same battery at about the same time
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think what's happened to your old phone (and mine!) is that the onboard voltmeter chip is reading low. I've compared the on-board mV reading to a multimeter-measured battery voltage and what the phone reads as 3.9V the multimeter gets 4.2V (a fully charged Li-Ion battery).
Who knows what's behind it, but it seems like a hardware problem to me.

Battery drains faster as % is lower

I've had my Note 3 for a month now, and I noticed that after 90% the battery starts to drain a bit faster.
For example, between 100 and 90%, it takes about 6-8 minutes to drain 1% while doing something simple like using Facebook, reading an article, instant messaging, texting, etc. This is on Wi-Fi.
But as the battery goes lower and lower, it drains faster.. by the time it's in the 30s or 40s, it takes only 3-5 minutes to drain 1% while doing the same general activities. This is also on Wi-Fi. Even idle drain is faster.
By the time it gets to 20%, it's a bit faster... didn't keep track though.
Most of the times I have charged it were like this: full charge -> full drain -> full charge -> full drain.. etc
I have also tried the popular Battery Calibration app. It didn't seem to have any effect.
It is rooted, and I have frozen some bloatware (mostly some Samsung & T-Mobile apps).
I have not tried a factory reset yet.
Is this happening to anyone else? Maybe my battery is defective?

I wouldn't full drain your battery often. Try to keep it above ~20% if you can. Draining it low like that wears out the battery much quicker. Trying not to charge it to 100% helps also but that is harder to do and need a kernel that can support setting max charge.
But yes I noticed that battery does seem to drain a little bit faster after about 90%. Not a big difference though. And you shouldn't sweat it. Battery chips and batteries tend to have different characteristics from phone to phone and battery to battery to battery. Even though it should be an exact science, exact science battery chips cost a lot more. My note2 took forever to get off 100% but once it hit 99% battery drain was very consistent. Less so in note 3 but more or less consistent. Don't sweat it. I would worry more about trying not to drain your battery so low if you can. Your battery will perform best and last much longer if you can keep it between 20-80% but that is OCD. Just let it do its thing. Early android phones were terrible mostly at being accurate and consistent.
sent from my sm-9005.