Another thread about the battery! Sorry!

[benjiharris]

Hi guys,

This is just a quick thread simply to inform people of an experiment I did to improve my battery life. I devised it by mixing together two methods I found over a XDA which can be found here:

Official response from HTC RE: How to double battery Life (WORKS!) + 2nd Reply - xda-developers

And here:

Battery problem, try this. - xda-developers

I dont intend this thread to become a battery life competition with people boasting immense battery lives with everything on the phone turned off!

Now, when I first got my Desire, battery life was initially a small problem, but like many other have said - it takes a while to break in and after a few weeks it became a lot better. But I was still charging it every night really - admittedly not really a problem. But I decided to try to find a distraction from doing pharmacology revision - I would try to calibrate it using the two aforementioned threads at XDA.
The way I did it - which is just slightly different to the two XDA threads was:

1. Charge with the phone ON until the LED turns green. (For me - I didn't charge it from the battery drained - I charged from about 85%).
2. Unplug your phone and turn the phone OFF
3. With the phone still OFF - plug the phone in and charge again until the LED turns green.
4. Unplug your phone - and turn it ON. Wait for about two minutes and turn the phone OFF again.
5. Plug you charger in again and charge until the LED turns green.
6. Unplug, turn on and wait two minutes and then turn off
7. Plug it back in and charge again until the LED turns green.
8. Turn your phone back on again and voila
9. You could probably repeat this cycle a couple more times but I just did it twice.

The way it differs from the two posts is that the first one said to charge for an hour when the phone is off, however my LED turned green after about 15-20mins so I saw no need to do it for an hour. And the second thread doesnt say to turn it on at all in between charge cycles.
So there it is - using this method, my phone has been unplugged for just over 8 hours and is at 80% - this is from normal phone use - texting, sending an MMS, using the camera, receiving emails, browsing the market, downloaded a couple of apps and playing a cheeky bit of Angry Birds.
Previously, if I did this my battery would never be this full!
My phone is an unrooted but debranded Desire running 2.2 on Orange so no other fancy tricks! I have autosync on for things like gmail, twitter and exchange and its been on loud ringtone all day.
So overall considering its had moderate use, this is definitely an improvement. I won't have to charge it tonight and I should get another day out of it tomorrow.
Any questions let me know, and like I said this is just sharing what I have done just t o slightly improve battery life.

 

[robinta]

When did you do this Benjiharris, the first time I tried this kind of method the battery life stayed very high for a longer than usual time, but the phone `died` at c 24%. I hadnt wiper the battery stats (As I am not rooted). I will try your method though.

 

[benjiharris]

I did it this morning, so as yet I wont know if its gonna die at 24%....I sure hope not! I havent wiped battery stats or anything so hopefully this wont happen!
I'll report back tomorrow!

 

[robinta]

Ok. I`m going to try also...

 

[SUroot]

Hmm see this is the same as what I read, except steps 6 and 7 weren't there.

 

[robinta]

my phone stayed green after the first charge cycle. I guess its already calibrated to the hilt !

 

[tuffcheez]

Thankyou for taking the time to share your findings with us.

I have been struggling with poor battery performance, and tried a number of times to recalibrate my battery according to the original xda devs recommendation.

Unfortunately on my unrooted, and unbranded desire, there was no change.

Using your suggested method with one minor change added, has brought promising results already. I will need to use the phone over a few days to be sure, but at 1.30pm I am at 95 percent, with an uptime of 5 hours and 20 minutes. This amounts to a significant jump of remaining battery life available.

The minor change I made was to let the phone switch itself off with an empty battery, then plug the charger in and boot the phone with the phone on charge. I then followed your instructions, and cycled your steps about four times.

Anyway, its looking good do far, I'm doing a fair bit of browsing, posting, facebook and twitter using wifi right now.

Will keep you posted, thanks!

 

[furious duck]

Sigh...here we go again.

 

[nofear]

Doesn't work

 

[Oditius]

Ebay

Item number:170531604980 3000mAh EXTENDED BATTERY + DOOR for HTC Desire

Keeps the phone running all day, even under heavy use. Just put the battery in, run till dead then do a full charge!!

 

[widehead]

Rain dance

 

[tuffcheez]

Seems this hasn't fixed the problem as I had hoped. There has been a change, the calibration has shifted, but not what I'm looking for.

I first noted that I stayed at 100% full charge for a number of hours at the beginning with mild usage. This seemed hopeful because usually the same amount of usage would bring me around the 80% mark.

I began to use the phone heavily but when I reached 20% my phone closed down! Usually it won't do that until its reached 5%. So the calibration is borked, but there may be extra battery life with it.

I will try again. I am new to this but willing to learn.

I have been searching through threads to try and gain info on this problem. There are many variables that need looking at. Duff battery, incorrectly calibrated battery, vamp apps, incorrectly set up phone, and here's a new one I hadn't heard of before, battery zapping sd card.

I haven't been on this forum for long, but some of the comments made here on this thread for example are not constructive or helpful to people like myself. If you're going to post then please help us with your "superior" knowledge.

Thanks!

P.s. I an tempted to root my phone if it will solve this problem. I am also not a fan of the sense ui.

 

[furious duck]

What's the question?

 

[benjiharris]

@ tuffcheez Like I said in my thread, this was solely intended to share what I had done to try and improve battery life. But once again it seemed to attract the same immensely unhelpful and pointless comments. There really is no need for sarcasm in such a setting...such as the extended battery comment. I did state that I have no real problem with charging it everyday and I usually get a full day out of it, but I wanted to see if I could push it further just so I don't always have to worry. and it did, so I thought I would share it for people trying to do the same. To be fair, these comments are from the usual culprits.......unfortunately, so called 'superior' knowledge brings out immense pretentiousness and they tend to just become unhelpful.

Anyway, I apologise that it messed up the calibration. Obviously, I didnt know it would do this. I didnt experience it myself. It did improve my battery life by a few hours so it might work if you do it again. I have read reports of it cutting out at 20% but this didn't happen, dont know why!
Unfortunately, Angry birds seems impossible not to play so the last couple of days I have hammered my battery! But its losing its novelty value, so use should return to normal from now, and hopefully this slightly improved battery life might continue.

 

[widehead]

I haven't been on this forum for long, but some of the comments made here on this thread for example are not constructive or helpful to people like myself. If you're going to post then please help us with your "superior" knowledge.

Pfffft. What, and ruin the fun?

 

[tuffcheez]

Tried again and I'm pleased to report that after 14 hours I'm at 30%!

This is the best I have ever got out of this phone and I'm happy! I don't know if it will switch off at 20%, but that's no longer a problem.

If this phone can last from the moment I get out of bed until I get back in it then we're onto a winner. Charging the phone every night is cool.

I'll post again after a few more days use.

Cheers!

 

[ccrows]

Couple of things:


1 This method is old and all it does is screw with your battery shutting the phone off earlier. (example if you think you are getting 20% extra battery, then don't be surprised that your phone shuts off when it gets down to 20% left) You are just screwing with the battery scale that's all.


2. Could we please stop the "battery topics" until the OFFICIAL FROYO (not some rooted or RUU method that got you Froyo) VERSION gets released to the public and go from there since battery performance is supposed to be an improvement with Froyo?...

 

[SUroot]

The official froyo has been out for ages. Ruu Is also an official froyo. Custom developers cannot make ruus

 

[ccrows]

The official froyo has been out for ages. Ruu Is also an official froyo. Custom developers cannot make ruus

Whenever the final version comes out OTA, it will be optimized for that particular device...

 

[tuffcheez]

Couple of things:


1 This method is old and all it does is screw with your battery shutting the phone off earlier. (example if you think you are getting 20% extra battery, then don't be surprised that your phone shuts off when it gets down to 20% left) You are just screwing with the battery scale that's all.


2. Could we please stop the "battery topics" until the OFFICIAL FROYO (not some rooted or RUU method that got you Froyo) VERSION gets released to the public and go from there since battery performance is supposed to be an improvement with Froyo?...

Hmm, not sure if you've read the thread through but here are a couple of things also.

Whether my phone cuts off at 20% or not, what I'm after is extended battery life, and that is what it seems to have given me, although I need a few more days to be sure.

I'm not rooted and as far as in aware I have the official Froyo from Htc, unless you can enlighten me otherwise?

 

[SUroot]

Whenever the final version comes out OTA, it will be optimized for that particular device...

No idea what you're talking about. This is the HTC desire forum so.the particular device is always going to be the HTC desire.

Since froyo is out for the HTC desire officially, it has been optimised for this particular device - regardless of its delivery method (ota or ruu).

What to you mean about the final version? We will only know the final version of 2.2 when 3.0 comes out. Currently FRG83 is the latest froyo build

 

[LECTER]

Whenever the final version comes out OTA, it will be optimized for that particular device...

 

[ccrows]

No idea what you're talking about. This is the HTC desire forum so.the particular device is always going to be the HTC desire.

Since froyo is out for the HTC desire officially, it has been optimised for this particular device - regardless of its delivery method (ota or ruu).

What to you mean about the final version? We will only know the final version of 2.2 when 3.0 comes out. Currently FRG83 is the latest froyo build

I was talking more about Froyo for Desire phones that are waiting to be ported over through carriers...

 

[ccrows]

Hmm, not sure if you've read the thread through but here are a couple of things also.

Whether my phone cuts off at 20% or not, what I'm after is extended battery life, and that is what it seems to have given me, although I need a few more days to be sure.

I'm not rooted and as far as in aware I have the official Froyo from Htc, unless you can enlighten me otherwise?

I've done every charging suggestion posted from here and XDA and all I managed to get is my phone shutting down before the battery completely drained. I'm not the only one, there are users over in XDA that have had similar results...

 

[SUroot]

The device is still the same and they still use HTC version of froyo. The carriers don't change anything in the Rom, such as the kernel .or the code which is responsible for battery life... all the fi is add apps and change some of the aesthetics.