Root help me fix this battery issue once and for all

[jpkotor]

before I knew any better or what info to provide I asked for help with my battery a few times. I appreciated all the feedback I received over the last couple months since I've rooted my phone, but while everyone else seems to be discovering better battery off of the advice I receive, I'm stuck here in getting like 16 hours if I barely touch my phone on a good day. I'm sick of it!

So let me do my best this time with all that I've learned from several of you, either asking for help myself or following other threads, and try and provide as much detail as possible.. first my setup:

Hardware version 0003
ROM: Fresh 3.5.0.1
Kernel: Netarchy-toastmod-4.3.2-cfs-nosbc-havs-more (Governor: conservative)
PRI Version downgraded to 1.77_003
PRL 60674
Baseband 2.15.00.11.19

I have facebook for sense removed, friendstream removed, twitter, all that kinda stuff removed basically. My weather syncs every 3 hrs, my news does not sync, and my google account syncs whatever the default it (can't adjust freq apparently?). I have my windows live mail set up to check once her hour during peak hours but don't think that affects it much since if my screen is off for hours and it checks it every hour I barely lose any battery.

Until today I was running setcpu with min 128 max 998, today I tried some profiles (which I had before I had a HAVS kernel but not since) and saw dramatic deterioration of battery life. I read on a thread that it's ok to use setcpu profiles with the conservative governor, but not with the smartass. I'm not sure if that's what's killing my battery today because sometimes it just has bad days.

Ok, before the screenshots here's what I notice. My sleep battery usage isn't that bad. If my screen is off it barely drains. My problem is when the screen is ON, I lose a few percent a minute, no matter what I'm doing. Even if it's just on the home screen if I keep the screen off I see the battery drop by a few percent. If I'm doing something, like playing a game, I can expect my phone to last like an hour at most.

I removed my 4g toggle and I don't use 4g very often. I haven't noticed much improvement since removing the toggle. If I use 4g I hot restart to make it stop attempting to reconnect after I turn it off. I hardly ever use bluetooth, I use gps a little when i need it, and I use wifi at home or in the office when the signal is strong and its supposed to be lighter on the battery than a medium data signal. There are no widgets on my home screens except the weather widget that uses data and thats, like i said, only every 3 hrs.

I have my brightness set to pretty low. I used to use automatic because it's so convenient and thought maybe that was draining my battery. Since I've set it to really low I haven't noticed any improvement

Here are all the screenshots I can think of that provide any useful information.. but as far as I know everything seems normal from this.

These are the profiles I tried out today so far, I haven't given them all day to play out but by 3 hrs unplugged over 1/3 of my battery was gone. All I did was send <20 texts.

I'm pretty sure the high awake/run time ratio is because it's spent a lot of time on the charger. Whenever I check I confirm it's sleeping properly.

This looks pretty normal to me.

Nothing here stands out to me either...

I've been in my apartment all day which is why I have WiFi running the whole time.

During this time I hardly used my phone and in an hour it dropped from 70% to 59%. Notice between 14:48 and 14:50, I read and answered a text and lost 4 percent.

I have tried the airplane mode thing before and it doesn't seem to be the radio. Even in airplane mode if my screen is on and I'm doing anything on the phone I lost a few percent a minute.

This has been the case with every rom and every kernel I've tried. (Burnt droid, myns, fresh, evio, on netarchy 4.1.8-4.3.2 havs/nohavs/sbc/nosbc, htc 15, 17, 11 whatever) No matter what I end up getting decent sleep usage but horrible screen-on usage. This is the case even thought through this whole process since rooting I've wiped several times.

The best life I've gotten was when I just started I got about 21 hours light use with fresh 3.3 and netarchy 4.1.8(nohavs) and setcpu profiles. Since then I can hardly replicate that.

I would be so insanely grateful if this finally got resolved. Do I just have a defective evo? Everything seems normal to me. If there is any more useful info I can provide let me know. I tried to cover all the bases.

Thanks for reading.

 

[akazabam]

Thanks for providing so many details . That should certainly help. So, it's good to know your phone is not draining much while the screen is off. While that probably means the phone is sleeping, your awake usage seems high for that amount of uptime (around 50%). You didn't provide a screenshot for partial wake usage since last unplugged in spare parts. That might be useful. I know your pone seems to sleep fine, but covering all the bases doesn't hurt.

So, I think what you're going to need to do is try out a few more kernels. What all have you tried? I suggest you try a few of these combinations (all using conservative governor):

1) NA 4.3.2 CFS HAVS with no profiles (in theory they should work as long as you're not using the smartass governor, as you said, but try it without. screen off profile should be fine, though)
2) NA 4.3.2 CFS noHAVS with profiles.
3) NA 4.3.2 BFS HAVS with no profiles
4) NA 4.3.2 BFS noHAVS with profiles
5) Ziggy's - Ziggy471.com Life&#039;s too short, have fun while you can.. This seems to be more of a performance driven kernel, but you should see how it goes, anyway.

Give that a try, and see how it impacts screen on battery life. Just remember, if you use the phone a lot, it's going to drain the battery quickly. That's just the way it is. Granted, it does seem like you're not getting as good of battery life as you should, but I've found that being paranoid about it makes me check my phone more often, which makes the battery drain faster... Just something to think about.

 

[jpkotor]

thanks for the reply akazabam... i coulda bet money you'd be the first

so i just took this one now, i used maps for under 5 minutes, so i'm not sure if it should be that represented.

as for the kernels, i haven't tried the BFS kernels, but i guess i will soon. i have been on this kernel (4.3.2 cfs havs) for over a week with no profiles, so i know the life's not that good with that. today i did same thing with profiles (both conservative governor). what I haven't tried lately is the nohavs kernels. I did try using 4.1.8.1 a few weeks ago, which is not supposed to have HAVs, and the results weren't that great, but i'll give 4.3.2 a go with no havs and some profiles. what do you recommend for profiles? did mine look ok?

as far as what i've tried, i've used most of the netarchy kernels from 4.1.8 to current, trying both more havs and less havs. but like i said i haven't tried nohavs since 4.1.8 which didn't have it at all.

we'll see what happens. as far as anything else besides kernels though... is there something that affects battery life that i can be missing? i was almost hoping it's not a matter of which kernel because no kernel has been that good to me, and people are always talking about getting great life out of this kernel or that kernel, all of which don't give those results for me.

and yea... i've thought about how much i check it. some days i can be kind of compulsive about it lol. however, while that increases overall drain during the day it doesn't change the fact that in the 1 minute the screen is on i lose like 3-4% of my battery, which is what's driving me crazy. so even if i switch to 4.3.2 nohavs and turn on profiles, until it starts underclocking the first portion of my battery is still gonna drop percentage points like they're hot!

 

[akazabam]

1) It's hard to know if that's a problem with maps or not without knowing how long ago you unplugged the phone. If it was minutes ago, that looks normal enough. If it was hours ago, maps did not stop properly, and is still running. In which case, you need to go force stop it. It happens to me with maps from time to time.

2) BFS *typically* has slightly worse battery life (at least for me), but you have to try both. Every phone is different in that case. Some get better battery life with BFS.

3) Your profiles look fine. The only comment I have is that the frequency steps you've taken are so small that you're not likely to see *that* much of a battery savings, but you might get something out of it. Also, unless it's below the fold and I can't see it, you may as well throw in a profile to not underclock (normal min/max) when the phone is plugged in. No reason to underclock in that case; just give it a higher priority (even higher than screen off if you like). Also, a > temp profile can't hurt either. Neither of those have anything to do with battery life, but you asked .

4) HAVS is meant to save battery life, pure and simple. BUT, not all phones react in a way that actually saves battery. For one, it can make your phone a little unstable. That instability can range anywhere from obvious problems such as screen tearing to something not so obvious such as...say...bad battery life. Since you're getting good battery life while the phone is sleeping, that's not terribly likely, but keep it in mind. Also, it has the same issues that something like auto-brightness has (though maybe not as apparent). What I mean by that is, you're constantly adjusting something that is normally a battery hog with the attempt to save battery life. But the fact that you have to constantly adjust it means that the CPU is working to do so. Just something to think about. Basically, this is what I would suggest as a general rule for everybody:

a) If you use your phone constantly, and it spends more time awake than it does sleeping, use a non-HAVS kernel. The phone will be at higher frequencies most of the time, anyway, so, HAVS is just making your phone have to think about what to set the frequency at constantly.

b) If you use your phone with moderate usage or less, and it's idle potentially a few hours here and there at time, use HAVS, as you'll get better battery life with constant lower frequencies.

Maybe you'll notice better/worse battery life out of those things or maybe you won't. It's just a general rule, and you have to test it for yourself.

5) Well, like I said, each phone reacts differently to different types of kernels. There is a possibility that there could be other things going on. The best way to get a base line is to make a nandroid backup, then wipe cache/dalvik/data from recovery, reflash your ROM, then use the phone for a couple days with no other apps installed or any mods applied. If it's better, then something you installed or flashed could be an issue. Also, use something like OS monitor to see in real time if some process or another is running hot.

6) Yeah 3-4% per minute is a bit much if you're not doing anything like browsing the web or watching videos (then, well...don't expect much ). Try some of the above suggestions, and see what happens.

 

[jpkotor]

ah yes, i forgot the charging profile. i have the temp profile already, it was just off screen i'm going to flash a noHAVs kernel and see what battery life is like over the next couple days, my next step after that will be BFS kernels i suppose. i may also try getting a baseline just to see what my phone is capable of before i touch it..

as long as there's nothing i'm missing i guess i will continue this quest of kernel experimentation. i got kind of lazy always trying new kernels, and then giving it a couple days to see what it can do.. etc etc.

thanks

 

[akazabam]

No problem. Let me know how it goes.

 

[jpkotor]

p.s. in the netarchy kernels, under the 4.3.2 kernels there are two "nohavs" kernels, one with static undervolting and one without undervolting... sorry for the newbie question but what kind of difference is that supposed to make?

 

[akazabam]

p.s. in the netarchy kernels, under the 4.3.2 kernels there are two "nohavs" kernels, one with static undervolting and one without undervolting... sorry for the newbie question but what kind of difference is that supposed to make?

Just for sake of clarification, I'll give a brief description of all voltage effecting options (don't mean to patronize, but it could help others reading this):

HAVS = Hybrid Adaptive Voltage Scaling.

HAVS - The voltage supplied to the CPU is variable. As the frequency goes up, the supplied voltage increases. Likewise, as the frequency goes down, so does the supplied voltage.

non-HAV/no-undervolting (aka stock behavior) - Constant voltage is supplied to the CPU. That amount of voltage is about what is supplied in the stock kernel.

non-HAVS/static-undervolting - Constant voltage is suupplied to the CPU, but that amount of voltage is lower than what is normally supplied.

Basically, HAVS means lower frequency/lower voltage and higher frequency/higher voltage. non-HAVS with normal voltage means lower and higher frequency with a higher voltage. non-HAVS with undervolting means lower and higher frequency with a lower voltage. Try both and see how it goes. Likely, you'll get better battery life with static undervolting, but it *could* cause instability.

 

[jpkotor]

Just for sake of clarification, I'll give a brief description of all voltage effecting options (don't mean to patronize, but it could help others reading this):

HAVS = Hybrid Adaptive Voltage Scaling.

HAVS - The voltage supplied to the CPU is variable. As the frequency goes up, the supplied voltage increases. Likewise, as the frequency goes down, so does the supplied voltage.

non-HAV/no-undervolting (aka stock behavior) - Constant voltage is supplied to the CPU. That amount of voltage is about what is supplied in the stock kernel.

non-HAVS/static-undervolting - Constant voltage is suupplied to the CPU, but that amount of voltage is lower than what is normally supplied.

Basically, HAVS means lower frequency/lower voltage and higher frequency/higher voltage. non-HAVS with normal voltage means lower and higher frequency with a higher voltage. non-HAVS with undervolting means lower and higher frequency with a lower voltage. Try both and see how it goes. Likely, you'll get better battery life with static undervolting, but it *could* cause instability.

that helped a ton. if that can be construed as patronizing me, i'm giving you the green light to patronize me as much as you want for now on!

 

[akazabam]

Haha, I'll never patronize on purpose; I just have a hard time telling how much information some people already know. I'm glad it helped

 

[jpkotor]

So I wiped cache/dalvik/battery stats and flashed NA 4.3.2 nohavs/nosbc/suv... 25 min off the charger and i'm at 86%.. 8% of that was during a 13 minute phone call with my parents... not looking good but i guess it's still a little early to tell since i just wiped battery stats? i'll give this setting a day or two and see how it plays out...

 

[Matlock]

Buy a bigger battery?

Sorry.. I just had to.

 

[akazabam]

Give it at least two charge cycles. What you might want to do is charge it all the way up, unplug it, turn it off, plug it in until the light turns green, unplug it, plug it back in until the light turns green again, then wipe battery stats. That's basically a bump charge. The battery stats wipe is a formality. There's no real proof that it does anything. From there, see if you get better battery life.

 

[akazabam]

Buy a bigger battery?

Sorry.. I just had to.

Hehe, that is an option too. Let's consider that the last resort .

 

[Mr. Ed]

So I wiped cache/dalvik/battery stats and flashed NA 4.3.2 nohavs/nosbc/suv... 25 min off the charger and i'm at 86%.. 8% of that was during a 13 minute phone call with my parents... not looking good but i guess it's still a little early to tell since i just wiped battery stats? i'll give this setting a day or two and see how it plays out...

definitely give it longer. That drop appears about normal during that length of time on a non sbc kernel, then it should slow down quite a bit.

I got much better results on my phone by killing all of those profiles. I went simply with a screen off profile/conservative and noticed much better results than a slew of other profiles.

are you overclocking/underclocking under normal use ie what are your settings on the main screen of setcpu

 

[jpkotor]

definitely give it longer. That drop appears about normal during that length of time on a non sbc kernel, then it should slow down quite a bit.

I got much better results on my phone by killing all of those profiles. I went simply with a screen off profile/conservative and noticed much better results than a slew of other profiles.

are you overclocking/underclocking under normal use ie what are your settings on the main screen of setcpu

i haven't dabbled much in overclocking, my battery is dismal enough as is. i use a max/min of 998/128. how do you think not underclocking could give better results? after a day or two of what i got going (to let it figure itself out) i'll try dropping all but the screen off profile, but i'm interested in knowing if there's a rationale. as far as i know lower max = less battery usage.

Buy a bigger battery?

Sorry.. I just had to.

yea this phone is so small as it is, it could use the bulk of a bigger battery haha. like akazabam said... last resort

 

[akazabam]

i haven't dabbled much in overclocking, my battery is dismal enough as is. i use a max/min of 998/128. how do you think not underclocking could give better results? after a day or two of what i got going (to let it figure itself out) i'll try dropping all but the screen off profile, but i'm interested in knowing if there's a rationale. as far as i know lower max = less battery usage.

Sometimes there is no (good or easily explainable) rationale. It's actually a good suggestion. Try it both with and without profiles, and see if one works better than the other.

 

[Mr. Ed]

ok not really scientific....but I compare it to an ac unit constantly cooling a really really hot area that cools quickly...

the rapid scaling of several scenarios seems to make a difference. in my case...I had much better battery results with just the screen off profile, and performance was stable.

performance really took a beating when I had all of the profiles set up. the phone was rather confrused

 

[akazabam]

ok not really scientific....but I compare it to an ac unit constantly cooling a really really hot area that cools quickly...

the rapid scaling of several scenarios seems to make a difference. in my case...I had much better battery results with just the screen off profile, and performance was stable.

performance really took a beating when I had all of the profiles set up. the phone was rather confrused

Well, that's sort of relates to what I was talking about with HAVS, and how it can be worse for the battery when you use the phone a lot. Profiles, though, should just change the max/min under certain conditions. I guess it boils down to how setcpu works. If it's constantly having to check profile conditions, then that does make sense. On that note, I don't use a whole bunch of profiles for the same reason, but some people have had better results using them, so it's worth trying both, for sure.

 

[surfologist87]

Im going to try these as well, because i dont always have what i think is the best battery life either.

So im starting with 4.3.2 noHAVS with static undervolting. Same one JP is trying out.
And i set up some profiles with setcpu. From the top down:
Charging........245/998
Screen Off......128/245
Temp>44c......128/729
Battery<50%..128/691
Battery<35%..128/499

My "main" is set at 245/998..conservative.

Im going to try with then without profiles.
When i try without, should i stay on conservative or switch to smartass?

(I chose noHAVS because i tend to be on my phone frequently. I have great battery during [rare] longer periods of sleep. But like JP, when i am using the phone and in need of the battery, such as while im out, it drops like a brick)

 

[akazabam]

Im going to try these as well, because i dont always have what i think is the best battery life either.

So im starting with 4.3.2 noHAVS with static undervolting. Same one JP is trying out.
And i set up some profiles with setcpu. From the top down:
Charging........245/998
Screen Off......128/245
Temp>44c......128/729
Battery<50%..128/691
Battery<35%..128/499

My "main" is set at 245/998..conservative.

Im going to try with then without profiles.
When i try without, should i stay on conservative or switch to smartass?

(I chose noHAVS because i tend to be on my phone frequently. I have great battery during [rare] longer periods of sleep. But like JP, when i am using the phone and in need of the battery, such as while im out, it drops like a brick)

If you're going to try with, then without, keep the same governor. Changing too many things at once will not give you a good idea of what is causing battery drain, or what actually fixed an issue . I'm starting to think Mr. Ed might really be on to something with a lot of profiles not helping. If you think about it, when you use profiles, it constantly has to poll to see if it should active. Try it with both, and see how it goes, but certainly keep the same governor. Even if you don't keep the other profiles, and screen off profile can't hurt.

 

[surfologist87]

If you're going to try with, then without, keep the same governor. Changing too many things at once will not give you a good idea of what is causing battery drain, or what actually fixed an issue . I'm starting to think Mr. Ed might really be on to something with a lot of profiles not helping. If you think about it, when you use profiles, it constantly has to poll to see if it should active. Try it with both, and see how it goes, but certainly keep the same governor. Even if you don't keep the other profiles, and screen off profile can't hurt.

That sounds pretty good. Ill give it a day or two, then take the profiles off except for screen off and leave it on conservative.

 

[jpkotor]

So the saturday night I lost like 8 percent during my 10hr slumber (<3 weekends) but last night I went to sleep with 61 percent at midnight and woke up for work this morning and by the time I was in my car at 815 I had only 15%, while staring in disbelief it instantly dropped to 10%. I freaked and plugged it in before I looked at any usage stats (i was in the middle of making some important calls). not sure what to make of it,I'm still trying out nohavs conservative governor with profiles ... Things are getting a bit choppy now at 25% ...

 

[akazabam]

So the saturday night I lost like 8 percent during my 10hr slumber (<3 weekends) but last night I went to sleep with 61 percent at midnight and woke up for work this morning and by the time I was in my car at 815 I had only 15%, while staring in disbelief it instantly dropped to 10%. I freaked and plugged it in before I looked at any usage stats (i was in the middle of making some important calls). not sure what to make of it,I'm still trying out nohavs conservative governor with profiles ... Things are getting a bit choppy now at 25% ...

Hmm, unfortunately, it's going to be hard to tell without you having looked at spare parts partial wake usage, first. I'll tell you what - don't reboot the phone. Unplug it whenever you get a chance, then let it sit for an hour or two. Whatever caused the problem before might still, but certainly rebooting it will screw that up. Check partial wake usage after that. For a better idea, still don't reboot, see if it does it again tonight, then check spare parts, first thing. Unless you have some bad combination of kernel/mods/profiles, this must be something else.

 

[jpkotor]

Hmm, unfortunately, it's going to be hard to tell without you having looked at spare parts partial wake usage, first. I'll tell you what - don't reboot the phone. Unplug it whenever you get a chance, then let it sit for an hour or two. Whatever caused the problem before might still, but certainly rebooting it will screw that up. Check partial wake usage after that. For a better idea, still don't reboot, see if it does it again tonight, then check spare parts, first thing. Unless you have some bad combination of kernel/mods/profiles, this must be something else.

yea.. i wish i checked but i after that instant 5% jump i didn't want my phone to die suddenly and miss a call.. plus i was driving so checking spare parts at the time might not have been a good call haha. i haven't rebooted yet so i will just check it throughout the day and overnight tonight. i feel like it's a pretty standard kernel/profile combo (just to recap: NA 4.3.2 nohavs/nosbc/suv + profile showen in original post). i don't have any mods. i'll see what happens overnight tonight, i was hoping to switch to trying no no profiles tomorrow but i think i will keep everything constant until this is either figured out or doesn't happen tomorrow.