Help Possible Battery Fix from HTC

[Ice-Man1]

Wow man, glad I took the time to read through the first post. Google Talk was the problem for me. Battery Life was around 4-5 hours with light use. First 10% of battery would go down within 15 mins with me doing nothing. Sign out and unchecked of Google Talk and I'm running 9+ hours of light to moderate use. Thanks for posting.

 

[hammondfra]

well reading over this entier thread. I have tried all the 'snake oil' remedies and everything suggested, but I always get the same battery life, under 30 minutes to 90% then 2 hours to 80%, another 2 hours to 70%, then it goes quickly to 60% and hangs for like 5 hours at the 50% range; in total get about 10-14 hours of heavy use and a full day plus on light use. I have come to the conclusion, some have it better then others. I think it might have to do how the battery was conditioned, if at all, from the factory and how much you technically use it. dunno, just throing in my .02 and don't really care I bought 2 extra batteries and use the shit out of my phone; like it was intended to be used. Just enjoy it for what it is and if you dont like it there are a ton of smart phones to choose from.

 

[spydermn]

one of the better posts, learned a lot I did not know!

 

[Rose4uKy]

I tried that trick too and I had to give up too. Mine was always green when on and then when off took about 30 seconds to turn green. But I take it off the charger every morning and let it sit for a 10-20 minutes then charge it again to top it back off and I unchecked everything in Sprint Zone. Today I had my phone off the charger as soon as i got to work unplugged it from car at 2:15 and at 11:00 it said 44 minutes since unplugged it was weird it should of said like 7 hours something was really wrong. But yesterday I had airplane mode on while at work cause mine drains looking for signal in the basement and I got 16 hours. Today with leaving airplane mode alone I got around 8.. And I messed with it off and on while on breaks and had wifi on the whole time. I'm glad i have an extra battery just in case. So if turns green when off in 30 seconds or so then it's ok?

Five freakin' hours.

Today I tried some of the tips in this thread. I haven't been able to test it out because I've been doing the HTC recommended trick, where you charge it on and off until the light is always green. Well, I did that for around 30 minutes while watching TV. The light was always green when on, but it took a little over a minute when turned off. I finally just gave up.

So do I keep trying? Is that normal?

 

[mtrajano00]

I just followed your directions and mine was set to GSM auto (prl). I just changed it right now to the CDMA auto (prl). I hope Ill will a big difference on my battery life cause I'm only getting about 3 hrs then I will have to charge it. Thanks for the post.

This means you have a battery issue. I've been using my phone for the past 21 hours and have 49% left!

YOU DON'T NEED A HARD RESET EVEN. I CAN CONFIRM, ALL I DID WAS THIS:

press HOME, and bring up the dialer. Dial *#*#4636#*#* (Do not press "Call"). After a second, it should bring up the "Testing" menu.

Go into Phone Information, press MENU, and tap "select radio band." You should experience a Force Close, don't panic, this was supposed to happen. Scrolling down shows that the preferred network type is GSM auto (prl).

What this means is that even though you are connected to a CDMA network, your phone is trying to find a GSM network, preventing the radio from sleeping, and causing excessive battery drain.

Remedy this by tapping GSM auto (prl), and changing it to CDMA auto (prl).


Now your done, your TWS should drop dramatically, and you should experience much better battery life!

THE RESULTS SPEAK FOR ITSELF:

***NOW, WE JUST NEED TO GET THIS TO STICK AFTER A PHONE REBOOT!***

 

[C_Dub]

I've been doing the deed of pulling the phone off as soon as I see it's cully charged and I think it helps somewhat but even under moderate use the batter still seemed to drain more than it should. I have just seen the above network change and am curious as to why the phone is defaulted to finding a GSM signal when it's made for CDMA (perhaps the EVO is coming to AT&T/T-Mobile). Anyway I have just changed it over but I'm hearing it just resets after a reboot. Hopefully there a fix otw from HTC that will hard code it to only use CDMA(auto) as its default. That might help some. I just can't believe after a month of use my phone was trying a network it can't even use probably every second I've had the phone on, I could see the tremendous battery strain that may cause over the course of time...

 

[Ice-Man1]

The thing about doing the GSM/CDMA trick is that I seem to have problems with the GPS icon on top correctly sayings its on or off. Whenever I do the trick, and I would go to one of my home screen to press the widget to turn on GPS, the icon on top of the phone would still display as being off, and vice-versa. The only way to actually see the icon go on and off is to go into settings>location>Use GPS Satellites and turn it on/off from there to see the icon up top change as well.

 

[chaucer498]

I have tried all the tweaks and none have had any serious impact on the battery consumption except for the process of "calibrating the battery". The problem is...it's not permanent.

It's as if the phone will not charge the battery to full unless I do the full charge dc plug then plug back in. The reason that leaves me to believe this is because this battery was a replacement. When I picked it up they had it fully charged. I dont know how it was charged but it kept a great charge the entire time I used it. From 6pm-1am I drilled the battery non-stop. Mail, internet, music, apps, games, fb, I used anything I could think of. When I went to bed the batt was still at 30% and holding. I left it to charge overnight...next day within the first 30 minutes I was spiking down to 88 on idle.

I knew the batt was good though cause I myself witnessed it keep a great charge. The issue lies in the phones ability to fully.charge the battery. Doing the batt calibration trick I'm able to keep a good charge but who wants to charge unplug, plug, unplug, plug just to get a decent charge....I think a simple update could fix this issue once and for all and the Evo will be pretty close to perfect.

I do have another issue with txt messages coming in with a time stamp much later than the current time really is but that might be a network issue.

 

[eshy]

I use my phone so much that I usually have to charge it 2-3 times a day. I went on eBay yesterday and found two batteries with a battery charger for $15!! Once it arrives I hope to only have to charge my phone once.

I actually got that (or something similar off ebay) and I never plug my phone in anymore.
I always have charged batteries, and when my phone needs recharging I just switch to another battery. very convinient not being tied to an outlet waiting for it to charge.
The joys of being able to replace batteries...

 

[Jdinh]

i hope this tip will help some of you fix the battery issue as it did for me. Now I'm running my phone with live wall paper, auto sync to every 4 hrs (operating everything as normal), my battery last me over 3 days without use. As before, i may checked email twice a day and my battery was dead after 10-12 hrs (that's ridiculous!!). I did tweak a little (I download Network and put it on CDMA auto (PRL) just like many posters had posted, I downloaded HTC battery widget so i can monitor the percent of battery, and ofcourse you do want to get rid of any unuse application running in the back groud such as Google Talk). But here is the major issue for battery drains for my phone (i'm sure for many phones), get rid of the weather clock from HTC Sense on your main screen!!!!! I have tested couple days with this. Before, every 5 mins or so it drained 1%, with the widget removed, it drained 1% every hour or more....bottom line, there is bug on that HTC widget.......I hope this will help.

 

[Rdot9]

Im trying to switch to the CDMA from GSM auto, but keep getting the
"com.android.phone has stopped unexpectedly"

anyone know what i need to do to fix that?

 

[cabbie]

its supposed to do that when you hit menu and 'select radio band'

 

[cabbie]

i hope this tip will help some of you fix the battery issue as it did for me. Now I'm running my phone with live wall paper, auto sync to every 4 hrs (operating everything as normal), my battery last me over 3 days without use. As before, i may checked email twice a day and my battery was dead after 10-12 hrs (that's ridiculous!!). I did tweak a little (I download Network and put it on CDMA auto (PRL) just like many posters had posted, I downloaded HTC battery widget so i can monitor the percent of battery, and ofcourse you do want to get rid of any unuse application running in the back groud such as Google Talk). But here is the major issue for battery drains for my phone (i'm sure for many phones), get rid of the weather clock from HTC Sense on your main screen!!!!! I have tested couple days with this. Before, every 5 mins or so it drained 1%, with the widget removed, it drained 1% every hour or more....bottom line, there is bug on that HTC widget.......I hope this will help.

any reason to think that the 'beautiful home' widget on 'beautiful widgets' would do the same thing?

 

[Rdot9]

its supposed to do that when you hit menu and 'select radio band'

oh, then i guess i did it right. thanks.

 

[sesso]

yup sorry i meant awake time. and i'm sure that disabling the mobile network saves some more power. you won't get phone calls and messages with it switched off though. with all of that off...your phone would last for days easily lol

whats the point of having the phone if your not gonna use the 3g services.. get a regular phone then.

 

[Ice-Man1]

I've been testing my batteries and I pretty much almost gave up. I went ahead and bought the extending battery from Seidio. I did however tried one more thing before getting my extended battery in. What I did was I let it charge all the way to when the LED gets green, but what usually happens is that it would lose it first 10% of it's battery life within the first 15 mins, which was fine I guess since I was testing it. By using the *#*#4636#*#* and getting into the battery info section I was able to see that it really did go down 10%. Plug your charger into it and just allow it to charge from there leaving the battery info screen still there. From there just let the Battery level reach 100 again. By doing this I've notice a huge increase in battery life. meaning it doesn't drop 10% in like 15 mins. I was able to get an up time of 24+ hours of battery life, although it was with about 3 hours of full use (awake time) according to the menu>settings>about phone>Battery>awake time. My previous times about 8 hours of up time and 3 hours of awake time. Hope this helps anyone.

 

[GoofyGirl]

I took the advice above and the only thing I did was turn off mobile networks. I turn them on when I need them. I took my phone off the charger yesterday at 7:45 a.m. and it is now 9:15 a.m. the NEXT day and I am still over 60% charged!! This is with normal call & texting usage. I sporadically turned on mobile networks and have been on the internet too. I can't even begin to tell you the difference! I've went from scrambling for the charger as soon as I get home from work to not even charging it every night!! Awesome!! Thanks so much to all for the tips and tricks!!

 

[Rose4uKy]

I've been plugging mine in to a full 100% charge then unplugging it for 10 or 15 minutes and letting it get back to a 100%. The past couple days and I don't know if it's cause of the update or what but I got 16-19 hours the other day and today I am on 13 hours with 45 left. Two nights ago I left wifi on at home last night I shut it off. Now once I get to work I have no signal in the basement so sometimes I do airplane mode even though I bring my charger with me. But next time it goes completeley dead I may just let it charge to a 100% pull it off and then see how long it last and not do the unplug for 10 minutes than plug it back in to top it off thing.

My friend claims he tested with a voltage meter thing and that when his got to a 100% it really was at a 100% that it's a 3.7v battery and his meter read 4. something a little over. He said that it wasn't true that the phones says it's at a 100% and really isn't that his was at a 100%. And me unplgging for 10 minutes then plugging it back in and topping it off wasn't necessary. But I don't know for sure and am still not sure if unplugging and topping it back off is what's really helping me or maybe the update did do something. That is why tonight when I go dead I am just going to plug till charged and leave it unplugged till it goes dead again instead of plugging it back in after 10 minutes. And I'll see how long it last just for the heck of it.

I just bought off ebay the battery charger plus 2 x 1500 MAH batteries for 9.98 So I'll be good anyways plus I already have an extra battery from having a TP2 before this phone.

I took the advice above and the only thing I did was turn off mobile networks. I turn them on when I need them. I took my phone off the charger yesterday at 7:45 a.m. and it is now 9:15 a.m. the NEXT day and I am still over 60% charged!! This is with normal call & texting usage. I sporadically turned on mobile networks and have been on the internet too. I can't even begin to tell you the difference! I've went from scrambling for the charger as soon as I get home from work to not even charging it every night!! Awesome!! Thanks so much to all for the tips and tricks!!

 

[lath19]

I've never really had a problem with battery life, but today it's been amazingly strong. The phone charged all night and had the green light on when I picked it up this morning to check work email. I used the phone for about 5 minutes then put it back on the charger. I plugged it back in before getting ready for work and noticed that the orange charging light was on. To my surprise it was still charging45 mins later but I had to head out for work so it never got to green. I've used the thing all day and I'm still at 65% (typically I'd be at 40% or so). I'm going to try the same thing tomorrow and hopefully I'll be able to let it 're-charge' until green. I'm assuming the battery wasn't calibrated properly and never really charged to 100%.

Using Fresh's newest ROM, no task killers.

 

[leebo]

I was having pretty much the same dismal battery life as most. This is what I've tried and it's worked so far:

Got rid of people widget. Got rid of weather widget. Took all Sprint Crapware off the home screens. Keep 4G, Bluetooth, and WiFi off. Screen brightness down to 10%. No auto updating. No texting and no emailing.

Un-plugged charger after the light turned green, wait ten minutes, plug back in. did hokey pokey and turned around.

Finally, I keep the phone turned off so callers wont run the battery down.
Been getting a good 24 hours out of it!

 

[yellot00tr]

it's kinda ridiculous that things like mobile network, wifi, gps, bluetooth, and all apps or services must be turned off to get decent battery life. basically, if u turn ur phone into a large screen version of a motorola razr, u'll get good battery life. other than that, buy another battery or two, and pick up a backup battery charger also if u really want to use the phone to its full capabilities.

 

[mrkauffman]

actually its not ridiculous that you have to turn off some thing in order to get extended battery life. the battery tech is just not up to par with the devices of today, its sad but true. the iphone 3gs has similar issues, its only intended to last 6-8 hours with all the features on. this is from an apply employees mouth, loads of owners came into the store complaining. well what do you expect from a phone that does what your laptop can do.

i keep everything off except my 3g mobile network and get over a day or battery life. gps on is asking to get your battery sucked quickly. those who get 4 hours of battery life are doing something seriously wrong IMO.

 

[mpike78]

anyone know what to do with gtalk even after you go in and set it to not auto login and you sign out only to find it re logging in and running again?

Google talk is definitely causing an issue with battery life

Install Battery Status Pro to get a better reading on battery life from the market..

System Panel Lite will also give you some good info on whats going on with the phone

 

[lath19]

I've never really had a problem with battery life, but today it's been amazingly strong. The phone charged all night and had the green light on when I picked it up this morning to check work email. I used the phone for about 5 minutes then put it back on the charger. I plugged it back in before getting ready for work and noticed that the orange charging light was on. To my surprise it was still charging45 mins later but I had to head out for work so it never got to green. I've used the thing all day and I'm still at 65% (typically I'd be at 40% or so). I'm going to try the same thing tomorrow and hopefully I'll be able to let it 're-charge' until green. I'm assuming the battery wasn't calibrated properly and never really charged to 100%.

Using Fresh's newest ROM, no task killers.

Well this seemed to have fixed the minor battery issues I was having. My assumption is that the battery hits full charge some time in the middle of the night and slowly starts to drain after hitting 100%, even though it's plugged in to the charger. By morning time the battery isn't really at 100% even though the charging light is green. Unplugging the phone for 20 seconds and plugging it back in to finish charging (usually 30-40 minutes) has significantly improved my battery life.

Again, I'm using Fresh's 0.53 ROM and no task manager/killer.

It's kind of lame that the phone won't stay at a 100% charge but it's a minor inconvenience. I'll probably hook up the charger to a wall timer to automate the process of disconnecting and reconnecting the phone every morning for a 'top off' charge.

 

[cabbie]

it's kinda ridiculous that things like mobile network, wifi, gps, bluetooth, and all apps or services must be turned off to get decent battery life. basically, if u turn ur phone into a large screen version of a motorola razr, u'll get good battery life. other than that, buy another battery or two, and pick up a backup battery charger also if u really want to use the phone to its full capabilities.

not true.

Leave your GPS turned on. The only time it will draw battery is when an app is using it. You can tell when thats happening if the GPS symbol shows up in the notification bar.

Leave your bluetooth turned off unless you have your earpiece ready to go. Negligible when they are connected.

Leave your wifi turned off when you are out of wifi range. If you are in range of wifi, you absolutely should turn it on because wifi is far easier on the battery than 3G for data.

As far as general app usage, set things to manual refresh. I use Friendstream, NewsRob and other things that use heavy mobile usage for that reason. They will update in a matter of seconds and its better than having them hit your battery at times when you aren't even looking.

Download JuiceDefender from the market and click the easy enable option for it to control your phones data usage.

Consumers who won't manage their mobile device's options after they know the benefits from it get the same sympathy that PC users who won't put on a virus scanner, won't defrag their hard drive or insist send email forwards with lame jokes filled with crappy gifs: none.