Help Battery Life suck??? Did You Swap SD Cards??

[FUCCO]

Member #41681
Join DateFeb 2010Posts94PhoneEnter Current Phone Model Here

Today 09:26 AM
#1

Poor battery life?? Did you just swap SD cards????

Well here is my story. I got the Bionic on day 1. I had it swapped 3 times and the ext battery 2x. I called tech support 2x. I also went to 2 different stores and multiple forums and no one could figure out what or why my battery was just draining. I would get 7-8 hours with min usage on ext battery. Long story short. I came from orginal droid and just swapped my old sd card into the new bionic. Apparently the bionic did not like this and is constantly scanning the memory card and draining the battery. So, after removing all files from the sd card, formating the sd card and putting the files/folder back on it the bionic no longer scans the sd card. My battery life is where it is supposed to be. I used to lose 10% or more a hour just letting the phone sit on the table. Yesterday it drop only 10% over 6 hours. I cant take the credit for this. Here is a breakdown of what to do. Hope this might help someone else.
Originally Posted by fucco<A href="http://www.droidforums.net/forum/motorola-droid-bionic/169945-official-bionic-battery-life-thread-post1746419.html#post1746419" target=_blank>I had my bionic and ext battery swapped out yesterday due to a draining battery issue. I charged the new phone to 100% overnight cleared the battery stats (rooted) and after 3hr 40 min hours i am down to 50%. It shows Media 36%, cell standby 29%, phone idle 23%, display 9% voice calls 3%. I am having the same battery issues with the new phone and battery. I am in 3g area so I have 4g off, the wifi and bluetooth are off. I am not playing games or have google sync running at all. I cant figure what is draining the battery. The is the second phone and 3rd ext battery i have. I do not have any task killers downloaded. Also, do you think i just need to drain and fully charge the battery 5-7 times to get its full potentital since I am am starting from scratch with a new phone/battery??? From what i read on the forum people are getting aroung 15-20 hours on the ext battery with moderate usage. Since i had the bionic on Day 1 with the ext battery i am getting 7-8 hours with light usage and cant figure out why?

On a side not since I am grasping at straws rooting will not affect battery life correct? I have had the orignal droid since day one and that was rooted. It would last me 14-15 hours with ext battery.

what setting should I have the phone too? I have it on "full performance" I want it to sync data only becuase i have beautiful widgets clock/weather on my homescreen i believe if i set it to somthing else and the data sync stops then the temp and time will stop. Is this correct?

I had the same problem and I finally figure out what was killing my battery. I was able to get about 5 hours out of the standard battery with almost no usage at all.

The problem is the process MEDIA killing your battery, and it also makes your phone hot

What I discovered is that when I got my Bionic, I took out the memory card from my Thunderbolt and put it in.
My memory card had tons of picutres, videos and some music files (ringtones and notifications).

The process MEDIA was always taking up CPU cycles due to DRM processes looking into the memory card at all the files, and for some reason, it does not stop. That is why you see MEDIA showing a higher % than cell standy and phone idle.

This is what I did to fix it.


First, backup your entire OLD memory card to a folder on your PC.
You can format your memory card at this point, or plug in the sd card that came with your Bionic. Either way, you want to format the external sd card after installing.
After formatting, reboot the phone.

DO NOT ADD ANY FILES TO THE MEMORY CARD.

Use the phone for a few hours and check your battery usage. MEDIA % should be minimal (about 2-7%)
If MEDIA still taking a big percent, over 15% per say, go to SETTING on your phone, APPLICATIIONS, MANAGE APPLICATIONS, select ALL from the TOP, select MEDIA STORAGE and select CLEAR DATA
reboot the phone

Tried to use the phone for an hour or two again

If you still have a problem with MEDIA taking up high % of your battery, REMOVE YOUR MEMORY CARD and reboot the phone

Once I was able to stop MEDIA from starting up, I added all my pictures back to the external SD card.
I tested for a day to make sure that MEDIA did not start up

I am now able to go a full day with no problem.

I have not try to add music or videos to the memory card as I dont want to trigger the MEDIA service to start up again.

Hopefully this will help you
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[Travisimo]

I am definitely dropping about 10% per hour with my extended battery, even when it is idle in my pocket. The phone also gets very warm even when I am not doing anything with the screen off. However, I have not done anything with the memory card, nor do I have a process called MEDIA anywhere in my battery list. So I don't think this is the cause of my battery drain. I wish it was something simple like this, but unfortunately the only things listed that use up my battery are cell standby, phone idle, and Bluetooth (when I'm using it).

I suppose it wouldn't hurt for me to take the memory card out and see if my battery life changes? You can use the phone without a memory card inserted, can't you?

 

[FUCCO]

yeah, but i would try this anyway what do you have to lose

 

[krouget]

I charged the new phone to 100% overnight cleared the battery stats (rooted) and after 3hr 40 min hours i am down to 50%.

That doesn't sound normal, but I'd start checking the settings in individual apps, to see which ones are doing what. I'm on a Bionic with stock battery, and though I didn't have reason to believe my battery life was abnormal, I did want to see it improve.

Along with the above, I installed "battery monitor widget" to get a better breakdown of how much battery my phone was burning through at regular intervals, as the default battery indicator isn't very accurate (in terms of the display). This allowed me to match the battery drain with my usual habits and locations, which helped to narrow down when/where most battery drain occurred.

It also gave me estimates on how my current behavior was affecting battery life, which is again, useful.

After combing through my widgets/app settings and such, I also installed JuiceDefender Pro, which has a number of settings which have increased battery life substantially, due to smart/practical functions.

This said, you could also simply have another faulty phone, so I wouldn't view any of the above as a valid fix, if the hardware/software is poor to start with. But they are some things to consider, provided you've exhausted other possible solutions.

I now get about 15+ hrs with "normal" usage and over 24 with "light", on the stock battery.

From what i read on the forum people are getting aroung 15-20 hours on the ext battery with moderate usage. Since i had the bionic on Day 1 with the ext battery i am getting 7-8 hours with light usage and cant figure out why?

I hate to use ambiguous terms like "light" and "moderate" when it comes to battery/phone health, since they don't really detail usage habits or which apps/widgets people do or don't have, but someone made a good point in another thread, regarding normal battery behavior:

I'd have to look around for the specifics (don't quote me on it) but IIRC, it involved purposeful heavy usage, such as watching video, with a target of about 3+ hours worth of life as the goal for a healthy phone/battery. If I find it, I'll post it.

On a side not since I am grasping at straws rooting will not affect battery life correct?

Rooting just gains you admin rights. By itself, it won't affect battery life.

 

[johnlgalt]

one more thing to note:

My BIONIC came with a Class 4 Micro SDCard. My Motorola DROID came with a Class 2 Micro SDCard....

 

[kingnut]

one more thing to note:

My BIONIC came with a Class 4 Micro SDCard. My Motorola DROID came with a Class 2 Micro SDCard....

do anyone know what class the droid X came with? cause i just swapped my card outta my X.

 

[aaronmach1]

I came from a d1. The vzw tech pulled the sd out of my d1 and put it into my bionic. So i need to switch the cards i guess. So do i load the current one im using on computer copy the whole thing then plug the new one into computer and copy everything onto it?

 

[dirkbonn]

do anyone know what class the droid X came with? cause i just swapped my card outta my X.

I got my "X" on launch day. I just checked my SD card and it's a 16GB class 4. I think some "X's" sold later had a different size SD card but I don't remember the size or class.