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Help Yet another battery thread...

INCyr

Lurker
Sep 20, 2011
1
0
I know the battery life on the Optimus V is... touchy. I've read through a number of the threads, and tried to optimize my phone for the battery life. I don't mind charging it once a day or so, and even have a charger at work so I don't have to worry about it. But my current battery life is abysmal.

According to the phone, it's been just over 2 hours since I unplugged it, where it was at 80% or more (I dont' recall if it was full or partially used or what, but I'm very confident it was 80% or more.)

In the 2h 17m since I unplugged it, it's gone from 80%+ to < 15%. My battery usage statistics are as follows:

Cell Standby: 35% (Time On: 2h 4m, no TWS)
Phone Idle: 34% (Time On: 2h 2m)
Android System: 14% (CPU Total: 5m 17s)
Voice Calls: 14% (Time On: 4m 57s)
Display: 6% (Time On: 15m)

I've put it into airplane mode, which seems to have slowed the battery use, I think.

During the 2 hours I've mostly just played music using WinAmp from my SD card while I worked. AutoSync should be off, and was when I last checked. background data was on, though. GPS is off, as is wireless.

Any suggestions on what was using my battery, or how to figure it out? Again, I don't mind charging daily or whatnot, but less than 3 hours of battery life is completely unacceptable.

Much thanks in advance.

Ian
 
A lot of people swear by Green Power, so you may wish to give that a try. I'm sure some others will share their Green Power settings as well.

https://market.android.com/details?id=org.gpo.greenpower&feature=search_result

I tried it for about a month or so and did not notice any difference, but I generally get great battery life as I use Wifi most of the time with Sync and GPS disabled until I need them.

You may also wish to temporarily uninstall a few apps at a time just to ensure none of them are causing the battery drain. Doing this is a pain in the butt, but helps tremendously when trying to troubleshoot an issue. Personally, I would try this first before trying Green Power.

I still have a decent amount of battery left as you can see from the status bar icon, and I don't use any power saving apps, task killers or whatnot.

snap20110920_140841.png
 
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The "V" has a Time Without Signal bug that will drain your battery,along with leaving on GPS. Auto sync,etc. When you first turn phone on turn on airplane mode for 30sec,then turn it off as well as everything that your not using at the time. This is all the battery apps are doing. Why not do it yourself and save some memory.
 
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If you go to menu/settings/about phone/battery usage,and you see an apps icon plus a % number and you haven't used the app,then you need to get a different app that does the same thing. If no app icon with % number then everything is good. I wouldn't worry to much about the running apps(I have 24 supposed running apps) listed in the application setting. With normal usage I get 22 to 24hrs. Just worry about what's showing up in the battery usage option.
 
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Gallery is a system app, right? No way to uninstall without rooting the phone?


Well sorta.... the CoolIris Gallery is a 3rd party app that is installed by Virgin Mobile. In other words, the app creator has a contract with VM that allows VM to offer it on the phone for their customers.

You can either root and uninstall, or just force close the app and install QuickPic and use that instead.
 
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I had the same problem with my LG Optimus V. Download an app called Juice Defender. There are five levels to choose from but they recommend starting with the "Balanced" option. I have it and never bothered with the others. It works well and even using the phone the battery lasts all day. It does what the app killers are supposed to do. I don't fully understand all that it does, but it turns off the 3G when in standby. To me it looks like it shuts down all nonessential things when in standby but they come right back up when you go back on. In standby it still rings and receives text and email notifications. Like I said I don't fully understand it all, but it's free and it works great... try it. I won't have a smart phone without it.
 
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I installed another pics app, but it didn't do video, so I still end up running Gallery occasionally.

Also, Gallery seems to be tied to taking photos, so I sometimes have to kill it when I've been taking pictures even if I haven't been actually running Gallery on my own.

Gallery and the CDMA/airplane mode bug are the two culprits responsible for basically all of my battery drains. I'm able to get decent battery life as long as I keep an eye on those, but occasionally I'll forget the battery thing and my battery will be almost dead by the end of a workday.

Both are frustrating since it seems like they should provide some sort of software patch to resolve them.
 
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I installed another pics app, but it didn't do video, so I still end up running Gallery occasionally.

Also, Gallery seems to be tied to taking photos, so I sometimes have to kill it when I've been taking pictures even if I haven't been actually running Gallery on my own.

Gallery and the CDMA/airplane mode bug are the two culprits responsible for basically all of my battery drains. I'm able to get decent battery life as long as I keep an eye on those, but occasionally I'll forget the battery thing and my battery will be almost dead by the end of a workday.

Both are frustrating since it seems like they should provide some sort of software patch to resolve them.

I just checked the list of running apps, and Gallery is not running. It hasn't turned on since I force closed it after installing QuickPics. I take lots of pictures and a video here and there, and use QuickPic to view them both.

I tested this just now while typing this post.
Checked all running apps, Gallery is not running.
Took a short video and then watched the video using QuickPics. Checked all running apps, Gallery is not running.
Took a few pictures and then viewed them with QuickPics. Checked all running apps, Gallery is not running.

Be sure you go into your Settings, Applications, Manage Applications and tap on the All tab. Scroll down till you find Gallery and tap on it. If the Clear Data and Cache buttons are lit up, tap them both and then tap the Force Close button.

Overall consensus is the QuickPic app is the best solution instead of Gallery. When you choose to view a video or picture, be sure you are choosing the new app you want to use (be it QuickPic or some other) instead of Gallery.
 
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