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Root [TIP]Guaranteed drastic battery improvement

ChiweN

Android Expert
Dec 5, 2011
885
579
Detroit, Michigan
OK, first off, those of you that know me from other devices know I don't give advice or fixes unless I know for sure they work. That being said, this will be a fairly long post, as I like to validate my claims with real world facts.

Tons of people have been having terrible battery performance on this phone, myself included. This morning at work, my phone dropped to 56% in a little over 3 hours. I've figured out a way to maximize battery life without sacrificing performance. This will not only improve battery life, but may very well make you shout HOLY SHIT!

First off ill say this. Ditch no-frills CPU. It doesn't allow you to create profiles so its useless here. I use rom toolbox. It is hands down the best app for rooted phones, it performs the functions of many apps in one including setting CPU speeds, ad blocking, root explorer, font changer, kernel tweaks, boot animation change and much more. No I don't work for jrummy lol.

So here's the easy steps I took. It will take you 5 min or less. First off, use juice defender. I know a lot of you are already, and its necessary for this to work but its not enough on its own. First step -juice defender set to balanced. Next in rom toolbox set up 2 profiles under CPU control. Profile 1 - Max and min set to 384 MHz/ governor of choice /SCREEN OFF in the stop down box. Profile 2 - max: whatever speed you want your device to run @ while in use(I use max 1.5ghz and min 384mhz)/ gov of choice/ SCREEN ON.

That's it. What this combo does is turn off data when you aren't using it (while the phone is sleeping) and scales down the CPU to 384mhz also when you aren't using it(while the phone is sleeping) you don't need your phone running @ 1.8ghz when its not in use. When you wake the phone up the CPU instantly scales back up, and 4g returns. You WILL NOT suffer any drawbacks/downtime/waiting for the phone to speed back up. Its instant, and the battery savings is huge. (After 5 hours I'm @ 71% with browser/video/texting/tapatalk use/20 minutes of talk time).

Many are naysayers and won't even try this, some are just lazy or don't even wanna spend the time to try it, but its their loss. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. It works, with zero side effects and easy to implement. So ill enjoy getting 15+hours on my stock battery and sleek phone while others use a bulky extended or stay tethered to a charger.

And before anyone says it, no, your device isn't going to be running at 384 MHz lol. Its only going to run at that lower speed while your phone sleeps. Upon waking up the CPU speed will be automagically set to the higher profile 2 setting while you are using your phone, and back to the lower profile 1 settings when you put it back to sleep.

Try it, you have nothing to lose. As always, hit the thanks button when you try this and it works. :D
 
Good tip, but last time i used juice defender on my old optimus it messed my APN settings up so bad i had no data for a long time! I had to reprogram the phone numerous times to get it back.

It works flawless on the connect, I promise krazee! I remember you from back in the optimus forums, long time no see bud :-D
 
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um i prefer 192 min 750 max on smartass. it runs at 192 on screen off anyway and i dont need more than 650 per core even for gaming.
jd ultimate is what everyone should get and go through and fully customize it
now my bt turns off and on. data is off while gaming. brightness is slightly dimmed and a whole lot of other stuff
 
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HaHa good times man, But you havn't ran into any problems so far? I guess looking back now the main cause for the problem was changing my number on a CM7 rom with juicedefender lol

Oh yeah for sure, the optimus was very good times, I've been trying to get ahold of reppard but the man's never around! ! And no, I haven't ran into any hiccups at all using jd on my connect, its worked 100% the way its supposed to so far. Give it a try, you won't be disappointed bro.
 
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um i prefer 192 min 750 max on smartass. it runs at 192 on screen off anyway and i dont need more than 650 per core even for gaming.
jd ultimate is what everyone should get and go through and fully customize it
now my bt turns off and on. data is off while gaming. brightness is slightly dimmed and a whole lot of other stuff

Also I'm sorry, but this is false information bro. If your Max is set to 750 the CPU will scale to 750 even while sleeping because of background processes. Just because its sleeping doesn't mean its going to run @ your min setting, because there's still stuff going on.

That's the purpose of setting up 2 profiles. Setting the Max/min low while the screen is off ensures the CPU will not scale up when the phone is sleeping. The 2nd profile is where you set the Max to the speed you want the phone to run while using it. (Screen on option), so when you wake the phone up the CPU scales up to where you want it.

There's no reason not to set up these profiles. It saves a ton of battery life and you notice no performance impact at all. You don't need your CPU running at high clock speeds while you aren't using it, only when you are using it. That's exactly what this setup does.
 
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This seems to be working so far 3 1/2 hours off the charger and I'm still at 80% battery life, this trick also seems to be keeping the overheating down quite a bit, my phone usually idles around 100 degrees today its been steady around 97/98 degrees.

Good stuff, glad its working out for ya :D

And yes lord, this will work on any Android phone.
 
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Definitely the way to go! That's essentially the strategy I use, except that I use JD Ultimate for advanced customization and SetCPU since I had already bought it a while back and it supports app-based profiles (which lets me forcefully scale most apps back more and only allow the extra power for what really needs it). I'm amazed at how much longer the battery can last thanks to tools like JD and ROM Toolbox (or in my case SetCPU).
 
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I just bought both those apps.

OMG i can't begin to tell you the improvement. Its insane, I get full use of my device during the day. A believe you me, I abuse the crap out of this thing all day. PowerAMP, Rhapsody music, movies, talking.

Good course of action regarding taking care of the battery yourself.
Thanks for the tip, love my phone even more now. I honestly don't think i really need that huge extender battery now. This performs for me, just fine.
 
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Im using SetCPU with pretty good results by itself, but I'm looking to try JD with it. i have tried JD before by itself and got nothing, so i'm just gunna try something different. Now, would I have to use JD Ultimate or JD PLus for this method to work, or can I just use any version of JD and it will work? If I do use JD, what setting will I need to put other than just the "Balanced" setting? I want some specifics so I get this right. Im running m setCPU with the 2 profiles already for my battery, just looking to upgrade it a lil bit.
 
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I just bought both those apps.

OMG i can't begin to tell you the improvement. Its insane, I get full use of my device during the day. A believe you me, I abuse the crap out of this thing all day. PowerAMP, Rhapsody music, movies, talking.

Good course of action regarding taking care of the battery yourself.
Thanks for the tip, love my phone even more now. I honestly don't think i really need that huge extender battery now. This performs for me, just fine.

How many hours are you getting out of your battery per full charge and how many hours would you say roughly do stream video and audio during that time?
 
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Im using SetCPU with pretty good results by itself, but I'm looking to try JD with it. i have tried JD before by itself and got nothing, so i'm just gunna try something different. Now, would I have to use JD Ultimate or JD PLus for this method to work, or can I just use any version of JD and it will work? If I do use JD, what setting will I need to put other than just the "Balanced" setting? I want some specifics so I get this right. Im running m setCPU with the 2 profiles already for my battery, just looking to upgrade it a lil bit.

I use juice defender beta from the market, because its free and it has more options than the free version, it has options that are normally in the paid for versions and works with no problems.

I use balanced yeah :)
 
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How many hours are you getting out of your battery per full charge and how many hours would you say roughly do stream video and audio during that time?


I don't stream audio. I am on the train a lot and on the move in places that don't give me signal well. So I dl music from rhapsody at home and also put music on for poweramp. Also I would watch 1 movie for the day. Half going to work, half coming back.

After a full charge without doing too much and minor calls and texts, with minor surfing and some music listening. I want to say close to 10+ hours. (i judge this from when i get on the train for work 7:30am and when i get off the train to walk home 6:30pm)

When I am listening to music bit more heavily (without video) it lasts almost just as long. With 1 whole movie, its about 8-9 hours before i have to plug it in, sometimes less if it is a long movie. Seems watching movies will drain my battery nice and well no matter what ;)

Hope that helps.

P.S. My ON profile is at 1188 mhz, I don't at this point feel the need to go higher.
 
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@ Chiwwen - I see you have the balanced option checked, but theres other options im asking about that you have set to get your battery drain, How about your Quickbox setting? Your Disable on Wifi, Mobile Data Autofix? Screen enable after unlock?

I wanna try every setting you have thats getting you this life, JUST to test it out. Ill eventually try my own if it doesn't work.
 
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That's it. What this combo does is turn off data when you aren't using it (while the phone is sleeping) and scales down the CPU to 384mhz also when you aren't using it(while the phone is sleeping) you don't need your phone running @ 1.8ghz when its not in use. When you wake the phone up the CPU instantly scales back up, and 4g returns. You WILL NOT suffer any drawbacks/downtime/waiting for the phone to speed back up. Its instant, and the battery savings is huge. (After 5 hours I'm @ 71% with browser/video/texting/tapatalk use/20 minutes of talk time).

How does that turn off data when you are not using it? If it does do that, wouldn't that create a backlog of data syncing? Market, email, MMS, ect. What about tethering? Screen off and you scale back the cpu. That would effect a lot of background processes.

Especially if you use an app like Tasker. Which that combined with some tweaks like what are using could do alot to conserve batt life.
 
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