Root Nexus 5 + Root and Franco Kernel update - No battery life improvement :(

[zachn]

Hey guys I'm new here, nice to meet you all.

I've bought my Nexus 5 three days ago and I love the device. I have been tweaking it to my liking, but noticed that the battery is a bit weak.

So I've done all the battery saving stuff: Disabled hotword detection, limited location use to Wifi and Mobile network, all modes are on battery saving, disabled NFC and I'm using a fixed brightness of 30%.

That still didn't do the trick for me, so I decided to root it and install the Franco Kernel.

So after rooting and updating the kernel to Franco's R32, unfortunately, I am seeing no improvement in battery life. My phone drains just like before. I charged it to 100% after updating the kernel and now, 45 minutes after it's already down to 92%, that included 1 phone call and some settings tweaking. Not a heavy use in any way.

Please help, I don't want to go over the same thing I went with my previous iPhone in terms of battery life :/

Thanks in advance.

 

[Hook]

I would say there is definitely something you haven't caught yet (even given that I thing 30% is on the high side for brightness unless you are using the phone mostly outdoors).

What shows up under Settings -> Battery?

What is your phone signal strength most of the time?

What is background syncing under accounts.

Since you are rooted, do a Nandroid backup and factory reset. Don't install anything. reset up your battery saving settings. Do you still have this problem. If not, there is probably a problem with some app. You can restore the Nandroid backup too return to where you were and try to hunt it down.

 

[zachn]

Thanks for the reply Hook.

Here are 2 screenshots of the battery:

imgur: the simple image sharer
imgur: the simple image sharer

As you can see I have 57 minutes of screen time out of an overall 2:47 hours of being on battery and 82% remaining. I don't know how that fares with other Nexus 5's running Franco's kernel...

I have my Google account set to sync App Data, Chrome, Contacts, Gmail and People Details automatically.

Plus I have a corporate account synced with an Exchange server syncing Emails and Calendar events every 30 minutes.

Phone signal strength is good and I'm also using a solid Wifi network most of the time.

I can give the Nandroid backup and factory reset a go, but If I do a factory reset, I'll lose the kernel and I'll have to flash it again right?

Before I do that, tell me what you think about my battery performance based on the screenshots.

Thanks

 

[jhawkkw]

Battery life with this phone really varries person to peron. Some people get absolutely horrid battery life, and other's get amazing battery life. Are you using Google Now at all by any chance?

 

[zachn]

I have Google Now turned off...

I hate this because I never have good luck with batteries when it comes to Smartphones, I have replaced my previous iPhone 5 twice due to battery issues and that's the reason I switched to the Nexus but so far it's not been very different.

I thought that Franco's kernel would improve but I'm not seeing any difference :/

Any suggestions? What about trying a different kernel perhaps?

 

[jhawkkw]

I always found the stock rom to be not quite as efficient as some other one. I personally use Cataclysm rom with Faux123 kernel using Faux clock app to access the tweaks he puts in the kernel. I also have greenify pro and have almost anything that syncs greenified. Right now, my phones been off the charger for 4 hours and I'm still at 98%. Haven't used it very much, only a few text messages, but still great standby battery life.

 

[Rxpert83]

You could also tweak kernel settings to be less aggressive. Hopefully I'll have time to be able to detail a post this afternoon

 

[zachn]

4 hours off charge with 98% left :/ That's amazing...

What are the differences between the stock and Cataclysm rom? And also, say I wanna stay on stock rom but replace my kernel from Franco to Faux123, how do I go about doing that?

 

[jhawkkw]

Cataclysm will offer you a few most customizations that you won't find on the stock rom, and I feel it's a bit more optimized. I saw better battery life on the stock rom with faux kernel over the stock kernel, but I picked up almost an hour of screen time average using cataclysm vs stock rom. On Thursday, I had about 4 hours of screen and was still around 50% battery. I do recommend clearing caches every once in a while to keep things clean.

Whenever you change from Franco to another kernel, you have to flash the stock kernel first because of the changes he makes. But after that, flash faux kernel just like any other kernel. Download it, flash it in twrp/cwm and wipe caches.

 

[zachn]

Sorry I didn't mention but I'm a completely new Android user. I flashed Franco's kernel with his FKU app and I have no idea how to flash back to the stock kernel

I have unlocked my bootloader, rooted the device and flashed the kernel.

Id you could please post a guide on how to flash back to stock kernel and also how to install the Cataclysm rom I'd be grateful to you

P.S. I use Clean Master to wipe caches every once in a while

 

[jhawkkw]

Did you use a toolkit to unlock and root, or did you do it manually?

 

[zachn]

I used the Android SDK slim pack and Windows CMD to unlock the bootloader and rooted with CF-Auto root.

P.S. I'm also using ART and not Dalvik, does Cataclysm support ART?

 

[jhawkkw]

I used the Android SDK slim pack and Windows CMD to unlock the bootloader and rooted with CF-Auto root.

P.S. I'm also using ART and not Dalvik, does Cataclysm support ART?

Yes, Cataclysm does support ART. I still use Dalvik because Greenify Pro requires Xposed Framework which isn't compatible with ART last I checked.

Since you used the command prompt to unlock the bootloader, flashing to stock kernel won't be too hard. You'll want to download the factory image from Google here: https://dl.google.com/dl/android/aosp/hammerhead-kot49h-factory-02006b99.tgz

Once downloaded, you'll want to extract the boot.img file from it and place it in the same directory as your fastboot.exe file that you used to unlock the bootloader. Open the command promt in that directory and use the following command while the phone is in fastboot mode:

fastboot flash boot boot.img

Now you should be on the stock kernel again.

 

[zachn]

Thanks, I may wait a few days to see how the battery acts with Franco's kernel before deciding to go back... Will update soon.

If anyone has good settings for Franco's kernel I'd love to know thsm.

Thanks

 

[Hook]

The main tweak I've used for Franco is to undervolt the CPU. I had it at -50Mv for some weeks, but a couple of days ago I moved to -75Mv and it still seems stable.

I would also take your screen brightness down to 15% unless you have a good reason for keeping it higher (I do about 12% and it's fine). The various things ou are sncing automatically will cost you some. I do almost no autosyncing. However, you may need those, so that is always the balance. I find, particularly, that Google auto sync does a lot of unnecessary syncs rather than waiting for things to change.

 

[zachn]

Did you use -50mv for all frequencies or just some? Also, did you cap the max frequency? Does it affect your performance in apps and such?

 

[Hook]

Here's my battery performance today so far with my setup. Hasn't been heavy use, by the way.

 

[zachn]

Looks great, so that's with -50mv on all frequencies?

 

[Hook]

Did you use -50mv for all frequencies or just some? Also, did you cap the max frequency? Does it affect your performance in apps and such?

I just used the global buttons to reduce across all frequencies. I only just reduced the max frequency. If you look at my Franco Tips thread (which is my asking for tips not giving them), I have just currently implemented the recommendations given me by NYCHitman1.

Note that I am a noob at this myself and shooting in the dark. JHawk and Rxpert are going to give you much more well-founded advice.

 

[zachn]

Much appreciated. Off to watch some snooker now will catch you guys later

 

[jhawkkw]

Here's my battery performance today so far with my setup. Hasn't been heavy use, by the way.

Looks awfully similar to mine

 

[zachn]

I don't see how that's possible, did you guys even touch your phones today?

What's your screen time? I see its not even listed

 

[jhawkkw]

I don't see how that's possible, did you guys even touch your phones today?

What's your screen time? I see its not even listed

Not a whole heck of a lot today. Probably only 15 minutes to send some text messages, hence why Google Voice appears on my battery list.

 

[zachn]

Sounds about right in that case

 

[Hook]

Yeah, not a heavy screen day so far, most of it checking things for you.