Root [Virgin Mobile] Battery Life/Kernel Tweaks Discussion Thread

jr9306 said:

Trying out quantum. Btw I'm not too familiar with fast charging. Is it worth it?... drawbacks?

Click to expand...

struckn said:

Generally should be avoided. If you charge your phone overnight, or better yet use an extended battery, you will be fine with the regular charging method.

Click to expand...

Fast charge also disables access to the phones storage. I'm loving Quantum as well so far, seems to be doing well. It doesn't have a freelunch option though . I'm so use to freelunch I don't know which option to choose haha. I'm using intelliactive or interactive. We'll see how each plays out.

As for the fast charge, would never really be good, all phones now have lithium batteries which charge pretty fast already

Also the slower the charge the better, that's why you'll normally see ppl raving when a trickle charge setup comes out where it charges the battery extra slow as it allows the battery to take the charge better which then technically results in a more even discharge


Although I would be curious lol my recent PC build I bought an Asus Maximus Formula VI board which has a feature called charge boost which makes the USB put out 12v as opposed to a usb's normal 5v, which basically makes the usb the same as a wall outlet, but then also has a fast charge feature so if that were combined with a fast charge kernel while it would technically be worst for the battery, im wondering how fast it could possibly charge lol curiosity lol the most dangerous thing when playing with our phone

Makes me think about the video struckn linked in another thread lol

Im using quantum on zen/intellidemand and overnight with nothing running Im still losing 20% at least with wifi on. BBS shows that it was in deep sleep the entire time... Im confused. And doing little things that require no CPU that use 1-2% on CM11 are taking 8-12% on LS. :/

FatalIll said:

Im using quantum on zen/intellidemand and overnight with nothing running Im still losing 20% at least with wifi on. BBS shows that it was in deep sleep the entire time... Im confused. And doing little things that require no CPU that use 1-2% on CM11 are taking 8-12% on LS. :/

Click to expand...

First I'd say are you saying u leave wifi on? Cause that is like the largest battery draining feature on the phone especially if it keeps finding new signals

Second the LS features I'm guessing your talking about are probly systemui in which case I'd say the LS should pull a wee bit more since it actually allows you to change ui features and colors, meaning LS system ui doing more work then CM systemui


Another note LS by default, like u changed absolutely no performance settings, runs worse on the battery then cm at default, I personally noticed this a few days ago when I was running LS, I didnt have time to read into any info so I did what most ppl should do in that situation and went back to cm11 for the time being till I read up on and decide on what governor and things like that I'd want to use

Struckn and a few others have mentioned there setups in a few different threads of what u can use to make LS better on the battery then CM

Just always keep in mind that CM has always been known to incorporate battery saving features and other Roms do as well just sometimes in earlier builds they won't worry on it to much as there focus is on more important sections, most likely tho as they all mature you'll see battery usage leveling out between most Roms

Tokens210 said:

First I'd say are you saying u leave wifi on? Cause that is like the largest battery draining feature on the phone especially if it keeps finding new signals

Second the LS features I'm guessing your talking about are probly systemui in which case I'd say the LS should pull a wee bit more since it actually allows you to change ui features and colors, meaning LS system ui doing more work then CM systemui


Another note LS by default, like u changed absolutely no performance settings, runs worse on the battery then cm at default, I personally noticed this a few days ago when I was running LS, I didnt have time to read into any info so I did what most ppl should do in that situation and went back to cm11 for the time being till I read up on and decide on what governor and things like that I'd want to use

Struckn and a few others have mentioned there setups in a few different threads of what u can use to make LS better on the battery then CM

Just always keep in mind that CM has always been known to incorporate battery saving features and other Roms do as well just sometimes in earlier builds they won't worry on it to much as there focus is on more important sections, most likely tho as they all mature you'll see battery usage leveling out between most Roms

Click to expand...

Both my home and my school have constant WiFi data, leaving it on has never had an impact on my battery since I'm not finding new signals or disconnecting.

I have touched cosmetic settings as far as status bar and such in LS but nothing deep into the settings that would warrant a battery drop.

Where are the posts that make LS better on battery?

FatalIll said:

Both my home and my school have constant WiFi data, leaving it on has never had an impact on my battery since I'm not finding new signals or disconnecting.

I have touched cosmetic settings as far as status bar and such in LS but nothing deep into the settings that would warrant a battery drop.

Where are the posts that make LS better on battery?

Click to expand...

As for the WiFi if you use it all the time you've probly never noticed, its a fact tho that WiFi drains the battery, u have to power the WiFi unit, and then power the WiFi antenna, there's a possibility that the ROM may have different setting such as a higher antenna power which usually equals better antenna distance so on and so forth

As for the LS, that's what I'm saying by default the LS systemui has many different things that can be changed including what CM has but then so even more, resulting in it taking a Lil more, as long as its not very large I'd say its probly normal

The post on saving battery would most likely be in struckns liquid smooth forum

I don't know if anyone else has this issue with the Quantum Kernel, but it seems as though there is a delay between touching the home or power button when the screen is off and the screen actually turning on.

I'm about to go to my backup and reflash the kernel, but it became more apparent as the day went on.

I'm running CM 11 nightly.

Any thoughts or has anyone else had this issue yet?

Hey guys I'm still watching this thread. For some reason my phone will not open the Android Forums app. I cleared the cache and data in the app then uninstalled and reinstalled it but its still not working for me. I tried tapatalk as well and cant reply to the thread in tapatalk. Anyways...I downloaded the new quantum kernel tonight and am about to flash it. I'll let you guys know how everything goes. Any help and suggestions for quantum kernel plz let me know and thanks for everything you guys do!

thompsonjdt said:

I don't know if anyone else has this issue with the Quantum Kernel, but it seems as though there is a delay between touching the home or power button when the screen is off and the screen actually turning on.

I'm about to go to my backup and reflash the kernel, but it became more apparent as the day went on.

I'm running CM 11 nightly.

Any thoughts or has anyone else had this issue yet?

Click to expand...

For some users Quantum wouldnt let them set the minimum speed any lower than 1024? Someone in this thread figured out the problem earlier in this thread. Skim through the thread and read up about it. I flashed Quantum last night and it gave me boot loops on CM11 nightly 3/17. I flashed back to DKP and am in business again with my stock messaging app working with MMS again. Woohoo!!

PS4AndroidHacker said:

For some users Quantum wouldnt let them set the minimum speed any lower than 1024? Someone in this thread figured out the problem earlier in this thread. Skim through the thread and read up about it. I flashed Quantum last night and it gave me boot loops on CM11 nightly 3/17. I flashed back to DKP and am in business again with my stock messaging app working with MMS again. Woohoo!!

Click to expand...

Yeah, It was ok as far as going into deep sleep mode and what not, but it was just one of those little things of it not being as reactive to buttons like dkp was.

Reflashed dkp and I can definitely tell a difference.

I might check back in a few days to see if they've updated or not.

Tokens210 said:

As for the WiFi if you use it all the time you've probly never noticed, its a fact tho that WiFi drains the battery, u have to power the WiFi unit, and then power the WiFi antenna, there's a possibility that the ROM may have different setting such as a higher antenna power which usually equals better antenna distance so on and so forth

As for the LS, that's what I'm saying by default the LS systemui has many different things that can be changed including what CM has but then so even more, resulting in it taking a Lil more, as long as its not very large I'd say its probly normal

The post on saving battery would most likely be in struckns liquid smooth forum

Click to expand...

Wifi actually doesn't use as much juice as most people think. If you want to be connected to the Internet overnight and have it available, wifi is the way to go. 3g and LTE will use more juice.

I used to think the the same thing and that wifi was a battery hog until I had one of the Devs break it down and explain it to me. I wish I could remember where his post was so i could share the link to it. He broke it down and gave a very informative explanation.

wetbiker7 said:

Wifi actually doesn't use as much juice as most people think. If you want to be connected to the Internet overnight and have it available, wifi is the way to go. 3g and LTE will use more juice.

I used to think the the same thing and that wifi was a battery hog until I had one of the Devs break it down and explain it to me. I wish I could remember where his post was so i could share the link to it. He broke it down and gave a very informative explanation.

Click to expand...

Well I ment more in terms of some Roms actually have the tx and Rx power turned up to give the WiFi better distance and signal strength, technically WiFi and signal should be close to one another, being as both most likely have a module that need power and an antenna, just the searching over and over effects it which 3g/LTE will do all the time looking for towers, for me as an example I can't leave WiFi on my phone, I'm in a strange location where about 12 WiFi connections will be detected lost, detected, lost over and over my device become like 80 degrees if I forget and leave WiFi on at home for more then 30 minutes

My house has really thick walls, so much in fact that my WiFi isn't available even right out front of my house, but my last device had a ROM which increased the power and I could get my home WiFi almost 3 blocks away, downside was it drained the battery in less then 10 hours lol even tho the phone itselfs best charge only last 24 it was a huge difference of 14 hours on the one that played with antenna power

You can also do the same with custom firmware for your router but the router will get hot a lot quicker due to all the extra power its using

Tokens210 said:

Well I ment more in terms of some Roms actually have the tx and Rx power turned up to give the WiFi better distance and signal strength, technically WiFi and signal should be close to one another, being as both most likely have a module that need power and an antenna, just the searching over and over effects it which 3g/LTE will do all the time looking for towers, for me as an example I can't leave WiFi on my phone, I'm in a strange location where about 12 WiFi connections will be detected lost, detected, lost over and over my device become like 80 degrees if I forget and leave WiFi on at home for more then 30 minutes

My house has really thick walls, so much in fact that my WiFi isn't available even right out front of my house, but my last device had a ROM which increased the power and I could get my home WiFi almost 3 blocks away, downside was it drained the battery in less then 10 hours lol even tho the phone itselfs best charge only last 24 it was a huge difference of 14 hours on the one that played with antenna power

You can also do the same with custom firmware for your router but the router will get hot a lot quicker due to all the extra power its using

Click to expand...

Yeah man. I know what's it's like to have those thick walls. They can seriously affect signal reception. Fortunately the house we have now isn't that bad.

I don't know about the ROM you're running but most have the option to turn off the constant searching for wifi signals. I disable mine.

I also run DD-WRT on my router and have it set to its optimal settings for my home, area, and devices. I leave wifi on all the time when I'm at home and have been known to get several days out of one good charge on a stock battery. With my Zerolemon battery and minimal use I can get 4 or 5 days. With heavy usage and I mean HEAVY USAGE, I usually get at least 2 days.

The ROM and kernel play a big part too. Also, as most of us know who've been running Android devices for awhile, we know that you can take 2 of the same devices and one will work great with certain settings while the other won't. LOL!

When it boils down to it, the best thing to do is experiment with your device trying different ROM and kernel combinations. Right now a good many people are getting great results with Liquidsmooth and the Quantum kernel.

Another thing that helps is to use Greenify or use Titanium to freeze apps which run in the background. Facebook is one of the main culprits for battery drain. Turning off GPS and all that stuff helps tremendously.


Another option for those who don't need Internet overnight is to put the phone in airplane mode.

yea agree with ya 100% the DD firmware was actually the exact ppl whoes firmware i used on my last router, i just eventually had to go abck cause there code had an issue that kept locking my wifi down lol havent looked into any newer ones as my borther just bought some like $200 netgear AC/N/G/B dual band 2.4 and 5.0 router, i get almost 8-12MBps on wifi so im cool with it for now lol

as for the wifi, as i was typing my last post i realized that ive been forgetting that constant search setting lol so it was deff. using more thn i though, especially as i said my location causes about 12 different networks to appear and disappear so rapidly its crazy

and yea i saw the devices difference on my last device, where some couldnt be overclocked at all and some could have an extra .5 or more added to the clock with no issues

currently im running stock battery and ive been trying to not use the phone to much altho i troll this site and the asus forums so often it messes with my battery so i can never get a good light or non usage guess, currently tho even with me using it almost all day at work ill still normally leave at 8am with 100% and come home around 4-5pm and usually have more then 50% left sometime its been as high as 80 but with alot of use 56 is normally the lowest ive seen so its pretty decent, much better then my last phone, the triumph, max battery was 12 hours with 0 use lol, even with the craziest battery saving things i could find on the web it only ever made it as high as almost 3 days lol

as for facebook i have the app but try to rarely use it, cause ive done some testing and it seems the app will stay under control as long as you dont open it and leave the settings to barely send notifications lol

once you open the app even once tho the cats outta the bag and the only way ive found to quickly and easily shut it down without going thru different things is a quick reboot, as when im at work thats really my only option, cant be playing with my phone lol

and as for rom and kernel's i typically run mostly stock things, i know most of the stuff on how to do it and how to change settings, i just choose not to, im not very heavy into overclock or underclocking as particularly with this device i see no need, good battery, good signal, nice response on the screen

i also would love to grab up a zero lemon huge battery but never will due to the fact that lifeproof doesnt offer extended backs for there cases and i work construction so the phone gets beat down on a regular daily basis lol given the look of the case which is only 5 months old it has already saved me from having my device look like i put it thru a sander 100 different times lol

I tried using the LS 3/15 update and Quantum kernel but my phone was extremely laggy to the point i couldnt get to the kernel settings once booted. Rebooted to recovery and reflashed the dkp kernel and all is well here.

Idk maybe my phone is stubborn, but battery life somehow has improved especially when the phone is in sleep mode. Before it would drop 30% just sitting overnight on my extended battery, last night with the update it only dropped maybe 1%

struckn said:

Found another kernel for you guys, it is brand new as of yesterday. The kernel is called Majestic Kernel, and the thread is in the AT&T SGS3 forum on XDA. Never fear, like Quantum it is unified! Haven't had a chance to flash it yet, but here is the link for anyone who wants it:

[KERNEL][KITKAT] [LINARO -O3] MajesticKERNEL 1.0.4 - 3/19/14 - xda-developers

Click to expand...

Tried flashing, broke WiFi and rom wouldn't work properly. Everything was crashing. Running LS, maybe a bad download?

ajnycguy said:

Tried flashing, broke WiFi and rom wouldn't work properly. Everything was crashing. Running LS, maybe a bad download?

Click to expand...

Maybe a bad DL, maybe an incompatibility. Slim chance, but still a chance. Dev did say he made it and runs it on a self compiled CM11 Linaro.

FatalIll said:

Maybe a bad DL, maybe an incompatibility. Slim chance, but still a chance. Dev did say he made it and runs it on a self compiled CM11 Linaro.

Click to expand...

Tried newest build 1.0.5 and got Status 7.

ajnycguy said:

Tried newest build 1.0.5 and got Status 7.

Click to expand...

Think I'll steer clear of this one till something is figured out to get it to work.

So today I think I made some progress with my battery life. I made it all day with about 30% left when I got home around 6pm eastern. This included about 3hrs and some change with screen on.

I do some Facebookin and a considerable amount of texting so I was pleasantly surprised.

My setup is CM 11 Nightly from 14 Feb with dkp kernel

Stock Battery
CPU Governor = freelunch
Min = 54
Max = 1080
Multicore Power saving = 1
ZRAM + Disabled
TCP congestion control = veno
Read ahead buffer size = 2048
I/O = ROW

The biggest changes were to the startup items in Google Services Framework and Google Play services as mentioned in this vid. How to save battery/ Increase battery life on most of android devices ONLY FOR ROOTED DEVICES - YouTube

Happy tweaking!

thompsonjdt said:

So today I think I made some progress with my battery life. I made it all day with about 30% left when I got home around 6pm eastern. This included about 3hrs and some change with screen on.

I do some Facebookin and a considerable amount of texting so I was pleasantly surprised.

My setup is CM 11 Nightly from 14 Feb with dkp kernel

Stock Battery
CPU Governor = freelunch
Min = 54
Max = 1080
Multicore Power saving = 1
ZRAM + Disabled
TCP congestion control = veno
Read ahead buffer size = 2048
I/O = ROW

The biggest changes were to the startup items in Google Services Framework and Google Play services as mentioned in this vid. How to save battery/ Increase battery life on most of android devices ONLY FOR ROOTED DEVICES - YouTube

Happy tweaking!

Click to expand...

What Kernel?

struckn said:

Looks like dkp if he referenced freelunch governor.

Click to expand...

#Truuuuuu (2 Chainz voice)