Help battery help..

[fgibson]

my battery sucks! as most everyone knows that has the spectrum.. i dont want to root my phone for two reasons.. 1 it doesnt work on my husbands laptop and 2 i dont want to ruin my phone.. since i tried it on his computer and it failed it seems to get hotter all the time when using it or when charging it. not sure if that has anything to do with the root fail or not.. anyways.. what can i do with my factory phone to help the batter its literaly doesnt last more than 2 hours and then takes ALL day to charge. yesterday i put it on the charger at 10 and it was finally fully charged at about 7pm that night.. yes i did use it a few times while on the charger but it really really sucks... i want a 4g phone but the battery is kinda making me HATE this one..

HELP PLEASE

 

[stef7]

There is something wrong with your phone or the charger / cable. After 3 full battery charge / discharge cycles, your estimate should be fairly good.

You can run JuiceDefender but I would hold off till you try another battery and charger. See if VZN will replace for you. If new battery and charger doesn't help, then it could be the phone. Again, VZN to replace.

 

[fgibson]

i would love to have verizon replace it but they wont because i didnt buy it from them i traded for it with a friend...

 

[finndo77]

Sounds like you have a dud, might as well root it, if it does not work anyway. Worst case scenario you can probably but one online for $0.00 or $0.01 and free shipping, check Amazon, NewEgg, and the other one I keep forgetting. There is a thread on thurs forum with it, look for $19.99 at Amazon.

Pretty sure you cannot kill the spectrum with rooting, only if you flash a ROM not made for it. Go check out the all in one rooting thread, read every post. Most issues you might have are discussed in the replies and all have been resolved.

Sent from my VS920 4G using Tapatalk 2

 

[MrB206]

-Root.
-Freeze stock apps not used.
Set your user apps that update for only when the screen is on.
-Use wifi when @ home.
-Change governor to conservative and set on boot.

I can get 8-12 hrs on medium use, 24 with light use.

 

[fgibson]

what the governor? i rooted my phone btw love it! its doing alot better only complaint i have it my speaker and now i dont have a voice mail app but i love my phone now that its rooted

i went from getting 2-3 hours max to about 6 with light use. im sure im missing something still i am just very tech dumb and dont know how to do alot of things..

 

[liteon163]

I'm glad you're happier with your phone. But you still have either a defective battery or phone. You might want to try swapping batteries between yours and your husband's phones, assuming your husband gets decent life out of his.

If your husband's battery lasts longer in your phone than your original, perhaps you should consider getting a replacement battery. If there's no difference, it might be the phone or both batteries are bad.

Did this "friend" mentioned the phone may not work right? If not, you may want to talk to them about going back to what you had before.

In the end, you may need to contact LG directly to see if they might help you. We'll keep trying to help you, but it may come to that...

 

[fgibson]

he has a thunderbolt. i have been looking for a new battery. i asked her about it and she said that it worked great no issues with the phone only got rid of it bc she wanted a different phone.. the phone i got rid of when i got the lg there was nothing wrong with it i just wanted a new one too.. so im not really sure it has improved some since rooting so im hoping its a bad battery, i have also noticed when i use the oem cable or one that lg sent with a phone it charges better, faster, and lasts longer than using my husbands htc cable. maybe i am crazy but it seems that way.

 

[MrB206]

what the governor? i rooted my phone btw love it! its doing alot better only complaint i have it my speaker and now i dont have a voice mail app but i love my phone now that its rooted

The governor controls how the cpu works. The conservative gov saves batter by not ramping up the cpu to max, like others do. Get an app like setcpu and you can change governors.

 

[liteon163]

Have you done a factory wipe of the phone? This could help eliminate some rogue software you have that may be messing with your battery.

What app are you using to freeze other apps? And apparently SetCPU is working for you? I've heard negatives about it...

 

[fgibson]

yea i did that before i put the rom on. the titiatium back up one.. whats a setCPU?

 

[KB12]

Phone was fully charged at 10pm last night. Took it off charger and went to sleep. Now, this morning at 7 am it is at 29%. Went to usage and "Android OS" used 56% of battery, while Android System used 10%.

I am rooted, on our ROM, bloated through Titanium, and have setCPU on conservative. In fact it is in airplane mode until 7 AM. BTW does that prevent calls or just data?

Anyways.... what to do? Pretty frustrating!

 

[liteon163]

Airplane mode turns off all of your phone's radios, meaning there is no telephone connection and no data connection. Basically, your phone just becomes an iPod Touch with wifi off.

Last night my Spectrum was at 97% when I went to sleep. I lost only 2% of my battery overnight in airplane mode.

It sounds like you might have some application working in the background, trying to sync despite the phone being in airplane mode. I've found that if you go to the Spectrum's menu, it is possible to see what applications are running and how much CPU time they have been using. I recommend seeing what you can figure out there.

I'm sure other members here will be able to chime in with other suggestions... Probably including app recommendations to see what's using so much battery.

 

[TheBigKahuna]

My battery started off poorly. After a few cycles and getting Juice Defender set up to suit my needs, my battery lasts all day now. The only way I can prematurely kill my battery is by playing a game like Angry Birds, which will sap a battery in an hour or so. Otherwise, my battery survives the day with no problems.

 

[KB12]

I've found that if you go to the Spectrum's menu, it is possible to see what applications are running and how much CPU time they have been using.

Can you be more specific?

 

[liteon163]

Menu, settings, about phone, battery, battery use.

This will tell you which apps are using the most battery.

Menu, settings, applications, running services.

This will tell you what services and applications are running in the background.

Between the two, you should be able to narrow down the culprit a bit. Not a perfect solution, but better than nothing. And it might point you in the right direction.

It sure would be nice if there was some way to dig into what is actually contributing to usage attributed to Android OS... Maybe there's an app for that?

EDIT: I found a link that might be useful

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=15869886&postcount=2

This might help a lot. I downloaded it and will check it out myself.

 

[sonicmerlin]

Ah yes, that wonderful thread. 441 pages of teeth gnashing and pain. Here's the full thread link in case you're interested: [APP] [15 Mar. - V1.7.1] BetterBatteryStats adds battery history back to Android - xda-developers

I've used that program extensively, as well as looked through alarm dumps. It can only do so much though. I've noticed on a previous phone and my HP Touchpad that the TIME.TICK intent runs thousands of times, draining my battery while it was in standby- but there's no way to figure out just *what* is calling that stupid alarm. Turning off automatic time settings certainly didn't fix it.

Worst of all is that I discovered that 2 people with the same exact phone with the same exact programs installed can have vastly different battery usage while on standby. A lot of phones have some really borked quality assurance issues. It's not just Android though. I've heard of the same problem with the Lumia 900, which isn't nearly as customizable as Android. And Nokia's been issuing firmware updates like crazy to fix the same issues occurring to the Lumia 800.

The iPhone had the same problem with iOS 5.0's introduction of notifications, but it was completely fixed on virtually every phone with iOS 5.1 (took 'em several months to do it though). My mom's iPhone lasts like a week on standby now where before it couldn't even last a day. It's ridiculous. It's a shame the iPhone lacks text reflow in the browser and has such a small screen. Makes it pretty much useless for web browsing forums and comment sections.

 

[MrB206]

When I hear people say they had their phone in airplane overnight and the battery drained 20%, my first question is "What apps do you have installed and running right now?" Some apps will run (especially widgets on timed updates) even if the screen and data are off. You can set some apps to not update/run when the screen is off, but I don't even install apps that don't have that option and I remove the ones that I find are perpetually running for no reason. People tend to think apps can do no harm, but it's like installing software on your PC... you need to know what you're installing and control it. That's the glory of the Linux/Android OS... complete control (even if you have to use 2rd party apps to do it).

 

[liteon163]

What app are people using to freeze other apps? There are a few available and I'm not sure which one to try.

Thanks.

 

[MrB206]

Rom toolbox. It's literally the best app for romming and customization.

 

[KB12]

When I hear people say they had their phone in airplane overnight and the battery drained 20%, my first question is "What apps do you have installed and running right now?" Some apps will run (especially widgets on timed updates) even if the screen and data are off. You can set some apps to not update/run when the screen is off, but I don't even install apps that don't have that option and I remove the ones that I find are perpetually running for no reason. People tend to think apps can do no harm, but it's like installing software on your PC... you need to know what you're installing and control it. That's the glory of the Linux/Android OS... complete control (even if you have to use 2rd party apps to do it).

Can you give an example of an app with settings for updates, and how to access those settings? I'm not really finding any that I've looked around on other than the obvious google for syncing everything google oriented.

 

[MrB206]

A prime example is NFL that comes preinstalled on this phone. I never opened it, yet it was constantly running as an 'active' program and battery stats showed it was a high user of juice. Needless to say, i froze it.

Other apps like Beautiful Widgets allow you to set timed intervals for updating or 'update when woken'. I go for the latter, because it allows me to prevent the app from running all the time when I'm not using it. Same with ClockSync. I use it to keep my phone time accurate (VZ is off by 15 seconds from atomic time), but I set it to only update when the phone is awake. Basically, go into app settings and if it auto updates (RSS readers and forum apps do this), either turn that off or, if you can, set it to update only when awake (which means the screen is on). IMO, if I can't set that and the app run constantly, I remove the app, just like I'd remove crap software from my PC if I didn't like how it ran.

 

[liteon163]

Do app freezers allow you to still open an app that is frozen? I'd like to stop certain apps from opening themselves, but I still want to use them...

Thanks

 

[finndo77]

Not unless you unfreeze the app to use it. Try Onavo Count. Give it a week to get some stats, and it will show you what is using data regularly.

To find out what is killing the battery at night, try installing Onavo Count before you go to bed, then leave your phone as normal during the day (do not use airplane mode) then check in the morning to see what went online.

I also use System Panel to monitor cpu usage, but it can be confusing to read. Also, you have to pay to get it to keep any information past current (basically to enable logging). It was the first app i bought (i think) and the only app I've used for more than 24 months and still use almost every day.

Phone Weaver is good for auto scheduling settings changes, based on time, gps location, if the screen is on or off, and a couple if other things. The free version only works for 7 days, or maybe it was 15...

Rom Toolbox is like several apps in one, you can replace titanium and setcpu with it, plus several others. Very useful, but somethings it can do will make you have to reflash a nandroid backup from clockworkmod if you are not careful. I recommend keeping a written log of any changes you make if you use this, just in case.

 

[Parshooter]

Menu, settings, about phone, battery, battery use.

This will tell you which apps are using the most battery.

I did this, out of curiosity, and it shows that my Easy Battery Saver is using 3%. Is that something to be concerned with or not?
Phone Idle is showing 19%, is that normal? TIA :thumbup: