No battery improvement after ROM and kernel install

[chrisryn64]

I'm very new to all this but I've tried to read all I can and familiarize myself with the world of rooting.

I have a Droid 1 that was running 2.2.1 totally stock and unrooted until a few days ago. Ever since 2.2 my battery took a massive hit. With 2.1 I could easily go over 24 hours on a charge with normal usage (I'm on google talk and facebook intermittently during the day). After 2.2 I would be lucky to make it to lunch without having to plug it in. This is what got me interested in rooting.

Rooting was straight forward and easy with no problems. After rooting I installed BuglessBeast 0.6.2.1 along with the new kernel from the same guy (running 1ghz_LV_V0.1), again with no issues.

I installed CPU tuner so I could have some more control and hopefully better battery life. These are my settings:

Battery > 50%
Governor: ondemand
Threshold up: 98
Frequencies: 225-1000

Battery < 50%
Governor: conservative
Threshold up: 50 down: 30
Frequencies: 225-800

Screen Off
Governor: powersave
Frequencies: 225-600

I have no performance issues with these settings, but my battery has not improved as it seems to with everyone else using low voltage kernels. I got about 7 hours out of it today which still seems low. Is there something I'm missing or could I possibly have a bad battery?

Edits:

I don't believe it is connected to any apps I have installed. I'm almost totally stock and the only processes I use during the day are google talk and facebook.

[mkjellgren]

Its all about experimenting to find out which rom/kernel combinations work best on your phone. Try literally every single rom and kernel you can get your hands on and you're sure to find something that works well. Just make sure you have a working backup.

In terms of kernels, give raidzero's lv kernels a try. They seem to run very smooth and cool with excellent battery life for many people.

Also, I don't really have a whole lot of experience with cputuner but setcpu is the standard in terms of oc apps. You can find it in the market for a couple bucks or for free straight from the dev over at xda.

[chrisryn64]

That's good advice. These are the first two roms/kernels I've tried and I definitely want to play around some more.

I'll grab setcpu as it seems to be the standard

[mkjellgren]

Good luck. And welcome to your newest addiction...

[chrisryn64]

No kidding, the past few days at work have been very unproductive lol

[juhde]

Since you're new to this I just wanted to point out the importance of flashing roms cleanly and with a fully charged battery.

It's always good to do the following when flashing a new rom or even an updated version of your current rom.

Always make a back up of your current configuration before you flash ANYTHING.

Always wipe everything before flashing any roms. System, boot, data, cache, dalivk cache, and battery stats. You do this in recovery mode, right after a back up, some of the things are under different menus, it depends on your recovery image that you use. Some people prefer to wipe everything 3 times just to be safe. Also don't wipe if you're only flashing a kernel, if the kernel doesn't work then your phone probably can't handle the lower voltage.

Because of this many kernels are available in different voltages, so I usually will download 2 or 3 voltage ratings for the kernel I'm trying, if it boot loops I don't have to go through restoring the phone I can just enter recovery mode and flash another one.

Most people will recommend only flashing when you have 70% or more battery. Personally I only do it fully charged because I always wipe battery stats, many do not. Doing do ensures a clean install and no chance off a shut down in the middle of flashing.

Android actually uses a file to tell the phone how much battery is left. After flashing multiple roms with the battery at varying levels this file can become incorrect at doing this. That's why I always flash in a full charge and wipe battery stats, just keeps it clean. If your battery file is messed up, android say it's low when it's really not. I've had times when I stayed at 5% for over an hour due to this.

90% of the battery problems on stable rom/kernel installs, and most bugs/problems in general, are from installing with out wiping and keeping battery stats in line.

Hope this was useful.

Cheers!

Sent from my Droid

[SupAll]

Welcome to the rooting community and I hope your finding your experience enjoyable so far. I noticed that you said you flashed 6.2.1 and used Pete's lv kernel. This is fine except that Pete's kernels aren't designed with Froyo in mind. They are meant for his GPA roms and so it is quite possible that you may be getting issues because of that. I would recommend P3Droid's kernels as they have always worked well for me.

[dfuser312553]

OP try picking one governor for all your profiles. Like ondemand or interactive.

[BayouFlyFisher]

Here's my tips (some individual items may not apply to your phone):

1. Go to settings/wireless & networks/mobile networks/Enable always-on data. Uncheck always on data. Your phone will still receive email, text, & phone calls as before as well as internet usage but your battery will last a lot longer.

2. Emails: I don't know what email app you use, but try this. It saves battery power and in some cases emails arrive quicker. This scheme will have you using only the Gmail app on the phone for all email accounts whether they are pop3 accounts or Gmail. Go to the Google Gmail inbox on your computer and log into the Gmail account. On the top right of the screen is an option called Settings. In there is an option to have the Gmail program poll your regular, non-Gmail accounts (From the inbox; Settings/Accounts & Import/ Check mail using POP3). Provide the email address and the password. The Google Gmail program will then poll your other accounts on a frequency from 1-5 minutes and push the email immediately to your phone. The polling frequency is determined by each account's activity - more emails = faster polling. This saves battery power because on the android OS pop3 accounts are polled at a frequency of 1-30 minutes and that really eats battery. Because the phone goes and checks those accounts for mail whether there is mail there or not.

3. If you are using Live Wall Papers, stop!

4. Use wifi any time it is available. It uses a lot less power than 3G and it is much faster.

5. If there are widgets that automatically update (facebook, weather, etc.) change their update frequency in their settings menu. Set them to 30mins or 1 hour.

6. Oh, almost forgot, get the extended battery from Verizon.

7. Turn off the GPS unless you are actually using it. There are some background apps that can burn a lot of power via a live gps.

8. The Power Control Widget is a good tool for easily turning on and off some of these features (gps, wifi, screen brightness, etc.).

9. From the home screen do the following: menu/settings/About Phone/Battery Use. This graph will show the 10 biggest power users on the phone. It should always be Screen as the top user and the android os, android system, phone standby and phone idle should be the other top users. If there is an app listed you should determine if it’s an app you actually use a lot or do you have a rogue app that needs to be uninstalled.

10. Get Screebl. It will turn your phone off anytime you are not actively using it.

11. If you have either a task killer or an anti-virus app installed, you should uninstall.

12. Go to data>system>and delete batterystats.bin after you've charged your phone to 100%. This will help with battery meter accuracy.

13. D2G - go in to settings, wireless and networks, mobile network and change the network type from global to CDMA only. The d2g is locked out from using the local GSM networks in the US. You don't need global radio turned on in the US just overseas. Go into Settings > Wireless & Networks > Mobile Networks > Network Mode > and turn off the default setting of Global and turn on CDMA. This assumes you are in the US.
14. If you have ad blocker, turn it off.
15. If you are using Launcher Pro, try switching to ADW or Zeam for a while.
16. Reboot you phone every day or two.

[K.ZIMM]

Here's my tips...

Good stuff here. I went back to a stock unrooted Droid because my battery life was still horific. I went from 6hrs of standby time with very moderate usage between several dozen kernels, to well over 24hrs standby back on stock / unrooted. I'm going to retry a rooted ROM following some of these tips.