Battery life is horrible

[jtc303]

So I am coming from an iPhone 4 because of ICS. I have my razr updated already. However the battery life is horrible. There is no 4G in my area and won't be until later 2013 according to Verizon. My iPhone could go a full day without needing to charge and that's even using 3G to stream pandora and checking facebook and about half an hour or less of gaming. The Razr on the other hand can't even handle half a day. I have tried everything I can think of (setcpu, kill app application, ristricting data connections, using only wifi) and nothing seems to help. I am thinking of switching back to my iPhone and selling my Razr. I do like ICS and droids, I had a Droid X before my iPhone and a Droid before that. But battery life is a big factor. Anyone have any suggestions on how to improve battery life?

Which is why you didn't spring for the Maxx?

 

[jjcisn82]

Which is why you didn't spring for the Maxx?

I didn't get my phone from a Verizon store. I got at Walmart and funds were a little short to go for a max and I wanted to hurry up and lock in my lower price and unlimited data before Verizon switched to the share everything plans.

 

[bacK_N_87]

I wonder if your phone is constantly searching for the mystery 4G service? I heard that could drain your battery.

 

[jtc303]

I didn't get my phone from a Verizon store. I got at Walmart and funds were a little short to go for a max and I wanted to hurry up and lock in my lower price and unlimited data before Verizon switched to the share everything plans.

Just messin witcha

 

[Beckeramos]

I had started to answer this earlier but never completed... This is a work in progress so until you see "In closing...", it's not done.

Battery charging is a strange animal, because it's not just voltage but also amperage (or current) that together comprise the battery's capacity. Voltage and current are hard concepts to explain, but I'll try to give it to you in layman's terms.

Voltage is sometimes described as pressure (or as I like to say, desire to flow from point to point). Current or Amperage is described as the volume or rate of flow. Sometimes it is described as the water pressure in a hose. With the hose closed, the pressure is the desire for the water to flow out of the hose through the closed nozzle. Once you open the hose's nozzle, then the water starts to flow, and then the rate of flow (gallons per minute), would represent the amperage or current. You can have voltage (pressure) without current (flow), but you can't have current (flow) without voltage (pressure). If there were no pressure (voltage), the water wouldn't flow (current), yet there can be measurable pressure (voltage) even when the nozzle is closed and there is no flow (current).

When charging a battery two things happen. First, the voltage being pumped into the battery is higher than the voltage the battery is at when its discharged, and even slightly higher than what the nominal charged voltage for the battery is when fully charged. Without a higher voltage, the battery wouldn't charge, since there would not be pressure to force the charge into the battery. In other words, a 3V battery level wouldn't take a charge from a 3V charger, but would begin taking a charge if the charger were 3.1V or more.

Second, there is the amount of current allowed to be forced into the battery. For us, it's limited to 750mAh, but on the chart below it's showing 1A (1,000mAh). Also, you'll notice the charging voltage starts down around 1V (as represented by the voltage legend on the right), but for our batteries, it starts at about 3V, so once again the chart is somewhat of a misrepresentation of our batteries.

While there is still more than enough capacity to take the full 750mAh of current, it will continue at that level. Meanwhile, the voltage is slowly rising. Once the battery reaches the nominal charged voltage (around 4.2V), the battery is now beginning to "fill out", and so what happens is the amount of current it will allow or absorb starts to decline (the line that slopes downward). With our chargers, the "Stage 1" charge portion is very long, since it's charging slower. Stage 2 is rather short by comparison. So somewhere near 90% of capacity, the charger steps down the voltage and slows the charging rate to allow the battery to gently fill the last 10%.

Eventually as the battery nears current draw that represents about 3% of capacity (even a fully charged battery will draw SOME current), meaning the battery is approaching 100% full (1,750mAh at about 4.2V for the RAZR, 3,300mAh also at about 4.2V for the MAXX), the charging system shuts down completely and then remains in a wait state until voltages drop to about 90% of maximum, indicating a partial discharge, at which point the charger kicks in again and "tops off" the battery back to 100%.

In all batteries that are being charged, once the battery has stopped charging, there is a period of "settling in" where the voltages will stabilize and reduce or "roll off" slightly. This isn't the same as self-discharge which happens over longer time-frames, but could be compared to the balloon relaxing a slight bit from right after it's having been filled. The pressure inside the balloon will drop slightly as the rubber relaxes and "gives" a little more. It's not a fair comparison but an analogy that can help to make sense of this. What really happens is some of the excess voltage helps the current to "settle in" and gives of itself in the process. It's small but enough to see.

The question was, why does the battery seem to reach a higher voltage with the power on than with the power off. I can't say for sure, but this likely has to do with the "parasitic load" of the phone. Since the phone is also drawing current, it has the tendency to "fool" the meter into believing the battery is a bit larger than it really is, so the meter will allow the charger to continue charging at the higher voltage of Stage 1, rather than stepping down the charge rate to Stage 2, perhaps causing the voltage of the battery to rise beyond the 4.2V nominal that it's pegged to stop at. Another possibility is that even though it may have switched into Stage 2, it still doesn't see the signature 3% current draw that signals a full battery, since the phone is pulling current too, so the battery is unfortunately being over-charged as a result.

I've said it before, the most accurate way to get 100% charge is to do so with power off. This will allow the charging circuit and meter to accurately determine charge levels along the way and switch from Stage 1 to Stage 2, to Stage 3 (waiting), without risk of either over or under-charging the battery. Still, charging with power on isn't going to substantially over-charge the battery and so it's not going to place the battery at substantial risk of long-term lifespan reduction.

Foxkat thank you very much. Had to take a deep breath there but certainly some very good information. Some very interesting analogies there.

 

[mcsoul]

It's final, I'm not updating from 2.3.6 until there is a second drop of ICS. :icon_eek:

 

[heavyvino]

It's final, I'm not updating from 2.3.6 until there is a second drop of ICS. :icon_eek:

Great, leaves more for me.

 

[bacK_N_87]

Great, leaves more for me.

Lol how? I know it was sarcasm.

 

[mcsoul]

Great, leaves more for me.

Fine, the latest Ice Cream Sandwich uses brown ice cream and it's not chocolate flavor. :biggrin:

 

[bobinyuma]

Hello everyone,

I have had the Razr Maxx for about 4 months. The battery like was stellar to say the least, even when I ventured into 4g cities it was very good. I live in a city with no 3g and probably low on the list (Yuma, AZ). As soon as the ICS was installed, I immediately had battery issues. Probably close to half the normal operating time, but worse, the phone would heat up and then shutdown, to reboot. Would go several hours and repeat this cycle. I read advice on several posts here, and tried the google play download for the Thunderbird (?) phone program "LTE on/Off". Set it to CDMA auto (PRL), and the phone is back to normal. I have had this for two weeks now and found the phone back to LTE once (which caused the same issues), and reset it to CDMA auto, thus back to stellar batter performance.

My question would be: is there a better option for me to correct this more permanently, should I wait for a software fix upcoming, or should I assume something is wrong with my phone and have it addressed by Verizon? Thanks.

 

[FoxKat]

Well, your phone's problems may be resolved by doing what is known as a Factory Data Restore (FDR for short). If you perform an FDR, what happens is the phone essentially wipes from its long-term memory all the basic files and structure that make up the Operating System, then re-writes them from an archival storage, and recreates all the necessary configurations to perform all the functions it was designed to do from the Factory (hence Factory Data Restore).

It has been found that many times problems which have arisen from the Over The Air (OTA) update to Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) have been resolved by performing the FDR. Some have found that performing a wipe of the Cache (performed from the Recovery Menu) can have an additional overall beneficial effect. Some have also reported that the first time they've performed the FDR, the problems resurfaced, but upon performing the FDR a second time, the problems have gone and appear to have remained permanently resolved.

Finally, although you indicated that the battery will heat up and shutdown to reboot, which would certainly contribute to excessive battery consumption, it is advised that after the OTA update, you perform a Meter Training as it is believed that during the update certain high and low battery level "flags" are wiped and returned to factory defaults and these defaults may not accurately represent the true charged and discharged levels of the battery except at the time of manufacture, which can result in the charger not properly or fully charging the battery, and/or in the meter not accurately reflecting the true state of the battery's discharge levels at any time. This can manifest itself as batteries that seem to discharge rapidly from a full charge over relatively short time frames, and also in batteries that seem to be holding a charge one minute, but suddenly will go dead without warning. It can even result in batteries that will not respond to the charger and phones that will not power on or will bootloop rather than powering up fully.

When you have the next opportunity where you won't need the phone for 3 hours (Droid RAZR), or 5.5 hours (Droid RAZR MAXX), please perform the following Meter Training.

1. Power the phone off (press and hold Power, then select "Power off" from the menu)
2. Plug the phone into the STOCK Motorola Wall Adapter and STOCK Motorola Charging/Data cable (the phone will respond by booting into a "Charge Only" mode)
3. Once the large animated battery appears (Green liquid for Gingerbread, Blue floating level for Ice Cream Sandwich), it will display a "liquid" level and percentage of charge.
4. Allow the phone to remain on charge uninterrupted for either the 3 or 5.5 hours depending on the Droid RAZR model, or if you wish, you can briefly tap either Volume up or down to activate the large animated icon, and you can check the progress. Make sure you do not disconnect until the phone is reporting 100% charge level.
5. Once fully charged, remove from the charger, power up normally and use as you would routinely during the day.
6. Please pay close attention to the battery levels as they near 15%, as you will be repeating the initial charging process above just one more time soon.
7. Once the battery reaches 15% (Gingerbread), or 10% (ICS), and the display pops up a notification of "Low battery" and recommendation to place the phone on charge, repeat steps 1 through 5, after which you are good to go for the next 2-3 months.

If you ever sense that the battery seems to not be providing the expected performance through a day, and the phone isn't otherwise exhibiting any signs of excessive power consumption such as heat up, or a rogue application or service that suddenly appears to be using huge percentages of total power consumption, you can perform the above training again. However, it is generally recommended that you perform this training procedure about once every 2 months (Droid RAZR), or 2-3 months (Droid RAZR MAXX). This should keep things moving along nicely and you should be able to depend on the phone providing you with the needed day's worth of power.

Finally, if you ever expect to need an assurance of the maximum charge the phone can handle, such as when you expect to be away from any power sources for the coming day and it's critical that the phone last, power the phone off before charging and you will start fresh with a battery that is truly holding 100% of its capacity and the meter will be representing accurate levels going forward.

 

[bobinyuma]

Well, your phone's problems may be resolved by doing what is known as a Factory Data Restore (FDR for short). If you perform an FDR, what happens is the phone essentially wipes from its long-term memory all the basic files and structure that make up the Operating System, then re-writes them from an archival storage, and recreates all the necessary configurations to perform all the functions it was designed to do from the Factory (hence Factory Data Restore).

It has been found that many times problems which have arisen from the Over The Air (OTA) update to Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) have been resolved by performing the FDR. Some have found that performing a wipe of the Cache (performed from the Recovery Menu) can have an additional overall beneficial effect. Some have also reported that the first time they've performed the FDR, the problems resurfaced, but upon performing the FDR a second time, the problems have gone and appear to have remained permanently resolved.

Finally, although you indicated that the battery will heat up and shutdown to reboot, which would certainly contribute to excessive battery consumption, it is advised that after the OTA update, you perform a Meter Training as it is believed that during the update certain high and low battery level "flags" are wiped and returned to factory defaults and these defaults may not accurately represent the true charged and discharged levels of the battery except at the time of manufacture, which can result in the charger not properly or fully charging the battery, and/or in the meter not accurately reflecting the true state of the battery's discharge levels at any time. This can manifest itself as batteries that seem to discharge rapidly from a full charge over relatively short time frames, and also in batteries that seem to be holding a charge one minute, but suddenly will go dead without warning. It can even result in batteries that will not respond to the charger and phones that will not power on or will bootloop rather than powering up fully.

When you have the next opportunity where you won't need the phone for 3 hours (Droid RAZR), or 5.5 hours (Droid RAZR MAXX), please perform the following Meter Training.

1. Power the phone off (press and hold Power, then select "Power off" from the menu)
2. Plug the phone into the STOCK Motorola Wall Adapter and STOCK Motorola Charging/Data cable (the phone will respond by booting into a "Charge Only" mode)
3. Once the large animated battery appears (Green liquid for Gingerbread, Blue floating level for Ice Cream Sandwich), it will display a "liquid" level and percentage of charge.
4. Allow the phone to remain on charge uninterrupted for either the 3 or 5.5 hours depending on the Droid RAZR model, or if you wish, you can briefly tap either Volume up or down to activate the large animated icon, and you can check the progress. Make sure you do not disconnect until the phone is reporting 100% charge level.
5. Once fully charged, remove from the charger, power up normally and use as you would routinely during the day.
6. Please pay close attention to the battery levels as they near 15%, as you will be repeating the initial charging process above just one more time soon.
7. Once the battery reaches 15% (Gingerbread), or 10% (ICS), and the display pops up a notification of "Low battery" and recommendation to place the phone on charge, repeat steps 1 through 5, after which you are good to go for the next 2-3 months.

If you ever sense that the battery seems to not be providing the expected performance through a day, and the phone isn't otherwise exhibiting any signs of excessive power consumption such as heat up, or a rogue application or service that suddenly appears to be using huge percentages of total power consumption, you can perform the above training again. However, it is generally recommended that you perform this training procedure about once every 2 months (Droid RAZR), or 2-3 months (Droid RAZR MAXX). This should keep things moving along nicely and you should be able to depend on the phone providing you with the needed day's worth of power.

Finally, if you ever expect to need an assurance of the maximum charge the phone can handle, such as when you expect to be away from any power sources for the coming day and it's critical that the phone last, power the phone off before charging and you will start fresh with a battery that is truly holding 100% of its capacity and the meter will be representing accurate levels going forward.

Excellent, and thanks for the feedback. When I get the time soon, I will do this.

 

[joshxdroid]

Well, your phone's problems may be resolved by doing what is known as a Factory Data Restore (FDR for short). If you perform an FDR, what happens is the phone essentially wipes from its long-term memory all the basic files and structure that make up the Operating System, then re-writes them from an archival storage, and recreates all the necessary configurations to perform all the functions it was designed to do from the Factory (hence Factory Data Restore).

It has been found that many times problems which have arisen from the Over The Air (OTA) update to Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) have been resolved by performing the FDR. Some have found that performing a wipe of the Cache (performed from the Recovery Menu) can have an additional overall beneficial effect. Some have also reported that the first time they've performed the FDR, the problems resurfaced, but upon performing the FDR a second time, the problems have gone and appear to have remained permanently resolved.

Finally, although you indicated that the battery will heat up and shutdown to reboot, which would certainly contribute to excessive battery consumption, it is advised that after the OTA update, you perform a Meter Training as it is believed that during the update certain high and low battery level "flags" are wiped and returned to factory defaults and these defaults may not accurately represent the true charged and discharged levels of the battery except at the time of manufacture, which can result in the charger not properly or fully charging the battery, and/or in the meter not accurately reflecting the true state of the battery's discharge levels at any time. This can manifest itself as batteries that seem to discharge rapidly from a full charge over relatively short time frames, and also in batteries that seem to be holding a charge one minute, but suddenly will go dead without warning. It can even result in batteries that will not respond to the charger and phones that will not power on or will bootloop rather than powering up fully.

When you have the next opportunity where you won't need the phone for 3 hours (Droid RAZR), or 5.5 hours (Droid RAZR MAXX), please perform the following Meter Training.


[*]Power the phone off (press and hold Power, then select "Power off" from the menu)
[*]Plug the phone into the STOCK Motorola Wall Adapter and STOCK Motorola Charging/Data cable (the phone will respond by booting into a "Charge Only" mode)
[*]Once the large animated battery appears (Green liquid for Gingerbread, Blue floating level for Ice Cream Sandwich), it will display a "liquid" level and percentage of charge.
[*]Allow the phone to remain on charge uninterrupted for either the 3 or 5.5 hours depending on the Droid RAZR model, or if you wish, you can briefly tap either Volume up or down to activate the large animated icon, and you can check the progress. Make sure you do not disconnect until the phone is reporting 100% charge level.
[*]Once fully charged, remove from the charger, power up normally and use as you would routinely during the day.
[*]Please pay close attention to the battery levels as they near 15%, as you will be repeating the initial charging process above just one more time soon.
[*]Once the battery reaches 15% (Gingerbread), or 10% (ICS), and the display pops up a notification of "Low battery" and recommendation to place the phone on charge, repeat steps 1 through 5, after which you are good to go for the next 2-3 months.

If you ever sense that the battery seems to not be providing the expected performance through a day, and the phone isn't otherwise exhibiting any signs of excessive power consumption such as heat up, or a rogue application or service that suddenly appears to be using huge percentages of total power consumption, you can perform the above training again. However, it is generally recommended that you perform this training procedure about once every 2 months (Droid RAZR), or 2-3 months (Droid RAZR MAXX). This should keep things moving along nicely and you should be able to depend on the phone providing you with the needed day's worth of power.

Finally, if you ever expect to need an assurance of the maximum charge the phone can handle, such as when you expect to be away from any power sources for the coming day and it's critical that the phone last, power the phone off before charging and you will start fresh with a battery that is truly holding 100% of its capacity and the meter will be representing accurate levels going forward.

I have a quick question for foxcat, is it ok to do a quick charge up to 80% in between the training charges? or should they be uninterrupted by other charging?

 

[mhlanglais]

I found that you need to take the phone's preferred network setting off of "Global" or the LTE ON/OFF setting for CDMA auto will keep changing back to 4G. I have 2 Razrs and this was my experience.

Hello everyone,

I have had the Razr Maxx for about 4 months. The battery like was stellar to say the least, even when I ventured into 4g cities it was very good. I live in a city with no 3g and probably low on the list (Yuma, AZ). As soon as the ICS was installed, I immediately had battery issues. Probably close to half the normal operating time, but worse, the phone would heat up and then shutdown, to reboot. Would go several hours and repeat this cycle. I read advice on several posts here, and tried the google play download for the Thunderbird (?) phone program "LTE on/Off". Set it to CDMA auto (PRL), and the phone is back to normal. I have had this for two weeks now and found the phone back to LTE once (which caused the same issues), and reset it to CDMA auto, thus back to stellar batter performance.

My question would be: is there a better option for me to correct this more permanently, should I wait for a software fix upcoming, or should I assume something is wrong with my phone and have it addressed by Verizon? Thanks.

 

[joshxdroid]

I found that you need to take the phone's preferred network setting off of "Global" or the LTE ON/OFF setting for CDMA auto will keep changing back to 4G. I have 2 Razrs and this was my experience.

That's interesting, because i found when i set use lte on/off it changes it back to global automatically when i change to cdma auto prl