Rooted for Better Battery Life and Better Radios BUT.....

[b-jammin21]

So I really decided to root my GNex for a number of reasons. However, I was told that 4.0.4 fixes the Android OS Battery Eating Problem and the new radios would help with signal. I have noticed no change, if not the opposite.

Android OS is still tops on my battery consumption (it battles with Display), and the new radios seem to not be helping out too much.

I rooted using Wug's Toolkit (Thanks Wug, it was super easy!), and I am running AOKP Toro Build 33 with the Franco kernel it came with.

Am I missing something here? Why am I not reaping these so called benefits and mega fixes that were supposed to come with 4.0.4?

Any and all help, suggestions, questions, comments, etc. is appreciated. Anyone else notice the same thing?

EDIT: By the way, I did do a search on this and couldn't find a solution, that's why I posted a new thread. Thanks again!
Thanks!

 

[???]

what radio's are you running? There's 2 4.0.4 sets out. The older leak that didn't to much for me and the newer ones they ripped out of the short lived ota update.

FC04 and FC05 I believe are the new ones.

You could also try a kernel. but really what kinda battery life are you getting? like what's your screen on time and how long on battery before it's dead. I just looked at mine today and with the 2100ma battery, nothing turned off, screen up to where it looks good to me. And I got just under 7hours on battery with a little over 4 hours screen time.


Yes I have a new rom and been playing with stuff all day. haha. but to me 7 hours is fine as I carry a 2nd battery and am on my phone alot.

If you are either in a crappy service area and use your phone alot while have the 1800ma battery. you might not get what you hope for no matter what you flash. I mean weak service area's suck a battery down quickly just trying to stay connected. there's maxx guys saying they can't get a full day.. others get 3

my advice would be try a kernel. I love mine and the app that goes with it. just a nice setup. it allowed me to dial out some of the blue in the screen under the color adjust settings. but the app is like 3$. so just flash a kernel first and see. If you notice a difference and want to tweak some stuff. Then get the app.

but that's only one kernal, there's like 10 different ones at least. I think most are just flash and it is what it is. then hit amazon for a cheap battery and wall charger set. I think I paid 10$ for mine. I happen to use the 2100 oem Samsung batteries in it but still cause I got 2 while they were cheap. just charge the phone and throw the spare in the wall charger overnight. Take both with you and battery worries disappear.

might be a slight pain, but I don't even notice one in my back pocket all day. And unless you are within your 14days return or willing to dump the phone and pay full price for a maxx. because the battery life sucks on every smart phone, so just buying another battery will save you 2 years of headache worrying about dead phone batteries.

If you travel at all. It's even worse for every verizon phone I've had. The spotty service would kill my D1 stock battery totally dead in like a 3 hour car ride thru the mountains with it just sitting in my cup holder if it wasn't on a car charger. so when we would take the bikes, batteries would always be a worry. never wanna have someone go down and dead phones, got used to having spares on hand when needed. now I feel naked leaving home without one.

 

[b-jammin21]

Wow, awesome reply. Thank you very much.

Battery life isn't the main issue for me here - I'm actually getting pretty good battery life (I have the 2100mah extended battery). It's just that the main hog is still Android OS, and I was under the assumption that 4.0.4 was supposed to kill that beast. I would say that I can get about a full day (10-14 hrs) on moderate use, so my battery life is quite good. I just have a feeling that if Android OS wasn't chomping 44%+ of my battery, I might be able to make it through the entire day, if not some of the next day. I will post a screenshot of my battery life tonight if I remember to do it.

I flashed the FA02 radios in recovery. I didn't notice much of a change from the old ones, and I also didn't know there was a newer set of radios out there. Do you know where I can download these new radios from? Do you have a link? I had a hell of a time trying to find a download link for the FA02 radios, so if you have a link I would really appreciate it.

Thanks again for the great reply and awesome tips. By the way, what are you running on your phone (ROM, kernel, etc.). And what's the name of the app you were referring to?

 

[mikespe]

It could also be a rom issue. Each phone responds to various roms/kernels/radios differently. You need to try different combos to see which your phone prefers. I like LiquidSmooth on my Nexus. My phone didn't like AOKP But Liquid just runs better...and with the Franco kernel it just works...try different combos to see what you prefer & your PHONE prefers

 

[???]

sorry to link to another site.. but i can't find them here. i sware i saw them somewhere, but can't now.

radios
[URL]http://rootzwiki.com/topic/12864-vzwcwmbaseband-radio-galaxy-nexus-summary/


the rom i'm enjoying
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/sourcery/204077-icsourcery-version-2-0-release.html


and the kernal. again i didn't see him listed on here.
[KERNEL][GPL][26 APR - #M3] franco.Kernel | 4.0.3/4 - [VZW] Galaxy Nexus Development - RootzWiki

t[/URL]he app is in the market. search something like farnco kernel and it should pop it. it lets you flash updates straight from it and not thru recovery. and over clock underclock changes there too. i like it.


as for Android OS using the battery, i kinda of have a feeling its always going to show up like that. i download torrents to my phone all the time, thru the app. to keep the ads and crap off my pc. then just output to my tv. and the torrent app only ever shows a little bit of battery usage, but the [FONT=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]Android OS usage goes up when i use it. i mean if i do it over 4g, the phone will get hot and kill a full battery in about an hour. wifi about 3 hours. and the app % never shows high. i think the way its displayed it just dumped everything it doesn't understand under the OS label. i mean they should break it down and show radios. like how much transferring data over 4g is draining the battery, and stuff. but they don't.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]so if your battery is lasting long enough i wouldn't worry about it.[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]as for the rom, i'd flash the radio's first, and give it a day or so. it seems to me like 4.0.4 and the latest radio's delay the switching much longer than it does on 4.0.3, the db is still high and you have a crap connection, but even a crap 4g connection on my phone is faster than a good 3g. so i like it that way better. [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]it could be all in my head thou. as i don't know what the code is doing. [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]the rom is great thou, i loved stock ics, i didn't [/FONT]even[FONT=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif] really want to rom, but i finally was like ok, let me check one out. and now that i have, all the options are great. my phone feels like home again. i finally have vertical scrolling app drawer like it should be. and endless desk top, i don't have to go one way and back the other. all the pull down toggles and brightness slider in the pulldown. i didn't know how much i missed all that. i mean i had a app for pulldown as well as finally have notification volume split from ringer volume. damn that sucked.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]i ended up flashing the rom theme back to the ics stock theme, but all the themes are built in to switch between. as well as lock screen target apps and lock screen wallpaper.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]i can't go back to stock now for anything lol[/FONT]

 

[sbenson]

Congrats on finally rooting and flashing.

Just curious, why did you select such an old build of AOKP? Build 33 is several weeks old. You should really flash milestone 5 for best results. Get it here.

AOKP comes with the Faux kernel by default. Try it for a couple days. If you're still not happy, reflash Franco Milestone 3 (which is what I did). Some kernels work better than others for certain phones. Try different combos. One note about Franco - get his app, set the kernel to ondemand and select generic hotplug-this should help a bit.

Regarding the radios, go to the link described above. Download the last 4.0.4 radio IMM76K. This is the current and best bar far.

Regarding your concern about Android OS using more % than you think. % is a bad thing to judge. What I'd suggest is download the app "CPU Spy" and run it (in the background). After a couple hours of use, check it to see if your phone is entering deep sleep. Deep sleep should make up no less than 60-70%. If you're under this then you'll know you're Android OS concerns are valid. Otherwise your Android OS usage is normal.

My screen is always my biggest offender around 60% followed closely by Android OS around 30% and I'm averaging about 12-15 hours on the extended battery. You can't ask for much more from this phone unfortunately.

 

[b-jammin21]

Thanks for all the replies guys.

@sbenson - The reason I flashed AOKP 33 was becuase that was the newest version I could find when I rooted. I will give milestone 5 a try.

I will be sure to try out all of your suggestions you all listed above and, I will certainly try Franco's app and CPU Spy, as well as maybe trying out some other ROMs or kernels. I will report back with my findings. Thanks again for all the help!

EDIT: By the way, will I need to save all of my backup files to my computer before I wipe and flash a new rom/kernel/radios? Obviously I used to have all of that save to my SD card on my D1, but seeing as there is no SD card for the Gnex, will I need to copy my backups elsewhere? How do you guys do this? Thanks!

 

[???]

I think it's always good to have a backup stored someplace else. But flashing roms doesn't wipe your whole phone again like rioting does. so they are pretty safe.

 

[sbenson]

I think it's always good to have a backup stored someplace else. But flashing roms doesn't wipe your whole phone again like rioting does. so they are pretty safe.

Rioting? Haha

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[b-jammin21]

Hey benson (or anyone), a bit off topic but could you tell me how to flash clockworkmod touch recovery? I have the file but I can't figure out how to flash it. I've done some research on Google and I can't figure it out. I'm new to this. Thanks.

 

[???]

go to the market, download rom manager, the free one will do.

Open and clock install clockwork recovery. it will reboot and install.

As long as you are rooted already

edit, touch recovery is there too, towards the bottom. it costs a little thou. but worth it. The volume buttons are touchy on the nexus

 

[b-jammin21]

Isn't there another way to flash it besides rom manager?? I already have the file.

 

[???]

I remember they did back in the D1 days and I'm sure there is, but when I asked people were like a why waste the time, it's there, flashes the latest one that's right for your phone and then you can delete it. my guess would be using terminal emulator somehow, or adb. both of which I don't know the command lines or, or maybe there's a update.zip version you can flash thru normal recovery. what about where you got the file at? do they explain how to use it?


Unless you have cracked one you don't wanna pay the 2$ for, then there's other forums for that. This one looks down on getting paid stuff for free a bit. either way, just to flash anything at that level that you're not 100% sure of. might be a pain to fix

 

[b-jammin21]

There's lots of places you can download it for free if you do a Google search. I don't mind paying for it, but if I already have the file, I would just prefer to learn how to flash it myself. I just don't know how to use adb or even what it is so I was hoping someone would know how to flash it and could walk me through the process.

EDIT: Its free on their website.

 

[b-jammin21]

There's lots of places you can download it for free if you do a Google search. I don't mind paying for it, but if I already have the file, I would just prefer to learn how to flash it myself. I just don't know how to use adb or even what it is so I was hoping someone would know how to flash it and could walk me through the process.

EDIT: Its free on their website.

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