Android System vs. Android OS Bug

gunit34328

Member
Joined
May 26, 2010
Messages
104
Reaction score
0
Does anyone know why they Android System consumes so much battery?

Before I bought the gnex I read about the Android OS bug and how it consumed so much battery (first screenshot) so that was to be expected. Today I checked to see what was causing my phone to drain so much battery and it was the Android SYSTEM (I had to do a double-take...I originally thought it was the Android OS b/c this was the known cause battery drains).

So I was wondering, does anyone else have this problem? Is this another bug that needs to be fixed? Does the Android OS fix in 4.04 address this problem as well (if it even is a problem)?

I'm running stock 4.02 and I haven't rooted nor unlocked my bootloader. After seeing this today, I was thinking I should definitely root and get to 4.04 asap to fix these bugs. Let me know what you guys think and thanks in advance for the help.

View attachment 47368
 

orion2001

Member
Joined
Feb 23, 2010
Messages
123
Reaction score
2
I updated from 4.0.2 to 4.0.4 and the Android OS battery consumption bug is fixed. However, I should point out that this was never a big issue in that it is just an error in the way the consumption is reported...the OS isn't actually causing a whole lot of extra battery consumption. This can be verified by the fact that idle power consumption is quite similar between 4.0.2 and 4.0.4.

Having said that, I really like 4.0.4. The stock browser has a perfect increase in the number of quick controls (ICS Browser+ seems to have too many), and the UI is completely lag/stutter free (4.0.2 would still have a minor stutter here and there). Also, the handoff between 3G/4G and Wifi is near instantaneous in 4.0.4...which is really nice because it would really annoy me on 4.0.2 when moving around in places with poor signal reception.
 

BayouFlyFisher

Rescue Squad
Rescue Squad
Joined
Dec 10, 2009
Messages
4,947
Reaction score
17
Location
Baton Rouge, LA
First of all there are two things to understand: 1) The screen shot of your battery usage statistics is a chart that you should think of as a Pie Chart. Those percentages are going to add up 100% (+/- or a point or so). So if you force other things to be low, for instance if you don't use the phone and screen time is very, very low, then the other things that consume battery power will be listed at a higher percentage because the total has to add up to about 100%.

2) There two keep awake bugs (in my opinion). As noted in a lot threads on a lot of forums, there are some phones that have a problem with the Android OS and the "Keep Awake" time. There seems to be an issue with some phones not truly going to sleep when the power button is used to turn off the screen as opposed to letting the screen turn off automatically when the screen times out. This results in a very high time in the Settings/Battery/Android OS/Keep Awake menu.

In stock form and with every rom that I have installed, my "Keep Awake" time was always about 50-60% of my total battery time. If the phone had been off charger for 8 hours, I'd have 4-6 hours of Andorid OS "Keep Awake" time. This was true even if the phone had been in my pocket unused and seems to be exacerbated by my habit of turning the screen off manually with the power button every single time. I used to never let the screen timeout.

There seems to be a few "fixes" according to Franco (of kernel fame) and others. One concerns the camera. Seems the camera is started and then turned off during startup. But in so doing, it leaves a sensor active and this prevents the phone from actually going to sleep. So he recommends starting and using the back button to go back to the home screen. Another is DRM Protected Content. It is recommended this be disabled or frozen. A third, that I don't believe I recall seeing him recommend but that I have seen on Franco’s thread at XDA is to disable Maps. And another is SDM. It is recommended that it be disabled or frozen.

I have done all of those and my Keep Awake time has gone from 40-50% of my total battery time down to a few percentage points. I mean if I don't use my phone it will now show less than a minute of Keep Awake time per hour.


You can also test if you have the Keep Awake bug by setting your Screen Off time to 30 seconds and then not using your Power Button to put the phone asleep. Just let the time out turn off the screen.

Also to consider is the release by a Google engineer, I forget her name and no longer have a link, that said there was an issue where Screen Time was actually being added to the Keep Awake time. So if you had Screen time of 1 hour, during which the phone would have 1 hour of Keep Awake time, the Keep Awake time would show as 2 hours.

Good luck
 
OP
gunit34328

gunit34328

Member
Joined
May 26, 2010
Messages
104
Reaction score
0
thanks for the responses. i just found it odd that the Android System was using a lot of battery/given a high battery usage percentage. any idea what it does?
 
Joined
Jun 18, 2011
Messages
98
Reaction score
0
I keep reading over and over about the "fixes" for the Android OS bug. Camera stuff, phone not sleeping etc. Can't speak for everyone else but on MY Verizon GN Android OS is killing my battery because its constantly sending and receiving data in the background. My fool proof way of testing it? Leave data on Android OS is always in the high 30-45% of battery use and my battery drains FAST. It always ranks second on the usage list sometimes even number one a few times! I turn data off and Android OS drops down to 3-6% battery use and my phone lasts EASILY all day and then some. It has to be Android OS because its the only thing on the list that changes position when I do that. Glad to hear the new update will finally fix this.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using DroidForums
 
Top