Battery issue: other than turning off network

[Jim 777]

I searched and found the idea about turning off the network but wanted to know if there's more to be done.

My wife's eris is terrible on battery usage. Before turning off the network, which I think should not have to be, it would go from the charger in the morning to dead by 2pm without significant usage. It's better with the network off but I want to know what else is there?

It can't be this bad... I mean it's a lot worse than my mDroid.

Thanks for looking.

Jim

 

[Mattb]

There has to be something thats eating the battery. I can take mine off the charger around 7am and use it pretty heavy all day and be good until at least 10pm. Every now and then I'll plug it in on my drive home, but thats only about 20 minutes. What apps has she installed??

 

[Mattb]

I also leave bluetooth, gps, and wifi on all the time.

 

[Jim 777]

I don't see anything that stands out as far as installed apps. I don't know what a few of them are like Footsteps, Peep and I see a bunch of solitaire type games, pretty basic stuff I think.

 

[Richman]

If she just got the Eris it takes a few charge discharge states to fully charge.
Is she running 1.5 or a 2.1 version of the OS? She could load a task killer and kill off most Apps running, that might help. Some people have run Apps that don't close by backing out of them.

 

[bomber889]

JuiceDefender is a good app, you can find it in the market.

 

[Jim 777]

If she just got the Eris it takes a few charge discharge states to fully charge.
Is she running 1.5 or a 2.1 version of the OS? She could load a task killer and kill off most Apps running, that might help. Some people have run Apps that don't close by backing out of them.

Thanks. I did put on Task Panel on her phone and set it to kill everything not in the ignored list upon standby or sleep.
She's running 1.5 (not rooted) and we've had our phones since early December.

 

[Richman]

Has the problem just started lately? First try a power reset if you haven't.
You could try a factory reset, but that wipes all the Apps loaded and other setings After that if you still have a problem I would think either the battery is bad, or the phone has an issue.

 

[Jim 777]

Has the problem just started lately? First try a power reset if you haven't.
You could try a factory reset, but that wipes all the Apps loaded and other setings After that if you still have a problem I would think either the battery is bad, or the phone has an issue.

Tried the power reset. She has been so bad at charging her phone, only lately as she tries to create a habit are we really seeing the problem. But since having the phone, it's always been dead by the next morning.

 

[Jim 777]

Now that I'm thinking about it I thought I'd ask since it may have something to do with it, but she always has an icon in her notification bar indicating HTC Sync. What's that? I can't find where to turn it off.

 

[droidaphonix]

What do you mean by "always" has the HTC Sync icon in the notification bar. It should only be displayed (spinning) when the Eris is syncing to the Google account (Contacts, Calendar and Gmail), when the HTC weather widget updates, etc. Unless the user is updating Gmail, Calendar and Contacts non-stop, the sync should generally only take a minute and then go away for a while.

There are some options for configuring the syncing this via Home->Menu-> Settings-> Accounts & Sync. I think it's worth turning off Auto-Sync and see how much of a difference that makes over a few hours.

With AutoSynch turned off, manual syncing is still available in several places as needed: in the Accounts & Sync Settings via the Sync Now button and by adding the built-in HTC Sync Now widget to the home screen. OK, this is bit out there but I thought it might be worth taking a look to see if perhaps the HTC Sync Now widget is already installed and perhaps it's being accidentally pressed at frequent intervals? Hey, I said it was out there ;-).

Also in the Accounts & Sync settings there's a Background Data option that can be checked to allow applications to send, receive and sync data anytime they want, in the background, where we would not have a clue about it. It's quite possible that there are other app(s) that are running in the background and frequently syncing with remote services. Unfortunately, some apps don't have good timeout logic and they respond to a failed to connection by re-attempting the same operation for an extended period while keeping CPU usage high and running down the battery. Figuring that out might take some patience, but there are several process and task managers that should help. Good luck, hope this helps.

 

[Jim 777]

What do you mean by "always" has the HTC Sync icon in the notification bar. It should only be displayed (spinning) when the Eris is syncing to the Google account (Contacts, Calendar and Gmail), when the HTC weather widget updates, etc. Unless the user is updating Gmail, Calendar and Contacts non-stop, the sync should generally only take a minute and then go away for a while.

There are some options for configuring the syncing this via Home->Menu-> Settings-> Accounts & Sync. I think it's worth turning off Auto-Sync and see how much of a difference that makes over a few hours.

With AutoSynch turned off, manual syncing is still available in several places as needed: in the Accounts & Sync Settings via the Sync Now button and by adding the built-in HTC Sync Now widget to the home screen. OK, this is bit out there but I thought it might be worth taking a look to see if perhaps the HTC Sync Now widget is already installed and perhaps it's being accidentally pressed at frequent intervals? Hey, I said it was out there ;-).

Also in the Accounts & Sync settings there's a Background Data option that can be checked to allow applications to send, receive and sync data anytime they want, in the background, where we would not have a clue about it. It's quite possible that there are other app(s) that are running in the background and frequently syncing with remote services. Unfortunately, some apps don't have good timeout logic and they respond to a failed to connection by re-attempting the same operation for an extended period while keeping CPU usage high and running down the battery. Figuring that out might take some patience, but there are several process and task managers that should help. Good luck, hope this helps.

Thanks, but the eris options are different than those on the mDroid, which sounds more like what you're describing.
Under Data Synchronization, there's Google (email, calendar, Contacts) that is activated as automatic. Then there's exchange ActiveSync and there's no account set up there. Lastly there's "PC" and click on that and I set the Synchronization Statur to "disconnected". I thought this would kill the notification but it didn't.

The icon I mentioned in the notification bar is not the sync "arrows" you're referring to, it's not syncing. It was something else and when you pulled down the not-bar, the notification (like when you have mail or received a text) said HTC Sync with Windows. When you click on it, a pop-up came up saying something like "Attempting to connect to computer..."

 

[nphil]

Well to answer your original question, yes there is sort of a way to conserve battery while keeping the network (voice calls) on.

Dial *#*#INFO#*#* (This might or might not work on the Eris, does work on the Droid)

Phone Information

Then you can either:

1. Change CDMA auto to CDMA only. (This switches your phone to 2G only mode, whether this actualy conserves battery is debatable).
2. Press the menu softkey, More >Disable data connection. (This disables your data entirely, but you can still send/receive phone calls.)

Or you can just turn off background sync from settings, which isn't as effective. Don't bother with JuiceDefender as the app doesn't work for CDMA phones currently.

 

[gruss]

I had a similar problem when I was running 1.5, it looked like it was syncing all the time and crushing the battery. I grabbed spare parts from the market and it helped me find what was keeping the phone awake (well it was staying awake because of the constant sync)...in my case it indicated the "calendar" was using 3x the amount of data as Pandora in the network usage section, but other sense apps appear as "calendar", soooo like I said for me it was having flickr and facebook both syncing. If i disabled one or the other battery life was fine. well as good as the eris is, which meant I could go from being in the red at lunch to not hitting the red until bed time.
Not sure what your wife is running on her phone but if she has it set to sync either of those I would disable them and see if the problem goes away...if not grab spare parts from the market and check to see what is using all that data!