This started on suiller's ROM guide, but I feel it's really OT so I should take it outside.
I've had battery issue ever since I got the Diamond. With moderate use (maybe ~15-20min of call per day, email check every 30 min, moderate web browsing) the battery level can drop by ~ 15-20% per hour on average. This means the battery would only last 5-6 hours without charging, which is not good enough to last through a day.
I first looked at whether the phone has any serious battery drain application, and it doesn't. With BatteryStatus I see the battery drain is ~ 100-150mA with GSM on, BT on. When I'm downloading email, or browsing the web, it does go up to 200 ~ 300mA briefly, but that is only when it's transmitting / receiving data. In standby mode with screen off it drains less than 50mA. These numbers seem pretty typical from my experience.
And here's the weird thing - on a typical day, when I wake up, and take the phone off the charger, it can drop from 100% to 93% within 30 min. On the way to work, when I would browse the web lightly, it can easily drop from 93% to 80-85% within an hour. That's pretty bad battery life.
Yet there are instances when I've been browsing the web, or playing MP3, or using YouTube for a good 10-15 min, but the battery level would not drop.
I figure maybe the battery needs to be re-calibrated, so I decided to discharge the battery and recharge it. I know this doesn't help improve the battery life of LiIon batteries, but I was trying to recalibrate it.
What happened, when I was discharging the battery, was I found the battery drop was very quick from 100% down to ~ 50%. From that point on, the battery drop is much slower.
And from 50% to 25% the battery seems to last forever. The most interesting thing is with the battery down to 15%, I did a lot of 3G web browsing, listening to MP3's, turn wifi on, and that 15% of battery lasted a good 3.5 hrs with heavy use until it's so low the phone stopped working.
The whole discharging process ended up taking 10 hours, and that's with HEAVY use for the last 3-4 hours too. That's actually acceptable for battery life (not great, but at least it'll last me through a day outside with moderate use) and obviously doesn't jive with the 15-20% drop per hour when I'm operating in the 50-100% full range.
When I'm charging the battery, I also noticed the level went up from 0% to 70% very quickly ... pretty much over 40 min. BatteryStatus shows it's being charged at +600-700mA.
As the battery gets full, the charging is much slower ... BatteryStatus shows it is charging by ~ 100-200mA only.
With the battery level up to 99%, it took almost forever to finally get up to 100%. I think it took at least 20 min.
So after a full discharge - recharge, I used my phone as normal this morning to see if it's been calibrated, but nope. It still drops from 100 to 93% within minutes of doing virtually nothing, and easily drop to 80% after an hour ride to work.
Does your battery perform the same way? Should I replace my battery? Or is there a way to properly calibrate the battery?
btw location and reception has nothing to do with it. I have good to excellent reception throughout this test.
I'm having the same problem but not with every rom (don't know wich ones, tested almost every rom hero) So is this a piece of software wich shows the live that doesn't work ?? or is it the battery ? As i can see it it's depending on rom thus it's not hardware
But hey I'm n00b
i've noticed that a soft reset or power up will use 3-7% of battery depending on the weather (what else could it be )
don't have the ability to discharge but i agree that in many cases the battery usage drops drastically & there is no reasonable cause
hope someone can figure this out!
From 4pda.ru
http://4pda.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=85754&st=100&p=2338080&#entry2338080
1. discharge the battery completely (by playing video, audio, etc.)
2. Remove the battery and wait about 1min then place it back (do not power on the phone)
3. Full Charge the phone, wait when LEDs stop blinking (do not power on the phone)
4. When fully charged - remove the battery (do not power on the phone)
5. Wait about 1min then place the battery to the phone and now you can power it on.
If battery is more or less OK it will re-calibrate.
I hope it will help!
STM123 said:
From 4pda.ru
http://4pda.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=85754&st=100&p=2338080&#entry2338080
1. discharge the battery completely (by playing video, audio, etc.)
2. Remove the battery and wait about 1min then place it back (do not power on the phone)
3. Full Charge the phone, wait when LEDs stop blinking (do not power on the phone)
4. When fully charged - remove the battery (do not power on the phone)
5. Wait about 1min then place the battery to the phone and now you can power it on.
If battery is more or less OK it will re-calibrate.
I hope it will help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. I tried those steps yesterday and my phone is pretty much behaving the exact same way after the battery cycle.
After all the steps, the battery shows it's 100%. I unplug it, and it drops to 97% within MINUTES literally. Now I plug it back in, and it takes forever to get from 97% back to 100% (> 1hour)
I think it may be a battery problem and not a calibration problem. The drain averages ~ 120-150mA when phone on, screen on, no data, and below 100mA with phone on in standby mode. That seems pretty typical? I'd think the battery should last longer than 8 hours (till it completely dies) in that case.
Where do you guys suggest I buy a new battery for the Diamond (other than HTC directly)? I bought one from DealExtreme but the battery runs ~ 10C hotter than normal all the times ... I don't think I want that as my primary battery.
If you get through a full day with moderate-heavy use on your battery, I say that is normal and good battery life on a Diamond. So, why bother that the percentage is not proportional? I would not get a new battery for this since the problem is only in the reported percentage, not the battery life itself.
I've had plenty of cars that went from full to half tank on the meter significantly faster than from half to almost empty. You know about it and adapt to it, simply.
Hello !
I'm understand you, i have a ELF (Touch P3450), and a Diamond, the same problem appear for the two phones!
Every Morning, when i disconnect from charge my diamond, my level battery go to 93% in 10mns without reasons (One sms, no 3G, no Wifi etc).
My battery go down to 50~70% around 14H (2H pm), and stays at this level for many hours (4-5hours ~), i think it's not a problem with our battery, but a dysfunction of the sensor battery, which shows wrong data =/
By the way, that problem doesn't appear every day, for example, today my battery has that level : 83% (15h43), so today it has a good level.
Since i have flash that ROM : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=521941, with radio 1.13.25.24, i have less less issues with my battery, it's more stable!
That's all, hope that helps you.
Ok guys, I've made a few discoveries that I figure I could share with everybody. Maybe you'll find it useful.
Last week I went on a trip and turned off the data connection while I was out of the country. Instead of letting the roaming charges kill me, I was relying on wifi to check emails and browse the web.
I ended up checking emails just as often, because where I worked had wifi AP.
Now, I could usually get 8, maybe 9 hrs out of my battery with moderate use before it's completely empty previously. So I was very surprised to find that with a similar usage pattern, but using wifi instead of EDGE/GPRS I still had 30-50% battery left at the end of 8-9 hours day everyday during the trip. I know data uses a lot of battery, but I always thought wifi drains even more, so that's quite a stunning discovery.
Now, I don't think it was due to wifi draining less than GPRS/EDGE (can't be true), so it must be something else. In trying to figure out what made the difference, I did a bunch of tests after the trip, and this is what I find-
1. Data channel dis-connection / re-connection is BAD
I used to always set my phone to auto-disconnect data channel (EDGE/GPRS) after 5 min of inactivity, in an attempt to save battery. What I found, was keeping the data channel open does NOT actually drain more battery than leaving it off at all. Transmitting data drains battery, but not leaving the channel open. However, disconnecting it, and re-connecting it all the times actually drains quite a bit of battery. I set my phone to check email every 30 minutes, and then there's also the odd weather forecast that needs data channel. In a 9 hrs day, that means channel disconnection + reconnection of about 40 times.
The last couple days I have left my data connection ON all the times, and I actually get more hours out of my battery. My battery used to drop ~ 10-15% per hour with moderate use. By keeping the channel on all the times it's been kept to under 10% per hour!!! I've only tested it for a couple days. I'll report more on it once I get to test it for longer, but the idea that 'keeping data connection off when you're not using it to save battery" seems to be a complete myth. The opposite actually saves battery!!!! And as a bonus, I don't even have to wait for the data channel to connect when I need it!!
2. Recycling the radio is VERY BAD
Everybody knows 3G is a real battery killer. However, similar to EDGE/GPRS, keeping the 3G channel open does NOT drain any more battery than turning it off, or turning on EDGE/GPRS channel. When the data channel is idling, it doesn't matter whether it's on EDGE, GPRS, 3G, or even completely turned off, the battery drain is close to zero in all cases.
Now, you do see a 1.5 - 2 times battery drain with 3G compared to EDGE/GPRS, so I've always turned 3G on only for web browsing or watching YouTube, and use GPRS / EDGE for regular emails update. The thing is though, if you're not transmitting much data (which you won't for regular email update), the difference in battery drain is minimal. SWITCHING between 2G and 3G though, requires a radio power cycle (turn off then back on to switch frequency) and THAT drains a lot of battery!!!
So if you're often switching between 3G and 2G, and you only transmit little data in 2G mode, you might actually be better off keeping it in 3G all the times instead of forcing the radio to power-cycle all the times.
I've tried keeping it in 3G all day long and I noticed minimal increase in battery drain. However, there might be another reason you want to consider - RADIATION. 3G not only drains more battery than 2G, it also transmits at a stronger power than 2G and as a result create more radiation. For that reason, I'm still keeping my phone to 2G for email updates and what not, and switch to 3G only for web browsing. For radiation you may try this thread if you want to read more about it.
3. VGA screen is a REAL battery killer
I do quite a bit of reading on my phone (ebook, on-line magazines etc) and reading ebook was never a battery concern in my days with the Touch (QVGA screen).
That's why I was quite surprised on the Diamond, reading the ebook for 1 hour, with EVERYTHING else turned off (GSM, EDGE, GPRS, 3G, BT, wifi), my battery level went down by 12% in ~1 hour.
The VGA screen drains a lot more battery than the QVGA screen. Now, if you need to use the phone you need to use the screen, there isn't much of a choice. It does make sense, however, that if you're using the screen for a while (like reading ebook) switching from a high brightness level to a lower brightness level.
Oh, and the auto-adjust brightness thing? That doesn't help you save battery at all. This is because it polls the light sensor every 2 sec (default value, but you can change it) and adjust screen brightness accordingly. This mechanism drains battery in itself, and in most cases end up using more battery than keeping the brightness constant at a low to medium level.
The auto-adjust thing is cool, and in theory it sounds like it can save you battery, but unless you constantly set the brightness to max even when you're in a dark environment, disable the auto-adjust and just set it to a constant 50-60% instead.
These are the few things I've noticed and I'm still trying things out, but over the last 2 days I've seen a significant drop in battery drain. I would be lucky to go through a 8-9 hrs day with moderate to heavy use before, the first 2 days I tried this I still had 60% battery left after 5 hrs of moderate use. The Diamond is very weak on battery life so every bit helps! I hope these tips are useful to you!
Thanks for your share
number16 said:
When I'm charging the battery, I also noticed the level went up from 0% to 70% very quickly ... pretty much over 40 min. BatteryStatus shows it's being charged at +600-700mA.
As the battery gets full, the charging is much slower ... BatteryStatus shows it is charging by ~ 100-200mA only.
With the battery level up to 99%, it took almost forever to finally get up to 100%. I think it took at least 20 min.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's exactly what the charging process is supposed to do.
Read more here:
The charge time of most chargers is about 3 hours...
Increasing the charge current does not shorten the charge time by much. Although the voltage peak is reached quicker with higher charge current, the topping charge will take longer.
Some chargers claim to fast-charge a lithium-ion battery in one hour or less. Such a charger eliminates stage 2 and goes directly to 'ready' once the voltage threshold is reached at the end of stage 1. The charge level at this point is about 70%. The topping charge typically takes twice as long as the initial charge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
source:batteryuniversity (dot) com
is this normal if you are playing with your phone alot, im always picking it up to do something or another but my drain is about 1% a minute
are you guys getting this as well
edit
turning fastboot off seems to be increasing this to 1% every 2 mins, anyone else noticed this
dial *#*#3424#*#* (charge battery first 100%)
to do battery test (through more test then battery test then run)
good battery is 88% remaining after 1 hour test, airplane mode, 100% brightness
edit:
doing a battery test now, so far its 95% remaining at 100% brightness and been running for 25 minutes, apparently 88% remaining is good!
edit
running for 37 mins and now at 92%
edit2
running for 60 minutes and usage was 88% at 100% brightness
Haven't noticed anything that extreme yet. But on the other hand I do not play 3D games that are really taxing the system. I just finished a 30min session of playing Secret Of Monkey Island in ScummVM + made two short calls and lost <10% of battery charge.
I have the screen set on auto brightness. Running totally stock and this is only the second charge. Not too bad I guess.
I am having the same issue too! Because of this, my battery drops to 50% usually after about 3 to 4 hours.
My best guess is that the battery is not fully calibrated.
updated thread
its not that old, maybe 6 months old, about the last 3 times that my battery has nearly fully discharged, its not got all the way to 0% and has been going off at 3% but then when i plug the charger in and turn the tablet back on the battery shows as 0%
i also noticed the other day it was at about 4% battery and i wa son a pool game, the screen started flickering on and off, and then it turned off, not sure if that's just because it was on the very end of the battery, but was still around 4% anyway so should have been ok till 0%?
any ideas if i have something wrong or is it normal?
James
The tablet will shut off once the battery is depleted. Anywhere under 10% is normal. Letting your device run that low is hard on the battery and will reduce its lifespan.
Read this: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries
The battery meter is not even remotely as accurate as you expect it to be. Its just an estimate of battery voltage versus how you are using the device. Don't expect it to be accurate to within a few percent, or even 5-10%.
Heck, I've had some devices show a drop of 20-30% and shutoff. Probably just some metering error, and it didn't happen often. But that tells you how inaccurate the meter can be.
As another mentioned, deep cycles are not good for the long term life of Li ion batteries. Charge fully and frequently.