Google Services battery drain - Samsung Galaxy Nexus

I'm getting high battery drain from Google Services both on my phone (rooted 4.0.2) and Xoom (rooted 4.0.3). It only seems to occur on Wi-Fi, where every time I turn my screen on, the status bar icons have turned to grey.
When this happens I see frequent wake ups in battery usage and Google Services at over 20%.
I've had this problem for a while now but it seems to be dependent on the Wi-Fi network I'm on. I get it constantly on a Netgear DGN1000 from Virgin, but not on either of the other routers I've tried on TalkTalk broadband at home.
Could this be a broadband or router problem?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Related

Don't let your phone sleep while downloading a big APP via WIFI

This issue has happend 2 times. It used my 3G data over 90MB for APP downloading!
As you know, the phone won't allow you to download a big APP without wifi or pc connection by design.
Yesterday I downloaded the trial version of Need for Speed(about 127MB) from marketplace and turned on WIFI before that. I just checked the detailed list of my 3G usage yesterday. In that time it downloaded 90MB+ from 3G network in 20 minutes.
I guess the phone turned off the wifi in sleep mode and continue downloading the APP through 3G.
It should be a bug!
Yes, it is a known issue that WP7 turns off wi-fi when phone goes into sleep. To work around this issue, you need to keep the phone plugged in.
Modern wi-fi chips in phones drain less battery juice when you leave it on all the time than constantly off-on-off. Also, it does not necessary use more battery downloading via wi-fi than 3G. I guess MS didn't get that notice when implementing WP7
We can only hope this is addressed in upcoming NoDo update.
Pretty sure this feature isn't designed like this to save battery while connected to a wifi network, I'm sure it's implemented with this design to save battery while you AREN'T in range of one of your networks, rather than having the wireless chip constantly poll for networks...
As someone else said, just plug your phone into the power outlet and wifi will always stay on.

Does WIFI use power if its not connected?

I See my wifi has used 30% of my battery but ive been on 3G all day, does it drain the battery searching for networks?
It does use some power when searching for networks. There is probably an APP or settings that you can change to set the Freq of checks maybe. Or you can just turn of the Wifi radio when you know your not going to use it.
DroidHam said:
I See my wifi has used 30% of my battery but ive been on 3G all day, does it drain the battery searching for networks?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes it uses a lot of power if its regularly searching for networks. Especially if you're moving around and seeing dozens of WiFi spots. Just turn off WiFi when not in use, simple as that.
A lot of custom ROMs have less aggressive Wifi seeking intervals. You can usually set it manually with ease too. Lots of apps out there if you don't want to do it manually.
All that was said is true, but still I find that 30% usage for Wifi just for searching nearby networks is a little too much...
Although I haven't got anything to compare with, I always turn wifi off if I'm not using it during long periods.
Regards
I turn wifi off when it is not needed and battery life goes from one to two days.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
I've been using Tasker to turn wifi on at home/work and off when I'm elsewhere. It's using cell towers to determine location, so hopefully it won't impact the battery much.
I leave wifi on 24/7, today it has used 2% of the 60% battery i've used.
I travel through london so I assume it is constantly finding new wifi signals.
Sent from Mobile..
Y5 Battery Saver .. on the market, free. Turns on/off Wifi based on known networks and cells in the area of the AP.
str355 said:
I leave wifi on 24/7, today it has used 2% of the 60% battery i've used.
I travel through london so I assume it is constantly finding new wifi signals.
Sent from Mobile..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I leave wifi on all the time as well, and I also only have used 2% of the 70-80% battery I used up already.
Try going into wifi settings, then advanced wifi settings, then turn off the new wifi network available notification option.
This increased my battery life slightly.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
Y5 - Battery Saver helps out tremendously! I barely ever use more than 2% when home all day...although that may be a bug but I started a thread for that already.
eddie_gordo said:
All that was said is true, but still I find that 30% usage for Wifi just for searching nearby networks is a little too much...
Regards
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That 30% displayed can be deceptive since it's based on the amount of battery discharged and not entire battery capacity.
Well wifi, when on is looking to connect to known networks. If the signal is weak it will disconnect and connect to another network near by if there is that has better signal. This process does use some battery. The biggest drain will occur when you are actively using wifi, that is when you download or upload. So the best way to save battery, is to close wifi when not needed. If however you want wifi you can set it to never sleep. This way even if the screen goes off wifi will be connected and your device wont use the 3G which is way more power hungry.

Issue with WiFi battery drain

After updating to 5.1.1 it was working flawlessly for couple of Weekes and all of sudden my battery was draining and found out that my wifi is running on the background even though I have switch off the wifi, location, gps, and wifi advance setting for searching location with WiFi being off.
Ever since that whenever I switch on the wifi and switch off it is still running in the background until I reboot my device.
Is there anyway to fix this?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using XDA Free mobile app

Wifi, BT and poor coverage drain my battery

Hi, I have the nexus 5x since Oct 2016.
With wifi, BT or poor coverage, y consumption is high. Minimum of 1,5%/hour. With mobile data 0,2%/hour. Perhaps with poor coverage is normal, but I don't understand why it happens with Wifi (At home (2.4Ghz and 5 Ghz) and at work (5Ghz)). I have tested multiples cases.
I have had 7.0 (stock), 7.1(stock), 7.1.2 (Dev), without root and with root + (Franco kernel or ElementalX kernel) + naptime. I have desactivate Wifi scaning on location. I never see the flat line in battery graph with Wifi.
I use the app "gsam battery" to see the battery graph.The kernel and Android system are the first app suckers, I think it's normal. I don't see anthing unusual in battery graph. The mobile go to sleep mode correctly.
What would be the problem? What new tests I can do?
Thanks
Question: Are you using Project Fi, or any other carrier that allows for WiFi calling/texting?
To clarify: I don't think Project Fi is the culprit, but I may have a solution that I've been testing.
A common complaint that goes back to my N5 running Kit Kat. The fix was to force the device to only use 2.4Ghz Wifi, however since 7.0 Google has removed that option.
Changing router's or updating the router firmware has helped some in the past but not for me.
Does your device Doze properly on a mobile data connection also? And does wifi occasionally idle properly, say when switching back and forth between wifi and cell data? That's the case for me currently, and you know something's wrong when a 3G connection idles better than Wifi.
I'm not using Project Fi, or any other carrier that allows for WiFi calling. My carrier is vodafone, a normal carrier.
I have tested a router with 2.4Ghz only, but the problem persists.
Doze works correctly with mobile data connection and Wifi. I can see the mobile go to sleep mode correctly in both cases.
But in idle mode, wifi use a 1.5%/hour and mobile data 0.2%/hour, but I don't see nothings strange in the graphs or stadistics.
What I can I try?
NaxoForum said:
But in idle mode, wifi use a 1.5%/hour and mobile data 0.2%/hour, but I don't see nothings strange in the graphs or stadistics.
What I can I try?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ya sounds exactly like the issue I was describing. The fix used to be to force the device to only pick up 2.4Ghz connections but Google took the option away ever since 7.0. Being on a network they only transmits 2.4Ghz doesn't help as the device is still listening to and picking up 5Ghz signals.
There is no known fix that I'm aware of. I don't think Google considers it their problem, they would likely say it's a router compatibility issue and tell us to upgrade our router firmware.

Bad idle power consumption

I am using my new G7 Play with a Mint Mobile SIM (T-Mobile MVNO). I am seeing much worse battery performance than my G4 Play on T-Mobile prepaid SIM, even though its battery is several years old now. I tested the Mint SIM for half a day in the old phone, before I punched it down from micro to nano SIM size. I didn't notice any significantly different battery consumption during that time, but I didn't try to carefully test for an entire discharge cycle.
I have tried to configure them the same way, with the same basic apps and battery optimization settings. For reference, the G4 Play can last 5+ days with my light usage patterns. The G7 Play seems like it cannot even last for 1.5 days. The battery ran down over 25% overnight. In the same time period, my G4 Play only showed a 2% drop.
This is with WiFi on and in range for most of the hours in the day (at work or at home). Signed into GMail, Hangouts, and Slack. Location toggled off. Bluetooth toggled off. And OSMAnd+ installed from f-droid. One difference is that I am still using the default Moto launcher on the G7 Play. I replaced it with Nova Launcher on the G4 Play in order to get rid of the annoying Google search/assistant widget that was not removable in the Nougat update. Both have Moto Display and Moto Actions active, but all the gesture/camera actions are turned off. It just has the notification peeking and active display when you bump or pick up the locked phone.
I have disabled Google Music, Movies, News, and Drive to try to match the config on the G4 Play. I also am not logged in with Chrome nor Photos but those apps are not disabled. I am still searching the Android 9 settings menus, but I don't see any more things I can adjust for efficiency. The battery usage details does not seem to tell me why it is going down so fast.
I am not sure what else to try, except to blindly experiment with disabling other built-in apps/services. There seem to be many more in the G7 Play than on the G4 Play, but I don't want to accidentally cripple the phone. Another possible difference is the G7 Play is using the 5 GHz WiFi channels instead of only the 2 GHz channels. But would that explain such a difference in power draw?
Same problem here, single sim G7 play on t mobile. Tried running in safe mode for a few hours and the drain is the same. The issue seems to be running wifi and cellular radio at the same time. Wifi signal is strong, on 5 GHz. Running only on cellular reduces the drain significantly, even with my crappy -112 dbm signal. I am guessing this is some sort of bug - on a related note, if I turn on airplane mode, and then turn on wifi, the cellular radio also turns on, and cannot be turned off via *#*#4636#*#* diagnostics screen.
Current build is PPY29.105-36
Strange. I put my phone in airplane mode and then turned WiFi back on. It indicated that cellular data was off and showed no phone network status. I then turned on WiFi calling and it showed that I was on T-Mobile WiFi Calling in the lock screen status. I left it idle like this for 20 hours and the battery discharged from 100% to 93%. Today, I will try the opposite, turning off airplane mode and WiFi and using just the cellular network.
Before this test, I did play store updates, rebooted, and then fully charged the phone. There were updates to Phone and Google apps right before I rebooted. My Phone app is at version 31.0.241960258 and my Google app is at version 9.51.10.21.arm. My phone is on US Retail channel and build PPY29.105-36.
Did your cellular radio stay off the whole time? Mine will toggle back on right before my eyes. My google app is at version 9.51.8.21.arm, phone app is the same as yours.
It stays off. I'm only looking at the toggles in the pull-down status menu at the top of the phone screen. I also have bluetooth and location toggled off. Maybe you should try changing some of the location/background scanning options? I turned off those sorts of things when I first got the phone.
Yesterday, I rebooted, recharged, and tested the phone for about 8 hours w/o WiFi, but with phone and data service on. It used a lot more power than WiFi-only from the previous day. It was projecting about 2 days left when I interrupted the test.
Then, I toggled off cellular data service. For the next 9 hours, the power consumption graph flattened out a bit. It's down to 85% now bit it is projecting 3 days left instead of 2.
Ok, figured out the cellular radio turning back on, it was having wifi calling enabled, which doesn't seem to make sense, but I digress.
So you turned on wifi calling, and the power draw was still low? Can you check your cellular radio status with the wifi radio and wifi calling on with the *#*#4636#*#* diagnostics screen?
If I remember, I rebooted with wifi calling off, put it into airplane mode, turned wifi back on, then thought to enable wifi calling. It definitely did not show the cell antenna signal icon in status, and showed "T-Mobile WiFi Calling" in the lock screen. I tested it by calling the number from another phone, and it did ring.
Today, I have continued using the phone with cell modem on for calls and wifi on for internet (but cellular data toggled off and wifi calling still disabled since before last reboot). It is now down to 79% power after 25 hours of operation and predicting 4 more days at this rate. This is more like I expected originally, and not so far off from my old G4 Play.
I am pretty confused by the terrible behavior in the beginning. It may have something to do with booting up with WiFi calling enabled. Or it might be some other strange state that cleared after a few reboots?
If I remember, I'll try to put it back in the wifi-only mode next time I am back on my home network to check that status screen you mentioned. But, I am nearly sure it is going to indicate cellular modem OFF and wifi ON using 5 GHz band.
The phone info screen behind that dial code shows this regardless of whether I am in airplane mode or not: Voice Service: In Service; Mobile radio power: on; VoLTE Provisioned: on; Video Calling Provisioned: on; Wifi Calling Provisioned: on. Because of the differences in other fields and in power usage, I don't believe the indicator about radio power means anything here. The Settings->Phone Info->SIM status screen says "Mobile network state: Disconnected" and "Service status: Voice In Service/Data In Service" when I am in airplane mode w/ wifi calling active.
From the 4636 code phone info screen, these fields change:
- Airplane mode w/ wifi calling active: Signal Strength: -1 dBm 99 asu; Data Service: Disconnected; Voice Network Type: Unknown; Data Network Type: IWLAN.
- Cell on w/ wifi calling active: Signal Strength: -112 dBm 28 asu; Data Service: Disconnected; Voice Network Type: LTE; Data Network Type: IWLAN.
- Cell on w/ wifi calling disabled but wifi on: Signal Strength: -113 dBm 27 asu; Data Service: Disconnected; Voice Network Type: LTE; Data Network Type: LTE.
- Cell on w/ data on and wifi off: Signal Strengh: -110 dBm 24 asu; Data Service: Connected; Voice Network Type: LTE; Data Network Type: LTE.
And the IMS status screen further down under the three-dot menu changes:
- Airplane mode w/ wifi calling active: Voice over LTE: Unavailable; Voice over WiFi: Available.
- Cell on w/ wifi calling active: same as previous.
- Cell on w/ wifi calling disabled but wifi on: Voice over LTE: Available; Voice over WiFi: Unavailable.
- Cell on w/ data on and wifi off: same as previous.
It's only in the 4th config that I actually see "LTE" on the network signal icon in the phone status bar on the home screen.
I should also note that I set the wifi calling settings to wifi preferred/wifi for both choices.
Thanks for all of the troubleshooting info.
I guess this shoots down my simply both radios on theory. You still get bad drain when wifi and cell data are both on?
I gave it about 18 hours to find out. But no, it now seems to have little effect to turn on cell data and wifi together. The phone is continuing to have a pretty good standby power drain with WiFi, cell voice, and cell data turned on.
I'm down to 52% battery and it has been 3 days it was last charged. The power graph shows nearly the same slope over the last couple days whether I turned cell functions on or off. Where there were dips, I think it may be partly that I took the phone away from WiFi, so it started actually using LTE data, and also that I had the screen on some around those times to look at settings and respond to some texts etc.
I'll keep playing with it for a while, but I am also running out of ideas. What's frustrating is that the battery consumption info listed just cellular standby as the originall high power use, not some other app or OS function that would be easier to explain as software-caused.
Just about the only settings I have left to re-test are WiFi calling (with cell modem on), Bluetooth, and Location. I suspect that the location was on constantly in the first day because I wasn't used to the Pie status bar. In my G4P running Nougat, the location icon would be visible in the status bar whenever it is on. But on the G7P, it doesn't seem to indicate anything unless you open the drawer and look at its toggle state.
I worked my way all the way back to having everything toggled on... cell voice, cell data, wifi, wifi calling, and location. It dropped from 100% to 96% in 12 hours overnight, and estimates 10 days remaining. This is far different than the 20-25% drop I saw in the first days.
The only explanations I can think of for this whole experience so far:
1. The power use was due to application behaviour, but the usage details screens were not assigning blame correctly.
2. The battery charge estimates themselves were wildly incorrect in the first days.
3. The phone is configured to waste power out of the box, and has to "learn" to conserve power when idle.
So, the phone seems to do quite well now. I just hope it doesn't decide to switch back to its high consumption mode when I am depending on its battery to endure like it is right now...
lightuser said:
2. The battery charge estimates themselves were wildly incorrect in the first days.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We know that would be an issue for sure, but the question is whether that's the only issue. I'm hoping it is.

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