for those with batt issues after upgrade

[taylormah]

flynlow, what is the name of the DRM app to kill when looking in task manager?? Would it be just listed as DRM or something else?

 

[Guapo104]

What else do you have running? Have you done a PRL update? That is all they ended up doing, except for killing the media hub which was also running. I am right now at 54% but I have been texting a lot this morning. What is your display set at? My cell standby is like 60%, time without signal is 50%.

To my knowledge that's all they did. They hooked it into a computer and took readings, turning on/off apps, getting readings to see if they were idle, how often they updated etc. that's what they came back with. They shut down DRM and media hub and told me to leave gtalk alone. They said only 5 things should be running in the background. IQ service, sprint extension, swype, sns and gtalk. I am supposed to contact them on Tuesday with an update. So far so good for me.

I dont have much running in the background. I have ATK running every 30min, have my screen time out after 30 sec., Gauge Battery Widget, Swype, GTalk, Android Sprint Extension, and IQ Agent running and battery still drains at a rapid rate.

Anyone have any suggestions, besides taking it to the Sprint HQ!!!???

 

[Guapo104]

You need to turn on airplane mode and then off again when you restart the phone. That will take your 26% time without a signal down. This is another bug that is draining the battery. I have 0% time without a signal and my battery life is great.

That's one of the steps I conduct upon starting up my phone, beside now having to stop the DRM process from running. Whatelse do I need to do to increase my battery life... I apologize if I sound like I am complaining, but this is frustrating.

 

[Guapo104]

Your time without signal is way too high unless you are living in a weak signal area. If those techs can figure out what is causing that and get your phone down to under 10% and keep it there you'll really see your battery life shoot up. With it being that high, even while on standby your phone is continously searching for a signal which it shouldn't be doing.

I had the same standby issue on my first epic and the standby time is what was killing my battery, the phone was trying to lock onto a WCDMA source, which is a GSM variant. I then did the PRL update "duct tape method" to trick the cell radio to work properly but after I updated to DI07, the PRL update trick didn't work anymore and my battery drained 30% an hour to be dead in just over 3 hours with absolutely no use on the phone. I swapped out Epics and the new one doesn't seem to have this issue but I haven't updated to DI07 yet on this one since I'm afraid of what might happen... I don't use media hub since the prices are a bit high and that seems to be the only real benefit of updating to DI07.

When I enter the code *#4636*1111#, I do see that my phone is on WCDMA preferred. I have done a PRL UPdate, numerous times, and still on WCDMA. What setting should I be on???

 

[BlackHawkA4]

Go to settings > applications > running services, it's in there.

Media hub has not come back on since they shut down DRM on mine. It apparently was the issue. I had 88% battery when I made my initial post, I am at 68% right now, 6 hours later and 9 hours after coming off the charger. Whereas before I would have had to charge again, or would have been in the 30 range at best. I am running a battery minder program which I wasn't before, it tells me it has used 4% of the battery. So if I wasn't using that, I would be at 72% right now. I will probably delete that now since there is no real need for it.

This will need to be done again if you power cycle the device.

If you reboot your phone do you have to do this processor over again? I don't feel like rebooting right now and trying it. lol

 

[flynlow]

Yes, if you reboot/power cycle, you will have to do it again.

The name of the DRM, is DRM. Shut that down and media hub.

As far as it being a self starter, I assume that to mean on reboot. Once you shut it down, it shouldn't restart unless you reboot. I have checked mine several times and it has never come back. Make sure to scroll to the very bottom of the running services page. Media hub likes to hide there.

I finally plugged mine back in at 4:00. It was unplugged for 19 hours and I got to 23% battery.

 

[johnny hotsauce]

When I enter the code *#4636*1111#, I do see that my phone is on WCDMA preferred. I have done a PRL UPdate, numerous times, and still on WCDMA. What setting should I be on???

You need to be on CDMA Auto as WCDMA is for GSM (AT&T, T-Mobile) which means bad firmware for your cell radio. What yours is doing is exactly what my first Epic was doing which was the primary culprit for my battery life issues and then the DI07 update just made it worse.

I took mine back to the Sprint store and they did a TEP swap to another Epic and all has been well since. The new one still doesn't default to CDMA Auto and seems to be defaulting to Unknown but battery life is significantly better and I'm usually at 0% time without signal and the worst without signal I've ever been has been 10% and I knew I was in a weaker area then. The new device also doesn't suffer from any of the GPS lock issues that my first Epic did so I'm convinced that a bad batch of Epics circulated around launch.

Now don't look at your time without signal immediately after a reboot because the number will look higher since the cell radio is aquiring a signal upon rebooting so wait about 30 minutes to an hour and then look at time without signal.

I run BatteryMinder to monitor the battery and I'm also not using any task killers except the stock one that comes with the phone, I use the stock widget on my home screen and manually kill anything running when I'm done with it, just like the old Windows Mobile days. I think task killers like ATK actually do more harm than good and I've gotten worse battery life using them back when I had my Hero.

With the replacement Epic, I normally pull it off the charger at 7:30AM and it gets very little to moderate use during the day while I'm at work and at about 6PM I normally have about 85%-90% depending on how many times I may have checked my e-mail or if I sent any text messages during the day. After 6PM I'm usually pretty heavy on the phone using Nav, Sprint TV, surfing, playing games or texting and maybe 60-120 minutes of calls but mostly data usage and by midnight I'm usually down to about 35%-40% left and a few times been below 35% but on those days I really beat on the phone.

I also have my phone set up to use very little juice in the background like setting e-mail to manual since I don't need it pushed to my phone, the rest of my synch settings are set to manual as well and I keep GPS off unless I'm going to use it and my dispaly has auto-brightness off and I keep it on the second to lowest setting since that's actually pretty bright.

Sorry for the long post but hopefully this helps you a bit.

 

[Guapo104]

Lop

You need to be on CDMA Auto as WCDMA is for GSM (AT&T, T-Mobile) which means bad firmware for your cell radio. What yours is doing is exactly what my first Epic was doing which was the primary culprit for battery life issues and then the DI07 update just made it worse.

I took mine back to the Sprint store and they did a TEP swap to another Epic and all has been well since. The new one still doesn't default to CDMA Auto and seems to be defaulting to Unknown but battery life is significantly better and I'm usually at 0% time without signal and the worst without signal I've ever been has been 10% and I knew I was in a weaker area then. The new device also doesn't suffer from any of the GPS lock issues that my first Epic did so I'm convinced that a bad batch of Epics circulated around launch.

Po don't look at your time without signal immediately after a reboot because the number will look higher since the cell radio is aquiring a signal upon rebooting so wait about 30 minutes to an hour and then look at time without signal.

I run BatteryMinder to monitor the battery and I'm also not using any task killers except the stock one that comes with the phone, I use the stock widget on my home screen and manually kill anything running when I'm done with it, just like the old Windows Mobile days. I think task killers like ATK actually do more harm than good and I've gotten worse battery life using them back when I had my Hero.

With the replacement Epic, I normally pull it off the charger at 7:30AM and it gets very little to moderate use during the day while I'm at work and at about 6PM I normally have about 85%-90% depending on how many times I may have checked my e-mail or if I sent any text messages during the day. After 6PM I'm usually pretty heavy on the phone using Nav, Sprint TV, surfing, playing games or texting and maybe 60-120 minutes of calls but mostly data usage and by midnight I'm usually down to about 35%-40% left and a few times been below 35% but on those days I really beat on the phone.

I also have my phone set up to use very little juice in the background like setting e-mail to manual since I don't need it pushed to my phone, the rest of my synch settings are set to manual as well and I keep GPS off unless I'm going to use it and my dispaly has auto-brightness off and I keep it on the second to lowest setting since that's actually pretty bright.

Sorry for the long post but hopefully this helps you a bit.

I am going to take my phone back to Sprint and have it exchanged and will report back with my findings. Hopefully the replacement will be better.

I've always wondered, is anyone experiencing any of these issues with a rooted phone???

Thank you all for your input on trying to resolve my issues.

 

[|-KGB-|CaptHowdy]

i did turn off the stuff and i can say huge difference. i decided to uninstall my task killer and see how i do without it. right now been off for 10 hours and im at 42% which is way better than ever so it does work. i use it pretty steadily. my wife's phone is at 70% and been off for 10 hours as well and hers usually does worse. just annoying to do this **** at bootup. thank god its not WM and i have to reboot 2-3 times a day. but the setting on my phone is wcdma, is there a way to change that? Do i need to see about getting a tep replacement? I leave email and sync setting on auto b/c i prefer not to mess with it but as of right now the 10+ hours makes me happy lol

edit: i am rooted also

 

[johnny hotsauce]

Lop

I am going to take my phone back to Sprint and have it exchanged and will report back with my findings. Hopefully the replacement will be better.

I've always wondered, is anyone experiencing any of these issues with a rooted phone???

Thank you all for your input on trying to resolve my issues.

Not sure about the root, someone else would have to chime in on that one and no problem, that's what we're here for

Make sure they give you something with a newer build date, at least a build date in September, I think (and this is just opinion/speculation) that the Epic's "born" in August are the crappy ones but again, just speculation...

 

[zeravla531]

For what it's worth I was experiencing the same battery issues after I updated the phone. I finally got fed up, rooted the phone last night and deleted all the bloatware: sprint navigation, tv, zone, qik, media hub, football, nascar, etc.

My battery life is 10x better, even better than pre-update. I couldn't be happier.

 

[flynlow]

johnny hotsauce, I think our combination be be the answer. I had never turned airplane mode on and off before. For grins, I unplugged my phone at 4:30, it had 35%. I powered off, back on. Did the airplane mode on/off. Went in shut down DRM and media hub. I have been texting pretty much since, had 3 phone calls. I am still at 34% 2 hours later. I have only lost 1% with fairly heavy use. I checked my cell standby, 16% standby, 0% time without signal. At this rate, the battery could last 3 days.

So the combination seems to be the golden ticket until they release a fix in 2.2, or rooting. Thanks for your help and input. Maybe someone should post a new thread with the workaround simplified.

 

[taylormah]

Not sure about the root, someone else would have to chime in on that one and no problem, that's what we're here for

Make sure they give you something with a newer build date, at least a build date in September, I think (and this is just opinion/speculation) that the Epic's "born" in August are the crappy ones but again, just speculation...

I am a firm believer that some of the issues epic is having are directly related to its build date. Can you please share what is your device and battery build dates..

 

[|-KGB-|CaptHowdy]

how do you check build date?

 

[taylormah]

how do you check build date?

It is posted under the battery. Battery's build date is posted over the battery itself.

 

[Guapo104]

I am a firm believer that some of the issues epic is having are directly related to its build date. Can you please share what is your device build date..

My build date is 10.08, and the date on my battery is 2010.08.16.

 

[Bowa11]

My build date is 10.08, and the date on my battery is 2010.08.16.

same here

 

[caliskimmer]

My build date is 10.08, and the date on my battery is 2010.08.16.

I can confirm that this batch shouldn't have issues. Unless my phone's a freak, it was completely fine and it was built 10.08 with battery 2010.08.18. Same with my mom's and it's battery life is fine.

 

[johnny hotsauce]

johnny hotsauce, I think our combination be be the answer. I had never turned airplane mode on and off before. For grins, I unplugged my phone at 4:30, it had 35%. I powered off, back on. Did the airplane mode on/off. Went in shut down DRM and media hub. I have been texting pretty much since, had 3 phone calls. I am still at 34% 2 hours later. I have only lost 1% with fairly heavy use. I checked my cell standby, 16% standby, 0% time without signal. At this rate, the battery could last 3 days.

So the combination seems to be the golden ticket until they release a fix in 2.2, or rooting. Thanks for your help and input. Maybe someone should post a new thread with the workaround simplified.

Careful with airplane mode, that seems have a tendency to kill GPS locks, PRL updates seem to have the same effect as toggling airplane mode but without killing your GPS locks after. Don't know why, but it just does...LOL

I haven't done the update yet to DI07 on my new Epic but since your post I did kill DRM on DG27 and that seems to be helping to squeeze some extra juice out of the phone but since media hub isn't "active" on this firmware, there's nothing to disable on that end.

Now, if we could actually get Sprint to listen to us on these issues, we could get the phones updated to work damn near perfect

I am a firm believer that some of the issues epic is having are directly related to its build date. Can you please share what is your device and battery build dates..

My last Epic was 10.08 with 2010-08-06 for the battery, my current Epic is 10.09 with 2010-08-25 for the battery.

I'm still running DG27 on this one, I'm still scared to update after the experience with the last one...LOL

 

[|-KGB-|CaptHowdy]

me, my wife, and my dad dont have issues with gps after airplane mode