New to Epic - battery life, DRM service, wired tether?

[Stearmandriver]

Hi all,

Great forum! I'm new to the Epic and Android in general, coming from a (hacked and modded to the hilt) Palm Pre. I'm trying to get up to speed on where things currently stand on a few issues. These are probably not related, but are probably tied together by my general newbieness, so I thought I'd ask em all in one thread.

1. Battery Life - coming from the pre, I'm used to this lol. But of course I'm always looking to maximize. I keep reading about the DRM service introduced with Froyo. Is this thing still a problem in the current EC05 build? How do I stop it? I think I understand that, once rooted, I'll be able to kill it but it'll keep coming back? Is a custom ROM the only way to get rid of it entirely? Any recommendations for one that's totally stable and retains stock functionality?

2. Wired tether - doesn't work even with drivers installed, Sprint error code etc. I've found the modded wired tether package that's supposed to fix this problem, but they all say they're for the EB build of Froyo. Anyone know if this will work for the current EC build as well?

Thanks for reading. I'd be glad for any advice or suggestions on any of this stuff.

Thanks,
Joe

 

[jd195]

You can kill the DRM service by (from the home screen) going to menu > Settings > Applications > Running services then finr the OmaDRMconfig and tap that and it'll stop that (Rooted or not). In the most recent Froyo builds, I haven't noticed a battery life either way with that and I think I remember others saying the same. I think most custom ROMs leave it in because if you take it out completely it causes more problems.

For Wired tether to work, I believe you'll have to be Rooted (not sure if the Sprint tether works on wired or if it's only wireless). Not sure about any other issues with it, since I've always used the wireless tether when I need to.

Also, for battery life improvements, I always like to recommend the Screen Filter app if you're indoors a lot, since it'll dim the screen even further than stock can, thus saving battery life a bit.

 

[eck74]

Yea, you can kill DRM the way he described.

As for tethering, Sprint charges for that service, so your phone is not going to do it unless you root it and install a custom ROM.

I use ACS syndicateFrozen ROM. I have been using theirs for a while. I get great battery life with them and their twilight kernel.

 

[Stearmandriver]

Cool, thanks guys. I was going to root and set up wireless tether tonight... I thought if wired would work it'd be nice to have since you probably want to be plugged in if tethering for any length of time anyway... But no biggy.

Thanks for explaining how to kill the DRM... Honestly batt life hasn't been bad in standby anyway, which was why I was wondering if it was still a problem in this build. I read so many horror stories but they were all old. Now if I could just quit turning the thing on and playing with it every couple minutes maybe I'd have decent battery by the end of the day. ;-)

 

[Donmeister85]

Cool, thanks guys. I was going to root and set up wireless tether tonight... I thought if wired would work it'd be nice to have since you probably want to be plugged in if tethering for any length of time anyway... But no biggy.

Thanks for explaining how to kill the DRM... Honestly batt life hasn't been bad in standby anyway, which was why I was wondering if it was still a problem in this build. I read so many horror stories but they were all old. Now if I could just quit turning the thing on and playing with it every couple minutes maybe I'd have decent battery by the end of the day. ;-)

Welcome to the awesomeness of the Epic 4G, man! I couldn't put mine down when I first got mine either.

I haven't really used wired tether all that much as I use wireless tether mostly. Even if you use wireless tether, you can still keep it plugged in so the battery doesn't drain so fast and all.

Oh yeah, and I came from the Palm Pre too. I told myself I'd never get an Android phone and was almost mad at the fact that all these new Android phones were coming out on Sprint, but no newness from Palm. Haha! Since I've had the Epic, I haven't looked back....

 

[jrz5024]

An easier way to kill the OmaDRM service is a great program called Startup Auditor, which kills it on startup (and anything else you don't want to run). Free version lets you kill up to 5 processes, unlimited in pro.

I second ACS's Syndicaterom Frozen. Crazy fast and stable, and when paired with Twilight's kernel it sips battery.

 

[GrooveRite]

I am not rooted and using easytether to connect my laptop wirlessly and I'm not paying sprints $30 cover for hotspot/tether either. They are raping me already as is! DL the lite version to check it out inthe market. Free version only allows websites, not secured ones where u have to type a username and password. They charge u a one time fee of $10 for access to that. Good luck!

 

[Stearmandriver]

Thanks guys... I'm gonna try that syndicatefrozen rom as soon as I have some time in the next couple days... Looks like fun and has wireless tethering baked in!

 

[Paul627g]

Thanks guys... I'm gonna try that syndicatefrozen rom as soon as I have some time in the next couple days... Looks like fun and has wireless tethering baked in!

Syndicate is a great ROM. As far as the wireless tethering baked in, its simply added to the applications in the ROM not really "baked" into the ROM itself like a configuration file or something.

You can download the latest Wireless Tethering App from Project Google to install on any ROM once your are rooted.

 

[Stearmandriver]

Thanks Paul... poor terminology on my part. I've been reading that thread about the wireless tether... Awesome community you guys have here.

Btw, I grew up in Joliet and then lived near Caton Farm Rd and the Dupage for like ten years before moving out of state. Small world lol.

 

[Stearmandriver]

Hey folks,

So I ended up rooting and installing the SyndicateROM Frozen 1.1.0 "Fully Loaded". Explanation, including a most excellent how-to video link, here ('cause I know I'd be wishing for a link if I'd found this thread last week lol):
[ROM][ACS] SyndicateROM Frozen 1.1.0 (Takiya) :: EC05/1.3ghz/NoCheckboarding :: 3/27 - xda-developers

This thing is CRAZY fast. After reading about journaling, I flashed that "journaling on" .zip from the xda site as well. Rom might be a hair slower now, but still much much faster than stock, and I'll take the peace of mind lol. Battery life is greatly improved too.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, everyone.

Joe

 

[rando991]

An easier way to kill the OmaDRM service is a great program called Startup Auditor, which kills it on startup (and anything else you don't want to run). Free version lets you kill up to 5 processes, unlimited in pro.

I second ACS's Syndicaterom Frozen. Crazy fast and stable, and when paired with Twilight's kernel it sips battery.

Startup auditor does not work with Froyo. I know, I've had it, and had those services checked, rebooted and they are still on. I deleted the app and gave it a bad review.

 

[zzzvariety]

thanks for the battery tips

 

[jrz5024]

Startup auditor does not work with Froyo. I know, I've had it, and had those services checked, rebooted and they are still on. I deleted the app and gave it a bad review.

Startup auditor might not work with your phone, but it sure works for mine, my girlfriend's, my brother's and my dad's. All have Froyo, all on different devices. Not sure what you're doing wrong, but it's not the program's fault. I'd remove that bad review if I were you and give it another shot.

 

[rando991]

Startup auditor might not work with your phone, but it sure works for mine, my girlfriend's, my brother's and my dad's. All have Froyo, all on different devices. Not sure what you're doing wrong, but it's not the program's fault. I'd remove that bad review if I were you and give it another shot.

No I'm afraid it's not what I'm doing wrong, it's the other way around. You believe it's working on your phones, but it probably isn't. It worked on Eclair, but not since the upgrade to Froyo. I had it on my wife's phone too. At first I thought it was working, but when I went into running services I could see it was not preventing DRM from running (in fact it made it go into a restart loop--worse on the battery). I uninstalled/ reinstalled it several times. Other things were showing up in the "running" category in manage applications setting that were supposed to be shut down and prevented from running. In fact not one app that shows as running in manage applications shows that it has been affected. Are you really sure you have really checked out your phone's running services and are certain those apps and services have been shut down, or do you only thing they are? Don't trust the Startup Auditor to say it is, check it out with your phone settings. You can check out the XDA developer's forums if you don't believe me. Most of those guys all seem to agree that since Froyo, none of the Task Killers work on the Epic (even though for the casual user it would appear they do). The review stands and the app stays off our phones unless they can make it work on the Epic.

 

[rando991]

Update

Update: This quote from the XDA developers: "Yeah, google removed the code for taskkillers in froyo."

So, your startup auditor does not really work on your phones, it only appears to. I don't know if you can get your money back. If I were you, I'd recommend all 4 of you put in bad reviews and maybe they will put in a warning about it BEFORE anybody else pays for these apps.