Removing the sd card might help with battery life

[Rockdog97]

Removing the sd card might help with battery life

HOW?????

I have not idea, but after i pulled the SD card out, and ran CPUSpy, it showed a decrease it battery usage/CPU MHz.. it also showed that the phone would deep sleep longer, thus I think somehow the SD card was causing apps to run in the background??? dunno...

 

[jeff1974w]

I found that removing the SD card is helping with the high 'android os' percentage. I saw this over on xda and tried it and it seems to work. My percentage has dropped to 18% from around 50% and its been holding there for about 3 to 4 hours now. Only question is, can I put it back in or not?
Thanks to nim6us for figuring this out.

Update: almost 6pm and now its down to 13% (android os)

Update: 7am next day....this all of a sudden does not work. Android os up to 56%

I just wanted to add my 2 cents in here. I had the E4GT until friday when sprint let me swap out for the galaxy nexus.

Like you, my Android OS was running at 50%to60%+++

Since im now using the Galaxy Nexus my Android OS (after running all day off the charger) was at 4% and the highest battery hog was the screen (out of the box setting) 61%

This is all on 4.0.4

hope this information will help

 

[Rockdog97]

I just wanted to add my 2 cents in here. I had the E4GT until friday when sprint let me swap out for the galaxy nexus.

Like you, my Android OS was running at 50%to60%+++

Since im now using the Galaxy Nexus my Android OS (after running all day off the charger) was at 4% and the highest battery hog was the screen (out of the box setting) 61%

This is all on 4.0.4

hope this information will help

Not really helpful, as it's a different phone, etc. not really related to this phone/sd card removal. But hey, enjoy your Nexus...

Now if you take out your SD card and compare it with the E4G...

 

[blakerandy]

FWIW I took out my external sd card and that didn't help the battery.

I then did a reformat on it from the phone. I've been unplugged for 24 hours and I'm at 74% battery remaining.

 

[lololovestech]

I freaked out after upgrading to ICS b/c the battery life went bonkers. Initially Sprint offered me a replacement phone, but called back and told me the request was "rejected." Didn't know that such a thing could happen - in the past, when I was with Verizon, if they told me they would replace the handset, it would be shipped overnight. Imagine my surprise when my replacement phone never showed up. I didn't want to rollback to GB b/c I really like some of the features of ICS. Here's what I did...if it's any help to anyone. For starters, after reading every post I could find, I:

1. Cleared cache internally via an cache cleaner app as well as manually cleaning each app's cache.
2. Did 2 factory resets (the second one just for kicks). I did NOT back up my data. After the reset a notification appears that says something along the lines of "software upgrade completed." Please don't quote me on the exact wording but I saw the notification both times.*
3. Cleared cache through the boot menu (volume up + power).
4. Set Wi-Fi to NEVER stay on during sleep. Find this setting under the advanced menu in Wi-Fi. I think this one is a major player.*
5. Fiddled with screen settings, timed out screen in 15 seconds, set touch key lights to turn off after 1.5 secs, and turned OFF motion controls. My haptic feedback is on. And my screen is set to auto brightness.
6.Did some battery pulls and cycling. Turn off phone, plug in charger, charge til 100% (blue LED appears). While charger is still plugged in, remove battery for approximately 5 minutes. Unplug and replace battery. I did this twice after running down the battery until the phone just about turned off. This might have also been a big factor.*
7. Installed Juice Defender.
8. Moved all my photos/music onto my desktop computer from my SD card and formatted the card. This erased all the data from previous apps that might have been interfering. I didn't bother removing the card. Placed all pics/music back onto SD. I do not keep apps on my SD card any longer. There is plenty of USB storage within the phone to hold apps (with previous phones this was not the case). I happen to think this was an important step.*
9. BATTERY SUCCESS
10. Went to Sprint store anyway. Had battery tested. It was "marginal" so Sprint replaced with their own aftermarket varietal. Extra points.*

So far, I love ICS and the battery is good/decent, but not exceptional. I can make it through a full workday and commute home. I'm at 67% after 6h 44m 31s on battery. I can live with that.

*Significant steps?

 

[packhntr]

ok...I decided to give this "remove the SD card" a try. The OS usage did drop....by 1%. Not worth the loss of storage.

 

[aust1nz]

Tried this as well -- didn't make any difference for me.

 

[third son]

I got ICS...it sucked battery like sh!t through a goose. Went back to rooted EL29 GB. Rogue CWM and removed bloatware...took out the SD card and moved files to computer...formatted SD and reloaded pics and music. Put SD card back in phone....been running 7 hrs moderate use...down to 88%. Pretty good so far...

Also I shut off wifi and 3G when I am not using it......

 

[wraith404]

Replace the battery??? My butt. That won't fix a thing. The OEM battery does not have any sort of chip or anything in it. It's just a battery. I have an aftermarket high capacity battery and am having the same issue. MORONS!!!!!!

Don't be so arbitrary, for you it might not be the problem, for others it might be. People should realize that even with today's somewhat improved batteries, they still have a finite life. I think it's somewhere around 500 full charges (and every time you plug into a powered USB source then unplug counts to some degree, no matter if its for 5 minutes or 5 hours, but there is a variance). Once it reaches about half it's lifespan, it's capacity starts to diminish gradually. If you use a car or desk dock, and charge at night, you could easily be racking up 2-4 charges per day. 6 months of that would be 360+ charges. If you're getting into this range your max capacity may be diminished to 80% of original, and possibly more. By the way, you should refrain from calling other people morons when making misinformed blanket statements, it reflects poorly on you.

How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University


Now, In regard to the SD card thing, it only affects some people. It happens if something specific is written to it or it is not formatted right, it hasn't been determined past that. You don't have to remove it permanently. Remove it as a test, if it improves (if you're one of the afflicted it will be noticeable - the issue prevents your phone from deep sleeping as determined by CPU Spy app from market). If you are afflicted, put it back in, back it up, and format it. Copy data back a bit at a time, only what you need, and with luck you won't re-introduce the issue.

 

[third son]

Now, In regard to the SD card thing, it only affects some people. It happens if something specific is written to it or it is not formatted right, it hasn't been determined past that. You don't have to remove it permanently. Remove it as a test, if it improves (if you're one of the afflicted it will be noticeable - the issue prevents your phone from deep sleeping as determined by CPU Spy app from market). If you are afflicted, put it back in, back it up, and format it. Copy data back a bit at a time, only what you need, and with luck you won't re-introduce the issue.

Yep...I bet I had something on that card futzing things up. I never reformatted it when I upgraded my phone....it was doing some weird stuff....but no more...

 

[blars1206]

I freaked out after upgrading to ICS b/c the battery life went bonkers. Initially Sprint offered me a replacement phone, but called back and told me the request was "rejected." Didn't know that such a thing could happen - in the past, when I was with Verizon, if they told me they would replace the handset, it would be shipped overnight. Imagine my surprise when my replacement phone never showed up. I didn't want to rollback to GB b/c I really like some of the features of ICS. Here's what I did...if it's any help to anyone. For starters, after reading every post I could find, I:

1. Cleared cache internally via an cache cleaner app as well as manually cleaning each app's cache.
2. Did 2 factory resets (the second one just for kicks). I did NOT back up my data. After the reset a notification appears that says something along the lines of "software upgrade completed." Please don't quote me on the exact wording but I saw the notification both times.*
3. Cleared cache through the boot menu (volume up + power).
4. Set Wi-Fi to NEVER stay on during sleep. Find this setting under the advanced menu in Wi-Fi. I think this one is a major player.*
5. Fiddled with screen settings, timed out screen in 15 seconds, set touch key lights to turn off after 1.5 secs, and turned OFF motion controls. My haptic feedback is on. And my screen is set to auto brightness.
6.Did some battery pulls and cycling. Turn off phone, plug in charger, charge til 100% (blue LED appears). While charger is still plugged in, remove battery for approximately 5 minutes. Unplug and replace battery. I did this twice after running down the battery until the phone just about turned off. This might have also been a big factor.*
7. Installed Juice Defender.
8. Moved all my photos/music onto my desktop computer from my SD card and formatted the card. This erased all the data from previous apps that might have been interfering. I didn't bother removing the card. Placed all pics/music back onto SD. I do not keep apps on my SD card any longer. There is plenty of USB storage within the phone to hold apps (with previous phones this was not the case). I happen to think this was an important step.*
9. BATTERY SUCCESS
10. Went to Sprint store anyway. Had battery tested. It was "marginal" so Sprint replaced with their own aftermarket varietal. Extra points.*

So far, I love ICS and the battery is good/decent, but not exceptional. I can make it through a full workday and commute home. I'm at 67% after 6h 44m 31s on battery. I can live with that.

*Significant steps?

turn off your system sounds like touch sounds, lockscreen sounds, dial sounds and haptic feedback, check what is syncing and how often....I turn all syncing off except email and calendar and just manually sync the rest when needed. As you can see, my battery is ok and as you can see with the screen time, I have been on it quite a bit. My brightness is auto, I use motion control, Wi-Fi it's always on when at home and 4g always on when I am away. Most (not all of course) of the drain is app related and background processes, but the system sounds thing is a bug. If you download an app called betterbatterystats and check your partial wakelocks you will most likely see AudioOut_1 listed which is a direct result of those settings. Also if you are in a poor reception area it can also cause excessive drain and you will see something like "rilj"or something like which is from your phone searching for signal. I changed my modem back to EL29 and that helped out tremendously. How some of this helps.