Battery Saving Settings / Charging Flaw

[geoandroiddaddy]

For all of you that own the Fascinate, you know that the battery life is the WORST! at least for me it is. It may be because I use the phone 24.7. hahaha

Well anyway I have an issue with charging the phone. This is the only phone Ive had this problem with. I use the phone while its charging and the battery still drains and the phone still DIES while its charging!! WHAT!!?? so you're telling me the Fascinate uses 3x the power more than what the Charger provides? Sounds like a flaw but eh... its beautiful so ill forgive it.

These are my current Battery Saving Settings:

SETCPU MIN100 MAX400 Conservative (Custom)
Screen Brightness 0% Autobright OFF!
Standard Wallpaper (NO Live wallpaper)
No Widgets
GPS, WI-FI, BLUETOOTH, SYNC & Background apps Off
Advanced Taskiller
SYSTEM APP Bloatware Removed


All of that, and it seems the AMOLED still KILLS my battery's life. UGH
Do you guys have any other battery saving recommendations besides "dont use your phone so much"? Maybe I can Disable the LED softkeys?

 

[Tari]

I charge the phone while downloading and watching 720p videos, while I've got at least five or six auto-update widgets going, and my phone continues to charge, not lose battery.

I can't say I understand why you're losing battery during charge.


- no ATK
- standard image background
- bloatware removed (rooted)
- auto-brightness
- GPS, Wifi on
- lots of widgets (using LauncherPro, now, but didn't have the issue on TWLauncher, either)
- everything else stock


To be fair, a lot of people report very good battery life while watching videos (which I have to agree with), but I can't see how much else would eat your battery much faster. Playing games while listening to streaming music, perhaps? But even that doesn't make me lose battery while charging.

 

[geoandroiddaddy]

What!? ugh so its probably my battery or charger that is flawed. ok Im going to buy a new battery. Should I get an Extended battery with Pregnant Door or just another battery with Separate deck charger?

 

[milominderbinde]

For all of you that own the Fascinate, you know that the battery life is the WORST! at least for me it is. It may be because I use the phone 24.7. hahaha

Well anyway I have an issue with charging the phone. This is the only phone Ive had this problem with. I use the phone while its charging and the battery still drains and the phone still DIES while its charging!! ...

There is something that is sucking the life blood out of your phone.

It is an app, widget, or the ROM or kernel you installed, or something.

Start with a reboot. Use your task killer to turn off all apps that you might have installed. Set the Task killer to NOT run automatically. Turn off all the radios: 1x, 3G, , Bluetooth, GPS, etc. Remove all widgets for now.

Charge your phone fully on a real wall or car charger, NOT USB. (USB often has only half the current.) Unplug. Count to 10. Plug in again to make sure that it does not need to charge more.

Unplug and wait an hour. Your battery should have dropped from 100% to 99% or at worst 98%.

What percent do you have left?

If you do not have at least 98% left, something got in while you were rooting and flashing: So start undoing stuff that you did.

If you are still at 98%+ after an hour, you know it is one of your apps that is killing you. Turn an app back on and check to make sure you have no more than a 2% drop in an hour. The apps and widgets most likely to kill you are certain music, streaming music, navigation, Facebook, and Twitter apps.

By the end of tonight you will know what is killing you. Kill it right back. Let us know what it was.

I am betting it is some sort of music or social networking widget or app.

 

[Kevin Gossett]

Remove ATK, it's doing more harm than good

 

[Sta11i0n]

Remove ATK, it's doing more harm than good

Agreed. I use mine very heavily and get a good 12 hours from a charge. Wifi is always on. GPS when needed. Live wallpaper. 3 auto updating Widgets. Brightness fixed at 10%. Rooted. Debloated. No task killer other than stock. TW. I'm very impressed with its life when taking usage and display size into account. After 12 hours I'm usually between 30-40% and get fully charged in under an hour on AC.

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk

 

[NOsquid]

Remove ATK, it's doing more harm than good

Do this before anything else

 

[milominderbinde]

Remove ATK, it's doing more harm than good

Actually if you turn the task killer's automatic function OFF so that it does not run automatically, it can be of real value in a case like this. I use SystemPanel to see what apps and widgets are running and how much power they are taking. Then use System Panel as a Task Killer to force close apps to simulate them being removed from your phone to see what effect they are having.

It is more effective to use Titanium Backup to freeze apps without removing them to see if an app you installed is sucking juice. I also use the Titanium Backup Freeze option to "remove" bloatware apps without really removing them. Really removing bloatware can prevent you from upgrading.

A Task Killer can be of real value in finding battery drains if you turn off the Automatic part. But never let a Task Killer run automatically.

That's why I think SystemPanel and Titanium work so well as Task Killers. Great for finding battery suckers.

 

[joebob2000]

With all this discussion, is it generally accepted that the "battery usage" list in Android is not worth anything when it comes to identifying where all the energy is going?

 

[packerbacker]

My phone didn't used to to this, but now MY phone is losing battery on the charge.

 

[joebob2000]

The charger can deliver a rather petty 3.5 watts (5v * .7 A). The battery (3.6v and 1.5 a/hr) can deliver 3.5 watts for only 1.5 hours until it's dead.

Hence, if the charger is working properly it can keep the phone running (indefinitely) as effectively as the battery could for just one and a half hours. Unless you can go from full charge to dead on the phone in that time with the phone unplugged, the charger is clearly not hitting it's expected output.

 

[packerbacker]

Well that's stupid. I keep my phone plugged in at night because I need it fully charged for the next day. I use Gentle Alarm so it needs to be on all night (plus I use it as a clock) and I certainly don't have enough time in the morning to fully charge it before I leave. What's the solution?

 

[milominderbinde]

My phone didn't used to to this, but now MY phone is losing battery on the charge.

Are your charging on the wall charger or thorugh a PC? The PC USB only gives about half the juice that the wall charger gives.

But regardless something is draining your power. Most likely it is an streaming music, music player, social medial app or widget that is to blame.

Here are the steps to find the source from the Getting Started with Android - Tips and Tricks.

Find the Battery Sucker
If your battery is draining fast, turn everything off and then start turning things on until you find the problem.
1. Save your current Homescreen Scene: Tap Menu > Settings > Personalize > Scene > Menu > Save.
2. Turn off radios: Tap Menu > Settings > Personalize > Wireless & Networks. Turn off WiFi, Bluetooth, Hotspot, 4G, Mobile Network.
3. Remove live wallpaper: Tap Menu > Settings > Personalize > Home wallpaper. Chose a wallpaper that is not Live.
4. Remove all widgets. Use App Icons for now.
5. Dim the brightness to 25% or less: Tap Menu > Settings > Brightness
6. Reduce auto-sync: Tap Menu > Settings > Accounts & sync. Turn off ones you don't use. Slow down the rest.
7. Reboot the phone: Press and hold the power button then tap Power off. Then turn the phone back on.
8. Take the phone off the charger and note the Battery %: Tap Menu > Settings > About phone > Battery.
9. Turn off the display and check the Battery in an hour. It should drop by no more than 2%.
- If drop was over 2%, check for rogue apps: Tap Menu > Settings > Applications > Manage applications > Running.
- - Are apps you installed running without you turning them on? Tap it then tap Force close.
- If drop was under 2%, start turning apps on until you find the problems.

 

[joebob2000]

The only problem I see with the above test (at least you don't tell the user to leave it in airplane mode for 1+ hours) is that step 8 is not possible on the Fascinate with android 2.1. There is no "Battery" section in "about phone", and no way at all to know the charge percentage without an add-on app. With that in mind, are there any good, free, ad-free, low-overhead battery monitoring apps out there? I know that's quite a requirement list but there must be *something*. I am tempted to break out the android dev kit just to put something useful together for my own battery curiosity.

 

[packerbacker]

The only problem I see with the above test (at least you don't tell the user to leave it in airplane mode for 1+ hours)

Wait, is that my problem, then? I use Gentle Alarm at night and it automatically goes into Airplane and Silent Mode.. should I just turn off the data by turning off WiFi/3G instead?

(And I never charge on my car charger or my PC, always in the wall, and when I just look at battery usage, there's never anything abnormal in it.)

 

[joebob2000]

Wait, is that my problem, then? I use Gentle Alarm at night and it automatically goes into Airplane and Silent Mode.. should I just turn off the data by turning off WiFi/3G instead?

(And I never charge on my car charger or my PC, always in the wall, and when I just look at battery usage, there's never anything abnormal in it.)

No sorry I wasn't addressing your issue specifically... airplane mode is supposed to save battery but a smartphone in airplane mode is basically an expensive ipod.

 

[packerbacker]

Well yeah I only put my phone in airplane mode to conserve battery or overnight. But I'm wondering if I really shouldn't use my phone on all night and use it as a clock..

 

[emptycube]

The only problem I see with the above test (at least you don't tell the user to leave it in airplane mode for 1+ hours) is that step 8 is not possible on the Fascinate with android 2.1. There is no "Battery" section in "about phone", and no way at all to know the charge percentage without an add-on app. With that in mind, are there any good, free, ad-free, low-overhead battery monitoring apps out there? I know that's quite a requirement list but there must be *something*. I am tempted to break out the android dev kit just to put something useful together for my own battery curiosity.

I use the System Info widget. Displays battery in % and some other (user-selectable) stuff like free RAM, free storage, signal strength, etc and also has a button to quickly toggle between Normal/Vibrate/Silent mode. Each of the icons (there are 5 items displayed) when pressed will open something related. Like you press the battery % icon and it opens the 'Battery use' page, press the 'free RAM' icon and it opens the 'Running Services' page, etc.

 

[voghan]

I don't use the stock charger but bought a wall charger at bb that charges well. I use the stock task manager to kill random apps if they act up.

I use a brightness widget that let's me keep the screen around 5%. Phone will use less battery on WiFi. Buy a car charger! Also turn on Google services for location, gps melts the battery like butter.

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk

 

[stedyone]

I'm curious if the OP is trying to charge a replacement battery from China instead of the original OEM battery? My case: I bought a cheap replacement spare battery for my i500 with charger from China on Ebay. My phone runs fine on the China battery but, will not charge it in the phone. When I connect my cable i get a popup that reads "battery is not connected" and wont charge. The stock OEM battery charges just fine in the phone with the cable. Is there a difference in logic or connections between a China replacement battery and the OEM Samsung battery?