OG Razr XT912 battery going south, finally dead?

[jp233]

Regular RAZR XT912 with the puny, pitiful battery
rooted
on stock verizon OTA JB 4.1.2 - have never flashed a custom ROM once (not even really familiar with it)


Have titanium (TiBu), supersu, root checker, motomizer, widgetsoid, and a few other unused root apps (mainly battery related).

I do have 6 full pages of apps in the drawer - yes its a lot I could get rid of. But this battery change came out of the blue, not like I changed any settings or installed a new app or anything. I never, ever keep GPS on and do not let the phone track pretty much anything I'm doing, I froze a bunch of apps a looong time ago (some Moto bloatware and the gawdy NFL Mobile, etc)

I have had battery issues on/off for quite a while, but now it's just HORRIBLE. It is pretty much unusable. Maybe lasts 4 hours, when 98% of the time it's doing nothing sitting on a desk (smartactions keeping nearly everything off except data and sync). If I try to make a 60 minute phone call it will chew up the entire battery, more than 80% in an hour with no other usage ! Additionally, I have had a lot of "stuck on 3G" problems over the past 8-10 months. It has been especially bad since the Moto/VZW update where they apparently fixed some Canadian radio issues (I shouldn't have even let it install, but I used voodoo rootkeeper and kept root and things seemed OK - but the battery got worse and the radio seems worse too!)

Sometimes using TiBu to clear App cache would make it better for a few days or weeks, but now it's not helping. I used TiBu to Wipe Data (read: not a FDR, did not delete apps but boy did it wipe out a lot of stuff) yesterday, battery seems the same. After that I did a clear cache from the recovery screen too, and now I have more problems:

- Home button doesn't work at all
- Power button only gives me "power off" selection, no ringer/volume/vibrate choices anymore
- I don't get any notifications at all, no gmail, no text, no yahoo mail, no widgetsoid toolbar, nothing. just the basic notificatin pullbar with date/time etc.

With several battery apps (Battery Doctor, Battery Saver Stats, etc) I was seeing that Google+ and Maps, other google crap, were taking up a lot of memory and CPU/wake time. I have now gone so far as to use TiBu to forcible remove Google+ (!!!) but the battery still sucks eggs.

Ideas? Insights?

I'm guess I'm thinking FDR, and start from scratch completely.

If that doesn't work, use mattlgroff's Utility and hit option #1... and really nuke it? I don't even care about root anymore really (although I would like it) because I'm so frustrated that I think I may just end up getting a new phone anyways (and may ditch VZW too).....

If none of the above works or some other things make no difference in the battery, I guess it gets deactivated and becomes a toy for a 2 year old.

 

[Jeffrey]

So what will you replace it with?

 

[prime]

I would do a factory reset, this will erase all your apps and settings but sometimes this is a necessary evil.

 

[MasterGadgets]

Yes, it sound like it's time for a FDR.

 

[GotnFX]

If the battery is going bad, would vz replace it? I was under the impression they would. Worth a shot to try and call and ask if the fdr doesn't help.

 

[jp233]

I bought the phone during the pre-release.... back in Oct 2011 or so. It's ancient according to smartphone lore.

Over the past 2 years, I thought about getting the MAXX battery and doing the swap. But paying $90+ for the parts and doing the labor, just does not seem worth it versus getting a new device.

I'd either go Galaxy S5 or Droid Maxx, or perhaps buy an S4 or RAZR MAXX HD outright so I'm not lashed into another contract. That is, if I'd stay VZW. If I change, I'd have to probably open up to a lot more options (anything but apple).

 

[bigmatt503]

I did the battery swap last year on my XT912 and it was a huge improvement over the regular battery... It's your 90 bucks☺

Sent from my Samsung galaxy s5

 

[jp233]

FDR'd friday evening. After setting up the basics, I installed maybe a dozen apps. Restored a few from TiBu.

Saturday, I thought all was well as I made it all day and the battery ended up at 70% by saturday night. That was at home, on Wifi, very minimal usage except for about 30 mins on the phone.

Sunday though, it started to go south again.

As of today on Monday, I've got 4hrs38mins on the battery and I'm down to 41% remaining. That's with 21 mins screen time, CPU total 15m33s (keep awake 3m). Very minimal usage and the stupid thing has been stuck on 3G all morning (wifi/bluetooth/GPS off as usual, auto brightness and 1min display timeout, sync on), even though I'm sitting in downtown Atlanta.

So, time to nuke the whole phone and see if it's really a problem with the OS/install.

 

[jp233]

Used the Utility and did option 1 (fresh install of OTA JB + data wipe), then option 3 (re-rooted), then option 4 (safestrap).

It was great for 2 days, the battery seemed awesome. Got better/more 4G LTE connectivity, signal seemed great. I put a few apps on it but nothing major. AndroidOS was using very little CPU time, not keeping it awake much at all.


Now today, it's back to its old tricks/garbage.

AndroidOS keeps the CPU awake something like 87% of the time. I don't know what it's doing, can't figure out how to stop it, what process it really is. Purchased BetterBatteryStats by sven and maybe I can't use it right, can't figure out what OS process is keeping the CPU awake that much of the time.

OBTW - I have SmartActions set to --

Battery Saver:
Triggers = not charging, no movement, display=off
Actions = smart brightness, background data = only when I'm using that app, bluetooth/GPS/data=off

I guess going to flash a new ROM, then FDR it, and see if anything changes with the battery usage. If it does not, I'll take this device outside and hit it with a sledgehammer.