Why the battery drains so fast...

[Martin030908]

Try this first http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-faq/4380-howto-droid-safe-mode.html

Edit: Here's how to hard reboot the device.... only thing is it resets your phone to it's out of the box state. Be careful but as a last resort. http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-faq/2071-how-hard-reset-your-motorola-droid.html

 

[n0cturne74]

Try this first http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-faq/4380-howto-droid-safe-mode.html

Edit: Here's how to hard reboot the device.... only thing is it resets your phone to it's out of the box state. Be careful but as a last resort. http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-faq/2071-how-hard-reset-your-motorola-droid.html

FIRST I would definitely try popping the battery out and then put it back in and try turning it back on. Don't forget you have to hold in the power button for a good 5 sec for it to turn on and boot.

 

[grumpy]

I went and got a new battery under warranty today. This battery is working 100% better. Last battery would hold a charge 4 hours under moderate use with GPS and wifi off. Screen on low.

this one under moderate use with the same settings is at 80% since 12 pm

 

[xwera43]

I have noticed that the droid battery isn't the best. The longest I have lasted is 13 hours, but that was with wifi, GPS, bluetooth off, I even turn syncing off when I don't need it, and put the brightest completely down.

I will browse the web 1.5 - 2 hours a day roughly, do play some games. I use advanced task MANAGER, and I kill all apps when not using them and I do think that helps a bit. However, my question is, what PROCESSES need to be left running.

Right now, if I go to the processes tab for advanced task manager, I have the following processes running:

Dailer Storage
Dailer
Adroid System
Checkin System
Sync Feeds
Settings Storage
Gmail
Andriod Keyboard
Gmail Storage
Google Settings Prov...
Google Talk Storage
Google Search
Google Talk Service
Weather Widget Forecast
Weather Widgets
Alarm Clock
Corporate Calendar
Calendar Storage
Calendar
Settings
Messaging
Quick Search Box
providers.applications
providers.userdictionary
Home
Contacts Storage
Retro Clock

I understand that a lot of these are needed and start up automatically. But can anyone shed light on whether some of these are not necessary and might be draining the battery? Thanks in advance for any advice/tips!

One thing cool about Advanced Task Manager is that you can set it up to automatically run & kill the apps/processes you choose. Take a look at the settings again as it's another exclusion list you have to create.

I can't tell you what processes to kill off because I don't know how you use your phone. But if you don't use an Exchange server then no need to run Corporate Calendar.

I, like others just received a replacement battery so I wonder if there was a bad batch. I have only been using it (fully charged) for a little over an hour and am already down to 70%. Not looking good on my end.

Good luck!

@OP
Nice post.

-X

 

[J-Buck]

Does the droids bad battery power have anything to do with them bragging about how the battery is not built in and we can put another 1 in. Is this a ploy for droid owners to but more batteries form verizon?

 

[LordKastle]

The Droid does not have bad battery power. We are just trying to figure out ways to optimize the battery's life.

 

[kazy]

To add to all this.... lower the background light and it saves a A LOT on battery life. I put mine to where its comfortable to view but nowhere near to fully lit... i noticed a pretty good diff in battery life. Give it a try.

 

[Skyecat]

I have had my new Droid since Saturday 11/28. I have been reading everything I can and setting my options to the best possible while still being useful for saving the battery. I unplugged @ 6:32 am today and have my Bluetooth running, have made 36m worth of voice calls. Had my email being checked every 15m one a single account. Received 3 text messages and sent 2. No web browsing and no game playing. Goggle Talk, Android Keyboard, Corp. Calendar (which I have killed) and bluetooth updating service is all that is running per the app manager in the settings tab. GPS and WiFi are turned off. Screen brightness is at just under 25%. My battery is now @ 40%. Battery usage states that 56% of what has killed my battery so far is the paltry 36m worth of voice calls (this was only 2 different calls by the way). Correct me if I am wrong, but shouldn't I be getting better results then this? Someone did mention that they were able to get a new battery under warranty...is this something I should consider? How hard was it to get them to make the switch? Thanks for any help ahead of time

 

[TBV]

1st of all, many thanks to the thread starter andjarnic, I will assume that you know what the hell you are talking about, and on that I fully appreciate your breaking down how apps originally built for IPhone OS may experience issues in the Android OS...makes sense. (shrugs shoulders)

Anyway, I have experienced something very weird with my Droid...

The other night before going to bed I see that I have about 1/2 battery life, and because I do not like charging phones overnight, I decide to simply shut it off (full shutdown, not just blacking out the screen) knowing I had a couple of hours to charge it in the morning before leaving for work.

I wake up the next morning, and the phone will not get past the initial 'M" screen until I had it plugged in to the wall charger for a couple of minutes...then when it finally boots up, the battery indicator is in the red...the battery had completely died while being off for about 8 hours.

I got it fully charged in about two hours +, and it performed with no issues throughout the day.

I decide to run a test; that night, the battery indicator is at bout 3/4, and I again turn it off before bed, and although it boots up in the morning, the battery has depleted down to 15% and is in the yellow.

Again, once fully charged in just over an hour or so, no issues in regards to battery life during the day, the battery is performing as expected.

To complete the 'testing', I then leave it on last night, as I was using it as my alarm for the morning... in the morning the battery has not depleted as it did the previous two nights when the phone had been turned off.

Could this be as the thread starter intimated as a possibility, that perhaps applications are 'running' in the background, even when the device is turned 'off' (even as impossible as that sounds)?

 

[ChrisCMU]

The original post in this thread doesn't address my battery issue at all. I have the task killer and use it frequently. The phone still dies every day without me even using it barely. Yesterday I made two phone calls (about 10 minutes each), checked TV guide twice and read a text. That is it. It was fully charged before this and in the morning it was dead. After every usage (except maybe a phone call) I use task killer and end everything. I also have it set to 30 minute auto kill (I see the notification that apps were killed sometimes). Still my phone dies all the time.

It also doesn't fully charge sometimes and locks up in the middle of a call sometimes as well (which requires me to hard boot it every time).

Basically, this phone makes me want to chuck it at the wall. I will never own another droid because this is the most frustratingly buggy phone I have every owned. I would try getting a new battery, but with the locking up issues I'm not sinking another dime into this thing and just buying time until my contract is up.

 

[Bateluer]

The original post in this thread doesn't address my battery issue at all. I have the task killer and use it frequently. The phone still dies every day without me even using it barely. Yesterday I made two phone calls (about 10 minutes each), checked TV guide twice and read a text. That is it. It was fully charged before this and in the morning it was dead. After every usage (except maybe a phone call) I use task killer and end everything. I also have it set to 30 minute auto kill (I see the notification that apps were killed sometimes). Still my phone dies all the time.

It also doesn't fully charge sometimes and locks up in the middle of a call sometimes as well (which requires me to hard boot it every time).

Basically, this phone makes me want to chuck it at the wall. I will never own another droid because this is the most frustratingly buggy phone I have every owned.

If you're using a Task Killer to end everything, that's actually making your battery life worse, especially with a 30min autokill. Uninstall the task killer. I assume we're talking about the Droid 1 here still, in this decrepit thread. You should be plugging your phone into the charger overnight regardless, most smart phones aren't going to last through the night and still have a meaningful charge left in the morning. Now, if you're plugging it in overnight, and its not even charging into the high 90%s, that phone likely has a bad battery.

Again, uninstall that Task Killer. That 30min killall makes me cringe and is probably the source of most of your issues.

 

[ChrisCMU]

If you're using a Task Killer to end everything, that's actually making your battery life worse, especially with a 30min autokill. Uninstall the task killer. I assume we're talking about the Droid 1 here still, in this decrepit thread. You should be plugging your phone into the charger overnight regardless, most smart phones aren't going to last through the night and still have a meaningful charge left in the morning. Now, if you're plugging it in overnight, and its not even charging into the high 90%s, that phone likely has a bad battery.

Again, uninstall that Task Killer. That 30min killall makes me cringe and is probably the source of most of your issues.

If I remove that how to I stop certain apps that basically don't end? Some like iheartradio will still be on the task list even after you close (not hit home, but close in the application). Other apps don't even have a way to 'close' them at all.

 

[ChrisCMU]

If I just disable auto kill and uncheck the run at startup would that fix the issue?

 

[Bateluer]

If I just disable auto kill and uncheck the run at startup would that fix the issue?

Those apps are sleeping, they'll take up a small amount of RAM but no CPU cycles. The OS will close them on its own. Android handles RAM and multitasking like a champ.