PR1.1 and unusual battery drain (not wifi related) - Page 9 - maemo.org

maluka | # 81 | 2010-01-19, 00:21 | Report

my battery was at 75% before i took a call. the call went on for about 10 minutes before the phone died. luckily i have a few extra batteries.

waleed786 | # 82 | 2010-01-19, 00:22 | Report

I noticed the same, but when I put in my old battery from the Nokia 5800 (they use the same battery) I noticed that the battery lasted a lot longer, almost a day and a half...I guess the battery gets better over time, since that 5800 battery is about a year old

lpsolevag | # 83 | 2010-01-19, 06:03 | Report

hi,

My N900 never had particulary good batterytime, max 1.5 day, but usually it ran out late in the evening.

After PR1.1 it got even worse.

I read this thread, and the only thing that seemed to apply to me was Skype. After disabling it, I had my phone on for 24 hours now, and the battery level is about 2/3.

I never use wifi, and usually disconnect the 3G connection when not surfing. been using the phone as before.

So my conclusion is that the Skype application in itself drains battery (not necessarily related to being online with this app)

KevinSass | # 84 | 2010-01-19, 14:51 | Report

Originally Posted by aefox View Post

Ok i think i found the BIG BUG on the system that causing the RARE troubles with the Battery ...

I was very happy with my Battery life with the 1.01 os ...

Anyway i decided to get more life by buying another BL-5J battery ...

Just in case i need it one day of too much N900 doing things ...

the same day that i upgrade OS... i recieve the new battery ...

So, to my knowledge, a new battery came with a 50% of charge ...

But to my surprise when i put the new battery the system show me 100% of charge

... anyway i thought rare but ok ... may be the battery came fully charged? ... so i continue using without problem ...

The same day after a few hours ... the Battery indicator display 100% yet? ... i thought ... wow amazing battery or amazing os upgrade! ..

but suddenly ... alarm!!! and red indicator!

...

So... just at may be 1% or 2% of the real battery charge the system recognize that real charge and showed ... the new battery really was at 50% of charge not at 100% that display the os indicator...

Then! ... ok i connected the charger .. and leave the phone totally OFF to get a good charge ...

After a few hours ... ok Green light on .. fully charged ... right?

Ok turn it ON and the bat indicator show 100% ... ok good ...

Then again ... heavy use ... few hours later .. the indicator show about 70% .. i thougt (wrong again) .. oh nice bat or nice upgrade...

Nope ... i installed a third party app bat indicator... and that app showed near dead battery (as must be) and the OS indicator display near 50% ...

So conclusion... the new battery NEVER was fully charged, only to 50% ... and i can't fully charge because the OS think that it's already full at the 50% ...

And here is the most rare of all things ... this behavior ... do not occur with the original Battery ...

... may be because that battery was fully charged many times with the older OS version? ... the original battery could be charged to 100% without problem and i can get nice time of usage and both indicator show the same info ... OS and 3rd party bat indicator ..

Please! some body test this... use 2 batteries ... and test!

There you will understand why some people talk about quick drain... it´s because the OS never fully charge those batteries and it's lying displaying WRONG bat info level ...

So, there ir a serius HUGE problem with the OS about Battery levels and charging ... don't know why this happend on the upgraded 1.1 ... but i can't confirm how it was using 2 batteries with 1.01... may be the same? may be not?

Ok.. OS guys ... work on that!!

bye!

nice work.... post it to the admin or the guys who're makimg the os... it's (as you say) also a bit strange that from an empty battery to full is so short. normaly it will charge longer...

kevin

Kieron | # 85 | 2010-01-19, 20:48 | Report

Originally Posted by aefox View Post

Ok i think i found the BIG BUG on the system that causing the RARE troubles with the Battery ...

I was very happy with my Battery life with the 1.01 os ...

Anyway i decided to get more life by buying another BL-5J battery ...

Just in case i need it one day of too much N900 doing things ...

the same day that i upgrade OS... i recieve the new battery ...

So, to my knowledge, a new battery came with a 50% of charge ...

But to my surprise when i put the new battery the system show me 100% of charge

... anyway i thought rare but ok ... may be the battery came fully charged? ... so i continue using without problem ...

The same day after a few hours ... the Battery indicator display 100% yet? ... i thought ... wow amazing battery or amazing os upgrade! ..

but suddenly ... alarm!!! and red indicator!

...

So... just at may be 1% or 2% of the real battery charge the system recognize that real charge and showed ... the new battery really was at 50% of charge not at 100% that display the os indicator...

Then! ... ok i connected the charger .. and leave the phone totally OFF to get a good charge ...

After a few hours ... ok Green light on .. fully charged ... right?

Ok turn it ON and the bat indicator show 100% ... ok good ...

Then again ... heavy use ... few hours later .. the indicator show about 70% .. i thougt (wrong again) .. oh nice bat or nice upgrade...

Nope ... i installed a third party app bat indicator... and that app showed near dead battery (as must be) and the OS indicator display near 50% ...

So conclusion... the new battery NEVER was fully charged, only to 50% ... and i can't fully charge because the OS think that it's already full at the 50% ...

And here is the most rare of all things ... this behavior ... do not occur with the original Battery ...

... may be because that battery was fully charged many times with the older OS version? ... the original battery could be charged to 100% without problem and i can get nice time of usage and both indicator show the same info ... OS and 3rd party bat indicator ..

Please! some body test this... use 2 batteries ... and test!

There you will understand why some people talk about quick drain... it´s because the OS never fully charge those batteries and it's lying displaying WRONG bat info level ...

So, there ir a serius HUGE problem with the OS about Battery levels and charging ... don't know why this happend on the upgraded 1.1 ... but i can't confirm how it was using 2 batteries with 1.01... may be the same? may be not?

Ok.. OS guys ... work on that!!

bye!

Thats cause you're supposed to charge a new battery for a few cycles no matter what the status says, thats how new batteries work. Happened to me on the n900 and a multitude of other devices in the past.

Imperium | # 86 | 2010-01-21, 19:26 | Report

He has a point though, I also was stunned by the charge time (full in 1.5 hours) but more stunned by the discharge time of only 8 hours.. Weird thing is, when the phone keeps saying the battery is going empty, i can still use it for a couple of hours...

So there is definitely something wrong..

econan | # 87 | 2010-01-21, 22:53 | Report

I have a similar issue. My charge doesn't hold up. At max it goes 6 hours.
I had a chance to chart my battery drain for today. Here is what happened in that last 6 hours. No 3g, only edge, no wireless, no media. Very few browsing (like 3-4 mins) 10-20 mins phone conversation. And the battery is dead in 6 hours.

I'm using the lastest firmware. Not many extra apps: ssh/sshd, forecaweather, mauku, mirror, moobox (mooo

)

These are my drain charts. First one is the amps, second one is the percentage. I also added the 1/5/10 min loads for the same period of time.

Oh... And Hello to the forum

Edit: I also added the log for the battery drain. Fields are: time, charge, percent, 1minload, 5minload, 10minload.

Charge:

Percentage:

Load:

Attached Files

battery.txt (1.2 KB, 100 views)

Last edited by econan; 2010-01-21 at 22:58.

bugelrex | # 88 | 2010-01-21, 23:37 | Report

Originally Posted by econan View Post

I have a similar issue. My charge doesn't hold up. At max it goes 6 hours.
I had a chance to chart my battery drain for today. Here is what happened in that last 6 hours. No 3g, only edge, no wireless, no media. Very few browsing (like 3-4 mins) 10-20 mins phone conversation. And the battery is dead in 6 hours.

I'm using the lastest firmware. Not many extra apps: ssh/sshd, forecaweather, mauku, mirror, moobox (mooo

)

These are my drain charts. First one is the amps, second one is the percentage. I also added the 1/5/10 min loads for the same period of time.

Oh... And Hello to the forum

Edit: I also added the log for the battery drain. Fields are: time, charge, percent, 1minload, 5minload, 10minload.

Charge:

Percentage:

Load:

Here's a perl script I've been using to track down battery drains. It will just show any offending processes. It will only show processes that spin for more than 15 mins (you can change the interval).

to run:
- save the code below as batt.pl
- create MyDocs/tmp directory
- open xterminal and run: perl batt.pl

If the battery drains more than 2% in any 15 min interval, it will log the top output 10 times. Change the interval if thats too long

$nLastPercent = 0;
while(1)
{
$output = `lshal | grep percen`;
@outputArray = split(' ', $output);
$nBattPercent = $outputArray[2];

$nDifference = $nLastPercent - $nBattPercent;
$nLastPercent = $nBattPercent;

print( "difference:..$nDifference...$output");

# if the battery loses more than 2 pct in 15 mins, log top
if($nDifference > 2)
{
($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isd st)=localtime(time);
$filename = "MyDocs/tmp/" . ($year+1900) . "-" . ($mon+1) . "-" . $mday . "-BATTERY.txt";
$now = localtime(time);
$entry = "$now - battery drained $nDifference in 15 mins";
system("echo $entry >> $filename");
print("$entry\n");

# run top 10 times 10sec intervals
for($i=0;$i < 10; $i++)
{
system("top -b -n1 | head -12 >> $filename");
}
}

sleep(900);
}

econan | # 89 | 2010-01-22, 00:35 | Report

Mine was a simple 10 min battery log.
Here is how I do:

Code:

Nokia-N900-42-11:/usr/local/bin# cat collect_battery

#!/bin/sh
EVERY=600

while true
do
LOAD=`cat /proc/loadavg | awk '{print $1,$2,$3;}'`
BATT=`hal-device | egrep "reporting.curre|perc"| xargs | awk '{print $3,$8;}'`
NOW=`date +%s`
echo "$NOW $BATT $LOAD" >> /root/battery.log
sleep $EVERY
done
Nokia-N900-42-11:/usr/local/bin#

Then I used some rrdtools to chart.

And I don't know why my machine still thinks on the shell that it is 42-11... Worth investigating... Is there a way to check this? (other than uname, hostname etc..)

Rob1n | # 90 | 2010-01-22, 09:26 | Report

Originally Posted by econan View Post

And I don't know why my machine still thinks on the shell that it is 42-11... Worth investigating... Is there a way to check this? (other than uname, hostname etc..)

What's given in the root shell there is the hostname (which, by default, is the original version string). You can change this by editing /etc/hostname and rebooting.

The Following User Says Thank You to Rob1n For This Useful Post:
econan