Galaxy S II horrible battery life

By Kondrath
in Android Support

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nekkidtruth

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Do yourself a favor before you get all worried about battery...

I just recently picked up an SGS2 LTE from Rogers. And I'm running stock and I have fantastic battery.

First and foremost, you should drain the battery right until it turns off. Leave it off and charge it fully before turning it back on again.

After that your battery is calibrated and you'll find it may not drain as quickly. Set your display to 30% and then auto (This screen is incredibly nice and shouldn't have an issue seeing it at that setting).

I'm a very heavy user. My WiFi is always on because I have WiFi at home, at work and anywhere else I go for the most part. I text a ton, browse constantly and play games randomly throughout the day. Sometimes I have a conversation on Skype. Talk on the phone for 15-30 minutes through the day. As an example I wake up at 6pm take the phone off the charger. I finish work at 7am and I go home to sleep. My phone is sitting anywhere between 25-30% after a full days use!

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Kondrath

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So, I let it die completely, charged it till 100, and underclocked the CPU to 1.0ghz. Also set a completely black wallpaper. Phone has been on for almost 2 hours and it's still at 100%. lol. Still no service yet, unfortunately. Takes 5 minutes for me to activate a customer line and almost a month for them to activate an employee line. Man. Really liking the phone so far, though.

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Kondrath

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You tried Siyahkernel?

I haven't, but I'll keep it bookmarked for future reference. I'm using the default unnamed kernel, which is based off of Entropy's. Seems to be working OK for now. Actually, I don't think Siyakernel is compatible with the AT&T version. "Only european i9100 models are supported".

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hjf288

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You joking right? Siyah with stock clocks and undervolt is one of the best for battery life - beat out by phenomenal extreme which could be unstable due to its one glove fits all UV'ing.. There were some figures on XDA but I cba looking for them as I'm running ICS atm

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scaramonga

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You joking right? Siyah with stock clocks and undervolt is one of the best for battery life - beat out by phenomenal extreme which could be unstable due to its one glove fits all UV'ing.. There were some figures on XDA but I cba looking for them as I'm running ICS atm

Nope I ain't joking. I've tried them all, believe me, and for myself, Siyah drained too much for my liking. Love SpeedMod, just wish it supported Voodoo Louder as that is its only fault IMO. Siyah does support Voodoo, so I guess it comes down to preference also.

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techbeck

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I installed betterbatterystats to see if there were any wakelock issues, let the phone sleep for about 20 minutes, and it found a partial wakelock by google services which was at 8%. Is that something to worry about?

Is your phone going in to a deep sleep while idle/not in use? Download CPU Spy and it will tell you.

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2xSilverKnight

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VillainRom 3.0 + SpeedMod kernel K2-19. I get easily 2 days out of it. 3 days when I'm not using it heavely.

And i'm using a LiveWallpaper by the way ...

And of course i'm testing Cyanogen 9 Experimental (Android 4.0.3) for some days, but always roll back to VillainRom for stability until we get the source code from Samsung.

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scaramonga

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I installed betterbatterystats to see if there were any wakelock issues, let the phone sleep for about 20 minutes, and it found a partial wakelock by google services which was at 8%. Is that something to worry about?

Go into Market settings and turn OFF 'google admob ads', might not be root cause, but this is one that is known.

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Kondrath

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Is your phone going in to a deep sleep while idle/not in use? Download CPU Spy and it will tell you.

Ah, thanks. Yep, Deep Sleep is working fine. I guess there's no need for worry.

VillainRom 3.0 + SpeedMod kernel K2-19. I get easily 2 days out of it. 3 days when I'm not using it heavely.

And i'm using a LiveWallpaper by the way ...

And of course i'm testing Cyanogen 9 Experimental (Android 4.0.3) for some days, but always roll back to VillainRom for stability until we get the source code from Samsung.

Interesting. By the way, I used the method of rooting without tripping the flash counter. If I want to test other kernels, how can I do that? Do I use mobile odin lite?

Thanks for all the helpful tips, everyone.

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scaramonga

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If I want to test other kernels, how can I do that? Do I use mobile odin lite?

Thanks for all the helpful tips, everyone.

Easiest way is to grab the CWM zip of kernel, put onto SDCard, and flash from Clockwork Mod Recovery, which you should have if your rooted anyway ;)

Not nessesary, but I like to run the 'kernel cleaning script' beforehand (up to version 1.72 I think), also run from recovery and nice to keep on SDCard if your flashing various kernels :)

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Kondrath

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Easiest way is to grab the CWM zip of kernel, put onto SDCard, and flash from Clockwork Mod Recovery, which you should have if your rooted anyway ;)

Not nessesary, but I like to run the 'kernel cleaning script' beforehand (up to version 1.72 I think), also run from recovery and nice to keep on SDCard if your flashing various kernels :)

Yeah, I have CWM. So basically I just put the kernel onto the SD card and install it from CWM, and then install the new rom? Seems easy enough.

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scaramonga

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Also, if you have WiFi, don't bother connecting phone to PC for all this file moving. Grab 'Airdroid' from market, its free, fast, and allows you to simply transfer kernels/roms/files etc to phone from your browser on PC, makes things a lot easier ;) Only time I need a cable to PC for SG II is when I need to use Odin for emergencies, and that's rare lol!

Oh and before you do anything....

BACK UP YOUR EFS!!!

I have ten backups of this, online and offline, and on various devices, overkill yeah, but I learned the hard way I'm afraid, with my phone going back to Sammy, so if you havent already done so, please do it :)

Grand Master

techbeck

Posted
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Also, if you have WiFi, don't bother connecting phone to PC for all this file moving. Grab 'Airdroid' from market, its free, fast, and allows you to simply transfer kernels/roms/files etc to phone from your browser on PC, makes things a lot easier ;) Only time I need a cable to PC for SG II is when I need to use Odin for emergencies, and that's rare lol!

Wow, how did I not know about this app. Thanks!!

Grand Master

zeta_immersion

Posted
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Got the GS II with CM7 ...

battery goes like this (after about 6 or so months of usage)

Screen (100) = baterry dies within 3-4h (gaming and internet)

Screen (25% - lowest) = up to 8h or so (an entire day)

Light usage but some gaming for short periods of time (low screen) about a day

Deep sleep light usage (about 1% drain over 4-8h or so)

overall I have noticed that the screen just trashes the battery like it is going out of stile otherwise the phone is quite nice ...

mind you, to have the same intensity and usage as an iPhone, the S II falls short by 1/3 and that is with 2.3 OS, have not tried and 4.0

(the bluetooth is off as with the GPS, low CPU freq 200Mhz, high 1.2 (default), never put in airplane mode but always make sure it goes into deep sleep (if not find out why))

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