# CM7 1.3 Battery Issues [updated with 1.4 info]



## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

I've seen many posts saying that battery life has increased with the new CM RC. There are even a few of you running other kernels that are getting 24+ hours with the stock battery.

A couple of others, including myself, are experiencing terrible battery life; I'm getting ~10 hours whereas I'd get 18+ running 1.2 with the same usage.

I'm hoping I could get a few of you to chime in on your battery experience running 1.3, with some additional information. The following information would be helpful but feel free to add anything you may think is worth while:

battery life: ~10 hours
kernel: Tiamat 1.0.3
clock min/max: 192/1036 
undervolted: NO
governer: smartass
wifi sleep policy: when screen turns off
4g area: YES
4g on: NO

Thanks all!

Edit: After installing 1.4 and doing a bump-charge calibration, I'm getting great battery life. 18 hours and still had ~50%. Wasn't using the phone too much, but I was off of wifi for a majority off the time. The 18 hours also includes time that my phone and I were both sleeping; still that's very little stand-by drain.

battery life: ~18 hours
juice remaining: ~50%
kernel: stock cm kernel
clock min/max: 245/1024 (default)
undervolted: NO
governer: ondemand (default)
wifi sleep policy: never (but I turn off wifi when I'm not around a hotspot)
4g area: YES
4g on: NO


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## Mustang302LX (Jun 28, 2011)

battery life: 17.5 hours (Was down to 54% but it was light to semi-moderate usage yesterday)
kernel: Tiamat 1.0.3 (switched to 1.0.4 during this time as well)
clock min/max: 268/1036 
undervolted: No
governer: Interactive
wifi sleep policy: Never
4g area: No
4g on: No

Edit: Stock battery also not my extended.


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

Mustang302LX said:


> battery life: 17.5 hours (Was down to 54% but it was light to semi-moderate usage yesterday)
> kernel: Tiamat 1.0.3 (switched to 1.0.4 during this time as well)
> clock min/max: 268/1036
> undervolted: No
> ...


Are you saying you were down to 54% _after_ 17.5 hours? If so, I'm doing something wrong. That's amazing.


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## Mustang302LX (Jun 28, 2011)

skinien said:


> Are you saying you were down to 54% _after_ 17.5 hours? If so, I'm doing something wrong. That's amazing.


Yes that's what I was at. However like I said I didn't do a ton of stuff yesterday with it. Lots of text messaging, a few short calls, twitter, FB and Google+ and some use of tapatalk and some downloads. No games played or movies or anything.

Edit: Stock battery also not my extended.


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## kcl71 (Jul 27, 2011)

skinien said:


> I've seen many posts saying that battery life has increased with the new CM RC. There are even a few of you running other kernels that are getting 24+ hours with the stock battery.
> 
> A couple of others, including myself, are experiencing terrible battery life; I'm getting ~10 hours whereas I'd get 18+ running 1.2 with the same usage.
> 
> ...


Same here. Easily 16 hours on rc1.2 with stock kernel and no overclock or undervolting. Would get minimum of 3 hrs. 15 min of display time, occasionally 4 hrs. Wifi on only at night when home and 3g only unless downloading files would toggle 4g. Running same apps and no auto syncing of anything...all manual. Trying tiamat kernel now to see if get a difference, too early to tell yet. Oh yeah, full wipe from 1.2 to 1.3 to see if it would make a difference. It hasn't.

battery life: 8-10 hours
kernel: stock 
clock min/max: 192/1036 
undervolted: NO
governer: smartass
wifi sleep policy: screen off
4g area: yes
4g on: not yet


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

Mustang302LX said:


> Yes that's what I was at. However like I said I didn't do a ton of stuff yesterday with it. Lots of text messaging, a few short calls, twitter, FB and Google+ and some use of tapatalk and some downloads. No games played or movies or anything.
> 
> Edit: Stock battery also not my extended.


Yep, that's comparable to my usage expect I listen to music for about an hour (not streaming).


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

kcl71 said:


> Same here. Easily 16 hours on rc1.2 with stock kernel and no overclock or undervolting. Would get minimum of 3 hrs. 15 min of display time, occasionally 4 hrs. Wifi on only at night when home and 3g only unless downloading files would toggle 4g. Running same apps and no auto syncing of anything...all manual. Trying tiamat kernel now to see if get a difference, too early to tell yet. Oh yeah, full wipe from 1.2 to 1.3 to see if it would make a difference. It hasn't.
> 
> battery life: 8-10 hours
> kernel: stock
> ...


Interesting that we're both in 4g areas with 4g off and we're getting the poor battery life. Hopefully, we get more data to make a stronger connection.

On a side note - when I reboot, my wifi screen policy doesn't stick. It always reverts to "never" which will add some additional drain. You might want to make sure that yours sticks.


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## kcl71 (Jul 27, 2011)

Just checked wifi sleep policy and still set for when screen turns off. Have rebooted at least 3 times since setting it 2 days ago. Yeah it is making me crazy. Will let you know tomorrow how tiamat is working, just installed and reset battery stats this morning.


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

kcl71 said:


> Just checked wifi sleep policy and still set for when screen turns off. Have rebooted at least 3 times since setting it 2 days ago. Yeah it is making me crazy. Will let you know tomorrow how tiamat is working, just installed and reset battery stats this morning.


Thanks!!


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## Mustang302LX (Jun 28, 2011)

skinien said:


> Yep, that's comparable to my usage expect I listen to music for about an hour (not streaming).


I usually stream iheartradio for about an hour or 2 but didn't yesterday.

It's weird because it seems day to day the battery life is never consistant. One day I'll get amazing battery life even while streaming stuff or playing games and the next day sitting off at idle it will drain rapidly.


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

Mustang302LX said:


> I usually stream iheartradio for about an hour or 2 but didn't yesterday.
> 
> It's weird because it seems day to day the battery life is never consistant. One day I'll get amazing battery life even while streaming stuff or playing games and the next day sitting off at idle it will drain rapidly.


Did you calibrate the battery after installing 1.3?


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## sgtguthrie (Jun 7, 2011)

I've found that I get better battery life with wifi sleep policy set to never. Wifi uses less battery than mobile networks, and when your wifi sleeps, mobile data comes back on...

sent via rooted THUNDERBOLT with Tapatalk


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## Mustang302LX (Jun 28, 2011)

skinien said:


> Did you calibrate the battery after installing 1.3?


Yes but not after changing to Tiamat kernel.


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

Mustang302LX said:


> Yes but not after changing to Tiamat kernel.


OK. I _think_ that somewhere in that kernel's thread, the OP posted that a calibration is recommended. But I usually just calibrate after installing a ROM, not kernel.

edit: mentioned the wrong thread.


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## Mustang302LX (Jun 28, 2011)

skinien said:


> OK. I _think_ that somewhere in this thread, the OP posted that a calibration is recommended. But I usually just calibrate after installing a ROM, not kernel.


Like wise. Maybe I'll do it in the next day or so depending on battery life over the next few days.


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## WBMc36 (Jul 12, 2011)

Any apps acting up for you? I get crappy battery life when facebook acts up. Check spare parts>battery history>switch the first drop down to partial wake usage, see if there are any apps acting up. Another indicator would be in about phone and then to battery usage if the phone is awake while screen is off most of the time there is some app keeping the phone awake.


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

WBMc36 said:


> Any apps acting up for you? I get crappy battery life when facebook acts up. Check spare parts>battery history>switch the first drop down to partial wake usage, see if there are any apps acting up. Another indicator would be in about phone and then to battery usage if the phone is awake while screen is off most of the time there is some app keeping the phone awake.


Thanks, I'll keep my eye on that!


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

OK all I think I found an issue with playing music. I've tested the CM Music app and WinAmp. Seems as though when playing music off of the sdcard, I get a drain of 5% every 10 minutes. I listen to music for about 2 hours/day - that's 60% of my battery gone right there. This may have to do with the music bug fix that was included in 1.3.


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## kcl71 (Jul 27, 2011)

Tiamet kernel definitely helped with battery life. I'm getting same life that i had with 1.2 and slayher's stock kernel. Don't know enough about it to make sense of what happened with my battery life between 1.2 and 1.3 but I'm happy and will run Tiamet for few days. Might try to flash back to stock kernel over weekend and see if there is any difference from first try.

View attachment 510


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## jeffykins (Jul 26, 2011)

I just downloaded tiamet and will now recalibrate my battery but it seems to me that this is a radio issue. I have MR 2 installed and am using battery monitor widget to view battery stats. This isn't some background process eating my batter it is the radios. When I have them on I run at about 500 ma's where when I am on wifi I run maybe 120. These values are refreshed every minute and seem consistant regardless of kernel. I've tried imoseyons lean, dream and the stock 1.3 kernels. Always similar output and similar battery life. I'm amazed by you people saying you get 10+ hours. I doubt I could make 3 on 3g. Of you get amazing battery life can you maybe post the link to the radio you use?


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

"jeffykins said:


> I just downloaded tiamet and will now recalibrate my battery but it seems to me that this is a radio issue. I have MR 2 installed and am using battery monitor widget to view battery stats. This isn't some background process eating my batter it is the radios. When I have them on I run at about 500 ma's where when I am on wifi I run maybe 120. These values are refreshed every minute and seem consistant regardless of kernel. I've tried imoseyons lean, dream and the stock 1.3 kernels. Always similar output and similar battery life. I'm amazed by you people saying you get 10+ hours. I doubt I could make 3 on 3g. Of you get amazing battery life can you maybe post the link to the radio you use?


I'm wondering if those of us that are having battery issues are in areas where the network is flaky.

I know that right before 4g went down in April, my battery life was bad. When it cane back up, I could go a weekend without charging.


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## Mustang302LX (Jun 28, 2011)

I'm at 46% battery after 13 hrs. 55 min. which includes just under 2 hours of screen on time (mostly Grave Defense HD), a few phone calls, TONs of text messages, a few reboots, changed kernels back to Tiamat 1.0.3, and some app updates, tapatalk and internet browsing. Not too shabby!


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

"Mustang302LX said:


> I'm at 46% battery after 13 hrs. 55 min. which includes just under 2 hours of screen on time (mostly Grave Defense HD), a few phone calls, TONs of text messages, a few reboots, changed kernels back to Tiamat 1.0.3, and some app updates, tapatalk and internet browsing. Not too shabby!


Jerk


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## Mustang302LX (Jun 28, 2011)

skinien said:


> Jerk


Don't hate the player....hate the device!  lol


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## jeffykins (Jul 26, 2011)

"skinien said:


> Jerk


And what are you running that works so well?


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

"jeffykins said:


> And what are you running that works so well?


My setup isn't running well. Its in the op.


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## jeffykins (Jul 26, 2011)

"skinien said:


> My setup isn't running well. Its in the op.


Its in the op?


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## deltaechoe (Jul 20, 2011)

The best way to get good battery life out of the phone is to use the power widget to turn off the radios when you aren't using the phone. If you are using it, then the best life extension would be to undervolt. I believe the tiamat kernel has support for undervolting via Viper mod. Also, the interactive and smartass governors seem to be the best for battery life.


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## GoldenCyn (Jun 27, 2011)

"Mustang302LX said:


> Don't hate the player....hate the device!  lol


+ 1

Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt running Gingeritis 3D beta VI using RootzWiki Forums


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

"GoldenCyn said:


> + 1
> 
> Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt running Gingeritis 3D beta VI using RootzWiki Forums


You all know I was kidding, right?


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## greenblattsam (Jun 7, 2011)

My battery has improved since 1.4 has been released in am using imoseyon's AOSP 3.5.8 not undervolted and the battery life has gone up to the amount of time I had with 1.2


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## jeffykins (Jul 26, 2011)

Ok so here is my two cents on the issue. I have been swapping kernels trying to get better battery life on cm7 now 1.4. Nothing seemed to work. I would have my phone shut down in my pocket. Or rather screen off and it would discharge at about. 5 percent per min. So much so that it would actually heat up the phone. This was while connected to data...not wifi..wifi was always good. My readout would show 500 ma when I switched the screen on.
I thought that battery calibration was used to just set the capacity for the battery but having calibrated I am now getting as low as 40 ma when switching on the screen with data. So it seems that calibration also affects actual battery output. This is coming from someone who admittedly doesn't know a ton about this ..only what I've learned from the forums..but if you are having a problem with battery life. Try a calibration...it worked for me.


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

"jeffykins said:


> Ok so here is my two cents on the issue. I have been swapping kernels trying to get better battery life on cm7 now 1.4. Nothing seemed to work. I would have my phone shut down in my pocket. Or rather screen off and it would discharge at about. 5 percent per min. So much so that it would actually heat up the phone. This was while connected to data...not wifi..wifi was always good. My readout would show 500 ma when I switched the screen on.
> I thought that battery calibration was used to just set the capacity for the battery but having calibrated I am now getting as low as 40 ma when switching on the screen with data. So it seems that calibration also affects actual battery output. This is coming from someone who admittedly doesn't know a ton about this ..only what I've learned from the forums..but if you are having a problem with battery life. Try a calibration...it worked for me.


I installed 1.4 and did a bump charge calibration. I'm now 18 hours in and have 52% left.


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## brizey (Jul 18, 2011)

I don't think calibration affects draw--I think it affects how draw is calculated based on the rate battery voltage is dropping. I think this all may be a case of the calculated battery drain not properly reflecting the actual battery drain. So your phone "thinks" there is 50% left and there is actually 80%.


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

brizey said:


> I don't think calibration affects draw--I think it affects how draw is calculated based on the rate battery voltage is dropping. I think this all may be a case of the calculated battery drain not properly reflecting the actual battery drain. So your phone "thinks" there is 50% left and there is actually 80%.


I believe this is the case as well. It could be that if you don't do a calibration, the OS will learn the actual capacity and get better over time. The calibration accelerates the "learning" process.


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## jeffykins (Jul 26, 2011)

Ok that makes sense. Thanks for the input. I always like to understand these marvelous machines better


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## jeffykins (Jul 26, 2011)

Actually another question. Would it do any good to do subsequent calibrations or is the best thing to do a calibration once and let the os figure it out after that.


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

jeffykins said:


> Actually another question. Would it do any good to do subsequent calibrations or is the best thing to do a calibration once and let the os figure it out after that.


I don't think multiple calibrations would do any good because each calibration is erasing all of the stats. I suggest a bump-charge into a calibration.

In case you aren't familiar with a bump charge:
-with phone on, charge to 100
-unplug and turn off phone (give it a minute to make sure phone is off)
-plug in phone and charge until light turns green (you may notice it will be amber for quite a while - maybe 20 minutes or so for me)
-unplug phone and turn on
-once on, charge to 100
-once @ 100, use an app like "BatteryCalibration" to "calibrate" (the app just erases the battery stats file).


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## jeffykins (Jul 26, 2011)

Nice. Never heard of a bump Harte before. Ill give it a try. Thanks.?


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## jeffykins (Jul 26, 2011)

No question mark


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## Mustang302LX (Jun 28, 2011)

On 1.4 with Tiamat 1.0.4 I just hit 41% after 1 day 05 minutes. Granted I'd say 9 hours the phone was in Airplane Mode due to being in the hospital with my daughter but still not too bad.


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## SomeGuyDude (Jul 3, 2011)

WiFi on constantly, streaming Google Music, Tiamat 1.0.4 -75 voltage, I can get about two days of moderate use.


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## johndoe86x (Jul 25, 2011)

Hey thanks, Skinien! I'm going to have to do that 

Does it make any difference to do a calibration using an app or booting into CWM? I feel like an app could be better as the battery may or may not lose charge when booting into CWM...


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

"johndoe86x said:


> Hey thanks, Skinien! I'm going to have to do that
> 
> Does it make any difference to do a calibration using an app or booting into CWM? I feel like an app could be better as the battery may or may not lose charge when booting into CWM...


I agree - when you use the app, you don't have the drain of a reboot.


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## Mustang302LX (Jun 28, 2011)

Bad battery life what (j/k I barely used it)? lol 9ish hours of airplane mode dropped barely anything for battery. The rest of the time was a lot of wifi and not a lot of useage but still lasts long for a lot of idle. A lot of people have been having idle/sleep issues and apparently I'm not.


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## jeffykins (Jul 26, 2011)

I did a drop charge. I am pushing 12 hours at over 50 percent. That's with some disconnected navigation and some Netflix on wifi. Thank you thank you thank you.


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## evilmunkeh (Jul 22, 2011)

battery life: ~26 hours
juice remaining: ~1%
kernel: Tiamat 1.0.4
clock min/max: 192/1036
undervolted: NO
governer: smartass
wifi sleep policy: never (but I turn off wifi when I'm not around a hotspot)
4g area: YES
4g on: YES


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

"evilmunkeh said:


> battery life: ~26 hours
> juice remaining: ~1%
> kernel: Tiamat 1.0.4
> clock min/max: 192/1036
> ...


How much of this was on wifi?


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

I'm definitely getting much better battery life with RC 1.4. The only issue I have is that it seems that playing music rapidly drains the battery. I used to be able to go 30 minutes and drain about 3%. Now it's about 10% - 15% over a 30 minute period.


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## jeffykins (Jul 26, 2011)

Are any of you using custom brightness levels for the automatic brightness control? If so how?


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## evilmunkeh (Jul 22, 2011)

"skinien said:


> How much of this was on wifi?


I'd say about 90% of the entire time.

Sent from my OMFGB Thunderbolt using RootzWiki Forums


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## Pope of Eruke (Jun 12, 2011)

jeffykins said:


> Are any of you using custom brightness levels for the automatic brightness control? If so how?


Check out this guide by Jaxidian http://www.rootzwiki.com/entry.php?b=39 I take NO credit for this.


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## jeffykins (Jul 26, 2011)

"Pope of Eruke said:


> Check out this guide by Jaxidian http://www.rootzwiki.com/entry.php?b=39 I take NO credit for this.


That's just what I was looking for. Thanks for posting it!


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## Aaron (Jun 15, 2011)

Down to 95% , yes battery was calibrated. Drain continues at this rate, usually down 50% if left on all night on 4G only, all refresh times set for 4 hours. Any ideas?

Sent from Android


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## greggonzo1 (Jul 25, 2011)

Trying to use this auto setting.. Do I need to go to settings>display>brightness> check auto brightness?


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## greggonzo1 (Jul 25, 2011)

Trying to use this auto setting.. Do I need to go to settings>display>brightness> check auto brightness? I also noticed that my Sensor(filtered / raw) is only reading 160/160 when the picture shows 320/320. What is this and why is mine lower?
Thanks


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## jdgarcia12 (Aug 8, 2011)

"skinien said:


> I agree - when you use the app, you don't have the drain of a reboot.


U can use root explorer to delete batt stats also.


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## greggonzo1 (Jul 25, 2011)

Inconsistent battery life here as well. Basically did the exact same things. One day 23 hours the next barely 8...


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

Aaron said:



> Down to 95% , yes battery was calibrated. Drain continues at this rate, usually down 50% if left on all night on 4G only, all refresh times set for 4 hours. Any ideas?
> 
> Sent from Android


Are you sure you pulled it from the charger when it was at 100%? The phone may READ 100% when it's on the charger but it can be anywhere from 95 - 100.

The phone charges to 100% and then drains to a certain value (I think it's 95). When it hits this value, it starts charging again. This cycle repeats and the phone will continuously say it's at 100%. If it's really at some value below 100, it will indicate the true value a minute or so after it's unplugged.


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## Aaron (Jun 15, 2011)

skinien said:


> Are you sure you pulled it from the charger when it was at 100%? The phone may READ 100% when it's on the charger but it can be anywhere from 95 - 100.
> 
> The phone charges to 100% and then drains to a certain value (I think it's 95). When it hits this value, it starts charging again. This cycle repeats and the phone will continuously say it's at 100%. If it's really at some value below 100, it will indicate the true value a minute or so after it's unplugged.


Yes, it was after a full charge, but regardless, the drain rate continues at the same rate (this was on 4G only), stock kernel, no change in speeds or voltage. I don't see to much improvement in any kernel, when on Wifi or 3G battery drain is to a lesser extent, but I don't get the battery life 90% of you guys do ;P.


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## skinien (Jun 30, 2011)

"Aaron said:


> Yes, it was after a full charge, but regardless, the drain rate continues at the same rate (this was on 4G only), stock kernel, no change in speeds or voltage. I don't see to much improvement in any kernel, when on Wifi or 3G battery drain is to a lesser extent, but I don't get the battery life 90% of you guys do ;P.


Have you tried a bump charge?


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## turbonegro32 (Aug 9, 2011)

ive been running cm7 rc1.5.2 for a few days now. and have noticed that my battery life has cut in half.
i was running ota rooted rom, mr2 radio and i was getting 14-16 hrs on it with medium usage. (on stock battery)
now i have cm7rc1.5.2 wit mr2 radio and the kernel that comes with cm7 and have been getting barely 10-13 hrs with light light usage.
i did the bump charge and battery calibration but hasnt helped out any.
ive been looking at some posts and seen people getting 16+hrs on this rom...
any suggestions or help would be much appreciated!


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## turbonegro32 (Aug 9, 2011)

updated info on my post ^^^^


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