Battery Drain on Non-Acer ROMs - Brainstorming

[Guest mmick]

Guys, I´m tempted to install Froyo/Android 2.2 CM/MIUI based ROMs for weeks but until now those ROMs (Xian, koudelka, LCR, Roggin´s) despite blazing fast performance even at stock SoC speeds, they consume a lot of battery and heat more than Acer ROMs. On ROMs like these with much less garbage/resident processes running I cannot understand how they use more battery.

As I´m a guy that wants that a phone with (my) medium lasts at least a day (every single smartphone I had lasted at least 2-3 days, a Samsung i8910 included) I´m worried with this and with battery life span. I don´t like to carry cables/chargers and I hate to think I cannot do this/that because battery won´t last up to the end of the day.

As such and as a "Brainstorming" for all developers/cookers/prodigy childs I created this topic to help identify the source of the battery problem. What do you think it´s the problem?

[Guest Delnar_Ersike]

The main problem AFAIK in most custom kernels is the fact that WiFi sleep consumes a lot more battery than it should. I don't know if Fast Dormancy works on any custom ROMs, but I know people had problems with it as well, and that could also be a drain on the battery.

[Guest malez]

The main problem AFAIK in most custom kernels is the fact that WiFi sleep consumes a lot more battery than it should. I don't know if Fast Dormancy works on any custom ROMs, but I know people had problems with it as well, and that could also be a drain on the battery.

Fast dormancy is present in LCR. It helps to consume less battery when phone is in idle mode by better managing hardware power management. Any custom rom with custom kernel can't have this enbabled (we don't have the sources). What consumes the most is wifi/gps but google synchronisation (nearly always enabled) consumes a lot. (specially picasa sync). 3g does not consume a lot more than 2G but if your phone can't stop switching beetween 2g/3g, it is better to fix it. On LCR-F 1.1 we managed to have 2%/h during the night. Personnaly when i was on road with gps on (radar detector, so data too) and playing mp3, i have managed to keep it on during the whole 5h trip (what surprized me).

In resume it is really hard to know what is the reason of battery consumption. It is hardly linked to the apps running on your phone (too many services, too many widgets). Each one has its own habits and the same rom won't work the same way for different users.

[Guest mmick]

What consumes the most is wifi/gps but google synchronisation (nearly always enabled) consumes a lot. (specially picasa sync). 3g does not consume a lot more than 2G but if your phone can't stop switching beetween 2g/3g, it is better to fix it. On LCR-F 1.1 we managed to have 2%/h during the night. [...]Each one has its own habits and the same rom won't work the same way for different users.

I´m very sistematic with my phone doing more or less the same things, more or less the same time, more or less on the same places 5 days/week so I can make a raw comparison between ROMs and almost all ROMs I tried, Acer´s Froyo are the less problematic (everything works, I rarely have a reboot) and consume less battery and don´t get hot.

Strangely when I put other cooked ROMs despite rebooting faster/less lags/more free RAM-ROM the phone gets hot (on Acer Leaks I never feel it hot) and battery goes down a lot faster, not to mention most times other ROMs have hardware issues, be it with sensors, wifi or camera or, incompatibility issues with certain features. What do I conclude with all this?

1) CM/MIUI ROMs are not energy optimized or fail to use some sleep routines

2) certain speed optimizations (like caches on the SD which may not allow the SD to sleep; more frequent loads to cache; etc) won´t allow deeper sleep and kill the battery

3) for a fail safe operation the Acer ROM or very little cooked ROMs based on Acer´s are the best option

Honestly I would love to see a new CM/MIUI ROM that would fully work + FM support but would at least consume the same as Acer Froyo Leaks...

[Guest Morris Lee]

So i managed to get 1% per 4 hours on LCRF, no wifi, idle the entire time. Make sure maps and browser is killed in the background as it helps abit. Facebook app somehow always comes back, kill that if you dont need fb notifications as it uses data connections. Ebuddy kill your battery no question asked.

My gps is enabled by default, i dont get how your guy's gps is eating up your battery. Maybe map app is on in the background?