Different ROMs power consumption

[ochakov]

I am using my Hermes as my primary phone, making about 10 phone calls per day, 20 minutes of browsing and PUSH MAIL for one account. I am connected to 3G network with HSDPA support. I am using stock 1300 mAh battery.

I was using Dvha v17 for long time and finishing my day with 40% battery and always thought this is how it should be.
I had some stability issues (lockups) and I have decided to upgrade the ROM.

First, I installed PDACorner v21. Stability of the system was great, no lockups anymore. But, in the middle of the day (about 4pm) my battery was empty. Switching to 2G left me with about 50% of the battery in the end of the day, but I don't like 2G because of the noise it makes to all speakers I am passing by.

Then I installed CRC v13, then PDACorner v23 and still had the same battery life.

This weekend I decided to try Dvha v21 (build 20721) and suddenly my battery is 40% at the end of the day with 3G HSDPA enabled!

On all ROMs I am installing the same set of programs and using the same mail account for push. The only difference is the Dvha is a big storage ROM, while all others I chose NRBSN.
I am always using Advanced Config and enable power management for all possible devices.

I also tried to upgrade radio ROM, but then had to downgrade back to 1.48 which is the best for me. No noticeable change in battery life with different radios.

Switching to 2G will dramatically improve battery life, leaving at least 50% on the end of the day. Disabling push will leave at least 70% on the end of the day.

Can anybody else confirm this? The difference is huge! It's about finish the day or not!
I found some posts saying that with push enabled, charging during the day is normal and usual for some people. I would agree, but now I am holding a device that is able to run all day long on HSDPA and with push enabled! I installed new version Dvha to confirm this.

It could be great if someone will find out what is different in Dvha ROM that improves battery life with push mail so drastically. Other ROMs are still more stable. With the new Dvha version I still have lockups and have to soft-reset at least once a day. I can't afford it with my primary phone. I need 100% stability during the day and I must admit that both PDACorner and CRC NRBSN ROMs are very much stable (thank you, chefs).

P.S. My next experiment will be installing the first non big storage Dvha ROM, which is Dvha v22, build 20748. I want to know if it's related to the big storage.

[rocksolid]

I have tested all the ROMS put on successively here. My usage is similar to yours. However, I find Faria Puttingham ROM and MRH 8.4 as best stable roms. CRC gives problems and PDAVIET is just trash for my HERMIS. Rebooting several times means losing data and does not make sense.

Coming to PDA CormerPRO they are as good as MRH. since MRH has stopped development, PDAcoerner is the ROM to stick or just go back to Faria for long battery life. I use HERMIS 300 that is Tmobile MDA vario II. So there may be subtle differences in functioning.

I never got problems with 2G dialer either on my Tmobile MDA. I do not know 3G as this service is not available in my area.

what is the best dialer by the way? that has history and speed dial bottons? thanks
rocksolid

[zocster]

Hmm

Have a jasjam here, constantly on 3g, with active sync to 2k7, about 10-20 3 minute calls, running on 1.56.70.11 radio, not that much browsing as I only reply to emails, 20 SMS a day, etc.

My battery last a day, at night time I have to plug my phone in charger and ready for the next day.

I run SPB phone suite and mobile shell, with Yahoo! Go, palringo for IM, and yeah with a windows mobile device, and running it as heavy as I am making calls, push email and listening to music while driving home really .. no biggie. It is kinda expected, I may try and find if there is any extended batteries for the hermes I can use.

PS, my day starts at 5 a.m. finishes at 9 p.m. :)

[ochakov]

Have a jasjam here, constantly on 3g, with active sync to 2k7, about 10-20 3 minute calls, running on 1.56.70.11 radio, not that much browsing as I only reply to emails, 20 SMS a day, etc.

My battery last a day, at night time I have to plug my phone in charger and ready for the next day.

I run SPB phone suite and mobile shell, with Yahoo! Go, palringo for IM, and yeah with a windows mobile device, and running it as heavy as I am making calls, push email and listening to music while driving home really .. no biggie. It is kinda expected, I may try and find if there is any extended batteries for the hermes I can use.


What is your ROM? Do you have stock battery?

[zocster]

What is your ROM? Do you have stock battery?

My only ROMs so far that I like are CRC and PDA corner on my signature both had the same results

[abusalza]

as i known on technical hardware, if we have device an old for 2 years and never change stock battery. we have lost half past more during a day. cause it's not just software related, but hardware also:)

[veyka]

The main power draws are the old 3G chispset and the backlight on the screen.

Theres only so much you can do with software, this being, as said, a 2year old phone.

[ochakov]

1. This is not hardware related question, since I am using the same device for testing. It's one day with one ROM empty the battery before 4pm, the other day with DVHA it will finish the day with 40% left.

2. I am now on DVHA v22 - non-BS version. This is the first DVHA non-BS ROM. It's 6pm now and I have 40% left. This is still better than other ROMs, but worse than DVHA v21 which was BS (I am not sure this is related).

3. I am going to try PDACorner v24 big storage. This will be the first time I install BS version for ROM having also non-BS one (I hate big storage). I will try it on the first day it will be out of beta.

4. My device is JasJam, which is Herm100. Is there any differences in 3G module between different modifications? If so, it can explain a lot...

[veyka]

1. This is not hardware related question, since I am using the same device for testing. It's one day with one ROM empty the battery before 4pm, the other day with DVHA it will finish the day with 40% left.

2. I am now on DVHA v22 - non-BS version. This is the first DVHA non-BS ROM. It's 6pm now and I have 40% left. This is still better than other ROMs, but worse than DVHA v21 which was BS (I am not sure this is related).

3. I am going to try PDACorner v24 big storage. This will be the first time I install BS version for ROM having also non-BS one (I hate big storage). I will try it on the first day it will be out of beta.

4. My device is JasJam, which is Herm100. Is there any differences in 3G module between different modifications? If so, it can explain a lot...

For the most part BS roms use slightly more power, and compressed roms even more so.

No, the different Hermes models are just different front facing camera's

[zocster]

For the most part BS roms use slightly more power, and compressed roms even more so.

No, the different Hermes models are just different front facing camera's

yes I will have to agree with the BS stuff, as with non BS of pda corner and was on CRC's 11.2 I didn't experience any fast draining of what a BS of PCpro or any other roms for that matter.

[tko1]

i usually just view i dont post ...but i had to add in on this i only picked pvdvh full v18 because it had the lowest idle %, and i regret every second of making this decision. ever since this rom has hijacked my phone, i have tried about 12 roms since ive gotten this phone, and none of them have underperformed like v18 it had a "phone off" bug, where it wont let me turn the phone function on..i have to reset constantly, i have constant freezes, i can no longer use my usb connection to pc for some reason, and i seem to lose battery power at a rate of 1% every 2-3 minutes or so if the screen is lit. on the lowest setting :eek: . i believe my only option now since i cant pc connect, i have to get a card reader and load an sd autorun just to get this off of my dopod. i hope it hasnt done any perm damage :mad:

[veyka]

i usually just view i dont post ...but i had to add in on this i only picked pvdvh full v18 because it had the lowest idle %, and i regret every second of making this decision. ever since this rom has hijacked my phone, i have tried about 12 roms since ive gotten this phone, and none of them have underperformed like v18 it had a "phone off" bug, where it wont let me turn the phone function on..i have to reset constantly, i have constant freezes, i can no longer use my usb connection to pc for some reason, and i seem to lose battery power at a rate of 1% every 2-3 minutes or so if the screen is lit. on the lowest setting :eek: . i believe my only option now since i cant pc connect, i have to get a card reader and load an sd autorun just to get this off of my dopod. i hope it hasnt done any perm damage :mad:

As with all roms, your mileage may differ, if that roms not so good for you, flash another.

[tko1]

As with all roms, your mileage may differ, if that roms not so good for you, flash another.

good idea, thanks

[sanfrenchysco]

If you run testing on different ROMs with a standard usage pattern (voice calls, SMS, Push...) using the same Radio set to 2G the difference will be the OS itself.

The part of the OS that makes a difference for battery drain is the way the storage is accessed, either directly (ROM/SDFlash) or from live RAM.

When the ROM is accessed it has to get powered and since it is slow the CPU has to be clocked longer not to mention that if data are compressed (RBSC)the CPU has to decompress the content before it's of any use. This may not be a huge difference but when you repeat this cycle half a million times it ads up to a lot more power drain - Same thing goes for the SD-Flash except these are rarely compressed.

The time-proven workaround is to set aside a region of fast RAM to shadow content from the power hungry non-volatile storage.;)

The bottom line of power drain is a trade off between Free-RAM size vs. DSK caching. The best of both world solution may be to run a cache resized automagically (HLM\System\StorageManager\FATFS\DataCache=0 and FATCache=0). The OS caches all it needs in RAM and automatically writes dirty pages to storage in the background or when more RAM is needed to run your programs.

Actually the above automatic cache schema is not the best solution for our phones. To further increase your battery life you need to hardset your cache size so WM does not have to keep resizing all its different caches non stop!

The big plus with hardset cache size is the RAM free space won't become as fragmented so WM will be less unstable.:D

Interesting Cache size settings are one of 512, 1024, 2048, 4096 in number of sectors... the RAM usage is only half that (2048 sectors fit in 1MB of RAM). Logically you want to keep a smaller FAT cache ratio for the Data it's pointing to. If it's too small you will get cache missed and data will get fetched from storage.:cool:

Now you can set your own preferences based on your needs and be your own chef: more free RAM for large programs Apps. or longer battery span.

Is that empowering to tweak your favorite ROM? :)

[ochakov]

After about a week with DVHA v22, I switched to PDACorner v25
It's 2:40pm now and my battery is empty.
Same device, same battery, same programs, same emails...

Everything is the same - the ROM is different. It was 40% battery left at the end of the day with DVHA, now it's empty in the middle of the day.

Any thoughts?

[anryl]

If you run testing on different ROMs with a standard usage pattern (voice calls, SMS, Push...) using the same Radio set to 2G the difference will be the OS itself.

The part of the OS that makes a difference for battery drain is the way the storage is accessed, either directly (ROM/SDFlash) or from live RAM.

When the ROM is accessed it has to get powered and since it is slow the CPU has to be clocked longer not to mention that if data are compressed (RBSC)the CPU has to decompress the content before it's of any use. This may not be a huge difference but when you repeat this cycle half a million times it ads up to a lot more power drain - Same thing goes for the SD-Flash except these are rarely compressed.

The time-proven workaround is to set aside a region of fast RAM to shadow content from the power hungry non-volatile storage.;)

The bottom line of power drain is a trade off between Free-RAM size vs. DSK caching. The best of both world solution may be to run a cache resized automagically (HLM\System\StorageManager\FATFS\DataCache=0 and FATCache=0). The OS caches all it needs in RAM and automatically writes dirty pages to storage in the background or when more RAM is needed to run your programs.

Actually the above automatic cache schema is not the best solution for our phones. To further increase your battery life you need to hardset your cache size so WM does not have to keep resizing all its different caches non stop!

The big plus with hardset cache size is the RAM free space won't become as fragmented so WM will be less unstable.

Interesting Cache size settings are one of 512, 1024, 2048, 4096 in number of sectors... the RAM usage is only half that (2048 sectors fit in 1MB of RAM). Logically you want to keep a smaller FAT cache ratio for the Data it's pointing to. If it's too small you will get cache missed and data will get fetched from storage.:cool:

Now you can set your own preferences based on your needs and be your own chef: more free RAM for large programs Apps. or longer battery span.

Is that empowering to tweak your favorite ROM? :)

Arent you too smart not to cook ? :D

[sanfrenchysco]

After about a week with DVHA v22, I switched to PDACorner v25
It's 2:40pm now and my battery is empty.
Same device, same battery, same programs, same emails...

Everything is the same - the ROM is different. It was 40% battery left at the end of the day with DVHA, now it's empty in the middle of the day.

Any thoughts?

Yep, I hear you mate! That's why I said:"If you run testing on different ROMs with a standard usage pattern (voice calls, SMS, Push...) using the same Radio set to 2G the difference will be the ROM OS image itself.

The part of the OS that makes the most difference for battery drain is the way the storage is accessed: either directly (ROM/SDFlash) or from live RAM."

Luckily I have some solutions ... but this will require manual reg. surgery on a per ROM basis until it gets integrated directly in the ROM builds (combination of PwrMgt fixes and ROM access avoidance for the most part).

Last weekend I spent half day poking around the UI while at the same time playing MP3 non-stop. After 6 hours I still had around 60% bat. I think I have the Reg tweaks for "long-life battery"

[galaxys]

Last weekend I spent half day poking around the UI while at the same time playing MP3 non-stop. After 6 hours I still had around 60% bat. I think I have the Reg tweaks for "long-life battery"

Glad to have U on the Hermes forum! This sounds very interesting and Looking forward to your WM OS tweaks knowledge...

[sanfrenchysco]

Arent you too smart not to cook ? :D

You have a real good point :p but I don't know how to make my own sandwich...

If I am pleased with what is in the ROM, why try to cook my own when I don't know exactly how it's done?

Instead I fix the installed base ROM with my own performance tweaks. At this point I believe this is the most productive way for the user community instead of having one more cook competing for the best ROM combination of Apps.
I shall post my Long-life battery tweaks which by the way yields performance improvements through less ROM access.

On another note, the SDCard issues people are having may be caused by the SD internal wear-leveling logic relocating blocks thus scrambling cached FAT...

I will post on all the above once I can contribute sure fixes.
SF/.

[veyka]

You have a real good point :p but I don't know how to make my own sandwich...

If I am pleased with what is in the ROM, why try to cook my own when I don't know exactly how it's done?

Instead I fix the installed base ROM with my own performance tweaks. At this point I believe this is the most productive way for the user community instead of having one more cook competing for the best ROM combination of Apps.
I shall post my Long-life battery tweaks which by the way yields performance improvements through less ROM access.

On another note, the SDCard issues people are having may be caused by the SD internal wear-leveling logic relocating blocks thus scrambling cached FAT...

I will post on all the above once I can contribute sure fixes.
SF/.

Would you mind posting up what you have for us to have a play around with? :)

[sanfrenchysco]

Glad to have U on the Hermes forum! This sounds very interesting and Looking forward to your WM OS tweaks knowledge...

Did you go to DEFCON'08 in Vegas? I was there with interest for EeePC meetings but found not much on that topic :rolleyes:

[galaxys]

Did you go to DEFCON'08 in Vegas? I was there with interest for EeePC meetings but found not much on that topic :rolleyes:
Didn't make it this year...but went a few years back as a Systems Security Consultant 2 C what I could learn from the hackers ;)

[ochakov]

Luckily I have some solutions ... but this will require manual reg. surgery on a per ROM basis until it gets integrated directly in the ROM builds (combination of PwrMgt fixes and ROM access avoidance for the most part).

Last weekend I spent half day poking around the UI while at the same time playing MP3 non-stop. After 6 hours I still had around 60% bat. I think I have the Reg tweaks for "long-life battery"

These days I am playing with cache size registry settings. Do you have the list of keys you are using for your tweaking?
I am already getting better results setting FAT cache to 8192 sectors. Now I finish the day with 20% battery left. Please post some other keys to play with. Thank you, mate!