[Q] Cell standby/ mobile standby battery use?

[iamnik]

Well, I searched the forums and haven't found anything specifically for the Defy.

Coming from an HTC Wildfire, which under similar usage had a battery drain split of 30% Cell standby, 30% wifi, 30% system, I noticed that with the exact same usage, the Defy has a cell standby use of over 50% every single day (right now its at 54%). Funny thing is, it ALWAYS says on the battery manager that there is no reception for exactly 50% of the time. This is bull, because I live in central London, and I rarely get less than maximum signal displayed.

Also, I'm on WiFi almost all the time, (WiFi at home and at uni, so the only time it uses 3g/HSPA is on the way there and back, which is less than half an hour).


Has anyone else had this? Any idea what may cause it? I feel like I should be getting better battery life than what I'm getting now, it lasts under a day.

 

[Tinderbox (UK)]

Setting your mobile to 2G only should save you a little power, also be careful with task killers as they can kill some system processes that reduce battery usage, restart you cell to get them back.

I can get 3-4days of battery life with lite use.

 

[iamnik]

Setting your mobile to 2G only should save you a little power, also be careful with task killers as they can kill some system processes that reduce battery usage, restart you cell to get them back.

I can get 3-4days of battery life with lite use.

Thanks for the reply.

I'm not using any task killers, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Any tips on how to switch it to 2G? I can't figure out anything in the network settings.

I'm just thinking that there may be something wrong with my radio receiver/transmitter to be using so much power in comparison to wifi and phone idle (well, compared to my last phone).

 

[peetr_]

You can switch to 2G in wireless & network settings, mobile networks, select network.

But I am already using 2G and I have the same issue, maybe it is a little better than 3G, but still the "cell standby" is using most of the battery.

I saw the battery usage on Galaxy and there is only a very small usage for "cell standby" only about 10%.

 

[yaotree]

i dont know what's going on with your cell,but WIFI is actually the biggest battery taker
,and the strength of signal power really do something to your WIFI chipset battery usage
what about a better WIFI signal....err i tried to change my cell into 2G or even outline
it doesn't work too much as i want
so maybe think about the WIFI problem?

 

[iamnik]

Well, right now the main drainers are as follows:
Mobile standby: 44%
Go Launcher EX: 25%
Wi-Fi: 15%
Display: 15%
Phone idle: 2%

I was in my place all day today, with the phone permanently connected to Wi-Fi, so 3G was not in use. I get very strong cell reception in my place so I either have a spectacularly efficient WiFi module, or a power hungry cell radio. Or the measurements the phone is taking are wrong.

On another note, Go Launcher seems to be taking up a large percentage since its last update (yesterday or the day before), so I'm uninstalling that.

 

[yaotree]

if WIFI should not be the reason and you've uninstalled the update task,i think it should be OK...but what would you do if that doesn't work?
the battery usage of standby was still more than 40 percent,yes?
why dont you download another battery monitor software....?
i'd have a longtime software error in my HTC G3.....it alwaws show me 45percent remaining battery ....

 

[stapuv]

in setting/wireless & network/mobile networks/select network --- it's good to set 2G or 3G do not let automatic because it switches from 3G to 2G if the signal drops. Set 3g and see how it is.
(sorry for english)

mine on automatic in 6 hours battery dropped to 50% in standby, and now it is set to 3g all the time

mine:
Mobile standby: 40%
Display: 22%
Phone idle: 21%
System: 4%
Games, Adw Launcher EX and os: each 3-2%

when in games mine sometimes freezes and i must get out and restart the game???? i dont no why and i dont no if it is ok but ....

 

[iamnik]

Thanks for the input everybody. So all of today I used the phone pretty sparingly at home, and it's been constantly connected to WiFi. Distribution is:
Mobile Standby: 56%
Wi-Fi: 19%
Display: 12%
Phone idle: 9%
Android System 2%

Under Mobile Standby, it still says "Time without a signal: 50%" even though it's definitely had perfect reception all day. I don't know what's causing it to report incorrect numbers :/

Anyway, I switched from auto to 3g auto (I tried 2G, it didn't seem to work properly, Google wouldn't even load).

I guess I'll just ignore it :/

Edit: When not on wifi, it seems to switch between 3g and HSPA quite often. Could this mean something?

 

[yaotree]

Edit: When not on wifi, it seems to switch between 3g and HSPA quite often. Could this mean something?

just like what <stapuv>says when your cell drops any one of the 3G or HSPA singnal another singnal will be switched...it'll use more power for changing network frequently.....but i dont no if this could be the reason for your situation...hmmmm

 

[Jt612]

From my reading the 50% without signal is just a software bug, and can be fixed by toggling on aeroplane mode turning of teh screen for 20 seconds or so and then turning of aeroplane mod when you notice it's happening. the 50% will soon decrease. I too believe that cell standby is using way to much on my phone (always 45%+) even though im browesing the web facebook or playing games for larger peroids of time and those apps don't even show up on the battery usage display and if they do theya re only 2 percent or less.

 

[Darmach]

I have a question for you guys :
I get
46% mobile standby
43% phone idle
10% voice calls
3% display

is this 43% phone idle all right? Doea it mean that 43% of the battery have beed drained by phone in idle state (so maybe not sleeping?) or it means that from all the time phone was idle (asleep) for 43%?

 

[iamnik]

I guess mobile standby use is about the same on everyones phones. That's what I wanted to find out!

 

[willbeh]

Well, right now the main drainers are as follows:
Mobile standby: 44%
Go Launcher EX: 25%
Wi-Fi: 15%
Display: 15%
Phone idle: 2%

On another note, Go Launcher seems to be taking up a large percentage since its last update (yesterday or the day before), so I'm uninstalling that.

After Go Launcher EX latest update, the battery seems to drain a lot faster during idle/standby. Removed that and standby battery usage is better.

 

[sp8y]

Just thought I'd add my finding on this.

My Defy regularly showed Mobile Standard over 50% - but also time without signal was always double the time that the phone had been switched on. For instance if the phone was switched on since a reboot for 1 hour then mobile standby would show the total time as 2 hours but time without a signal as 1 hour.

I had always been running on a battery saver profile (in froyo I was running the custom battery profile) & after every reboot the mobile standby bug would show.

Yesterday I changed my battery profile to the Performance mode & after several reboots the bug hasn't shown up & now the mobile standby shows the total time correctly & zero minutes without signal. The %age use has dropped to be more in line with wifi at around 32%.

I haven't noticed any difference in battery life so as mentioned in a previous post it does look like some sort of bug.

 

[Step666]

A percentage is a proportion.
Just because it's higher on the Defy, that doesn't mean the mobile standby is using more power than it does on other handsets, it could just mean everything else is using less.

There's no point comparing your Defy's battery usage to any other handset apart from another Defy.

 

[sp8y]

Just thought I'd add my finding on this.

My Defy regularly showed Mobile Standard over 50% - but also time without signal was always double the time that the phone had been switched on. For instance if the phone was switched on since a reboot for 1 hour then mobile standby would show the total time as 2 hours but time without a signal as 1 hour.

I had always been running on a battery saver profile (in froyo I was running the custom battery profile) & after every reboot the mobile standby bug would show.

Yesterday I changed my battery profile to the Performance mode & after several reboots the bug hasn't shown up & now the mobile standby shows the total time correctly & zero minutes without signal. The %age use has dropped to be more in line with wifi at around 32%.

I haven't noticed any difference in battery life so as mentioned in a previous post it does look like some sort of bug.

OK so after a few days of having no issue I rebooted the phone & the "bug" came back today so I guess it wasn't to do with the battery mode as I then put it back into custom battery mode, rebooted the bug went away.

Haven't noticed any difference over the last few days so I'm not going to worry about it.

 

[yonef]

I have found that DEFY is getting the readings wrong!
Here is how I get this:
1) fully charged the battery
2) started angry birds.
3) ~2 hour later, battery dropped to 60% and usages was as follows:
mobile standby 49%
phone idle 40%
display 4%
angry birds 7%

WTF ?!?! it should be : angry birds ~ 80%
This mettery is tottaly useless!

 

[ABC_Universal]

Personally I couldn't care less what the battery usage breakdown says. In my case 1% battery can standby 1~2 hours or use 3~5 minutes. That's pretty good for me as a charge can last 2 days.

 

[bokeron2020]

Hi.

Could someone with this "bug" or "battery problems" do a test for me ?

A few hours after you've last charged your phone (or connected to USB) and being sure you haven't rebooted your phone recently (24 hours or so), do the following:

(My phone uses spanish language so the names might be different ...)


Dial *#*#4636#*#*, and choose battery history.

There, choose "CPU Use" and "since last charged".

What are the 4 or 5 main processes appearing in that list, and what's the CPU time they've used (you'll find that by "clicking" on the process' name) ?