System power saving actually useful? - Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi guys!
I've noticed recently a new power save get option in the power saving menu in settings called 'system power saving'.
I've never seen much point in using the specific power saving mode that you can set to kick in at x% because it doesn't seem to do anything I can't and don't do manually myself.
Does anyone know anything about this new setting? Turning it on i've noticed screen transitions are a little less smooth, but does this actually do anything useful?
Any ideas?
Many thanks!
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

I would be interested in finding out what this does as well.
I noticed that frame rates seemed lower in games, and the responsiveness is a little slower (not considerably, though).
Is there a list of what it actually does?

I've notice that my phone uses less battery in this mode that without it.

MrThomsen said:
I've notice that my phone uses less battery in this mode that without it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I would hope so...
I do know that it does NOT disable background data (I still receive push emails with both Exchange and Gmail)
Camera and Auto-flash are still enabled.
Everything that typically gets turned off in order to save battery is still on as far as I can tell...
We know it saves battery... but how?
If we find out how, then our developers could probably leverage that information when making new ROMs.
I would just like to know if anything is being disabled that I don't want disabled... but I don't know what I don't know

It lowers the CPU clock frequency, in my SGSII, scrolling desktops is not smooth at all with this option ON I've never been patient enough to test this option for a long time

when i activate powersaving it doesnt seem to make a difference

elmo180 said:
It lowers the CPU clock frequency, in my SGSII, scrolling desktops is not smooth at all with this option ON I've never been patient enough to test this option for a long time
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Click to collapse
Seriously?
I have mine overclocked to 1.6 GHz and the conservative governor and I have not noticed the time-in-state data to be changing from what it was without this option set.

You were right about the clock speed.
system power save does the following:
Restricts core speed (mine was capped at 800)
Lowers brightness
Changes UI frame rate
Warning: Created with Swype

Related

Battery

What setting do you guys change that effects battery power the most?
Luke
lukesdiesel said:
What setting do you guys change that effects battery power the most?
Luke
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hands down, screen brightness. Nothing comes close to eating power like the screen.
Anyone see a big difference if u turn off vibrate when texting?
Luke
lukesdiesel said:
Anyone see a big difference if u turn off vibrate when texting?
Luke
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, but assisted dialing, tell htc, phone finder, and backup assistance drain a ton of batt, just to name a few
Sent from my TBolt using my f***king thumbs...
here is what i do:
turn down brightness (have it ALL the way down at night)
disable GPS (unless i curently need it on)
disable Auto-Sync
disable Background Data (unless i need to use Market)
disable All Animations
use Silent Mode (with all vibration turned off)
disable Phone Locator
disable LED Notifications
disable Fast Boot(if on a Sense rom)
also, i use a program called "Bloat Freezer" (it's 99 cents on Market) to freeze any extra apps that i don't need or want running.
lastly, if i find myself using a Sense ROM for whatever reason, i use "Launcher Pro" and have Bloat Freezer freeze all Sense stuff
To list, in order, the devices and functions that eat the most power inside a Tbolt:
The screen, just being on makes it number one. The radios, especially the LTE radio under heavy use and the CDMA radio at cell edges. The CPU, especially during lengthy write cycles to any NAND device such as the SDcard or eMMC. NAND memory, because it uses higher voltages than RAM to read and write, and takes more time. GPS, because it's a relatively high gain antenna that requires high quality class a signal amplification.
The display isn't anything you're ever going to get around. The radios can be managed through appropriate syncing schedules and avoid resource abuse apps that pointlessly hunt for data. The CPU is best managed with a well built kernel using a sysfs interface that allows custom voltages, choices of scaling governors, and parameter alterations to that scaling governor, as well as conservative garbage collection to keep memory resources as completely used as possible. NAND reads and writes can be kept to a minimum maximized through avoiding app killers, garbage apps such as system resource management apps, zip aligning your ROM, and running an IO scheduler at least as good as Deadline (most kernels do this by default, but some mods attempt to change this). GPS, contrary to the popular myth, is ONLY used when an app summons it's use. Some apps and widgets will abuse this feature and will seek a GPS lock a dozen times an hour or more.
ANY moving electronic part eats power, like vibration motors or speakers. Sound effects less so, but still, that's a a relatively large lump of power being used, and that also calls for the amplifier to be active and eating power.
Using my device as I please, without sacrificing features, usability or constant LTE connectivity, and implementing the theories above as best as I know how to do, I can run my phone OC'd to 1.57GHz for 12 to 14 hours consistently as a moderately heavy user, using nothing more than the stock battery which currently registers all of 1367 mAh's.

Saving battery on my Android device?

So after some research and Googling, I discovered that "Killling" your app is only worse or has no effect for your battery life. Even using apps that "save" battery only harm it even more. I've been told these were the fundamental things to save battery ever since I even got my hands on a smart phone.. Guess I've been asking the wrong people.
So, what are real ways to save battery? I'm a heavy phone user, often surfing the net or watching Netflix on the go. Dimming my screen is not enough, are there any other techniques to prevent my phone from dying? I've got an Android 4.
If you're rooted:
Underclock
Undervolt
Change cpu governor/io scheduler
Flash different ROMS and kernels
Change your modem
And a few more.
Not rooted:
Use screen filter? Lol.
Update your firmware
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA
okmijnlp said:
If you're rooted:
Underclock
Undervolt
Change cpu governor/io scheduler
Flash different ROMS and kernels
Change your modem
And a few more.
Not rooted:
Use screen filter? Lol.
Update your firmware
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am rooted, thank you for the info! I'll be looking into it~
Get bigger battery?
Turn thing off lol only kidding but turn off auto updates such as news etc
If you look at your battery stats, under settings, you'll see what uses the most battery. Usually I find that my screen uses around 70% of my battery, but if you have something else high on the list you might have a "rogue app" preventing your phone from going into sleep mode.
If your screen is the culprit you can only save 10% or so by throttling your CPU etc. The only way you can make real savings is by reducing screen brightness.
Easiest way to save battery is use gemini app manager to stop apps being able to autostart when you don't want them to as then you don't have the os having to kill off unused apps to make more free ram.
For example a lot of apps can autostart when your wifi goes on or off, when your 3G signal drops etcetera including things like facebook or google play. By changing auto start for such apps you don't have to run a task killer which also saves battery.
Dave
Sent from my LG P920 using Tapatalk
i use the aokp rom milestone 4 atm, and i also have come accross a fantastic battery app called "Badass Battery Monitor". its free and details very very specifically what apps are using the battery most.
I have managed to increase my battery by rooting out the apps i dont use that are using prescious power...
Also, turning off useless app permissions for apps theat really dont need them and work perfectly well without them will also save on power massively. for this i use "LBE Privacy Guard" works an absolute charm
I have widget where I can turn off Internet connection, set brightness, GPS etc. Internet stand-by mode uses damn much battery... And when you don't use Internet, you can put on 2G, it also saves battery.
This may not benefit you if you are a heavy user but I find the feature on my Droid 3 that turns off 3G after 15 minutes of inactivity saves battery and also saves data. Not sure if this is a standard Android feature or if it would even benefit you.
Here with LG P990 and I don't have option to turn off 3G aftre some minutes... but if/when you didn't need high speed you can choose only 2G network (for example when needed receive only notification): this save a lot your battery.
Moreover you can verify battery consumption to see if there are autostart apps from your vendor than have heavy power consumption (for me there was OnScreenPhone) and use gemini app manager as explained previously.
In the end you can find out custom ROM for your device usually optimized for smoothness and power consumption.
First apps I download when switching to a new Rom to get a little control on battery are
Adfree- Get rid of ads, they eat a bit of battery.
DroidWall- Control what apps are able to access Internet under separate "Mobile Data" and "Wifi" Conditions.
Screenfilter- Dim the screen below factory settings.
LED's hack- Turn off the Softbutton Backlights (home/menu/back/search), even though they don't seem like it may eat up your battery, it is an extra 'light' that's on, even though it may be minimal, it's still drawing power.
Also, It maybe just a Photon thing cuz of the Pentile display but I always use if not completely Black background image, a dark one because the 'lighter' or 'whiter/colorful' images take more battery, same reason I always look for 'Inverted' or black themed apps too.
Turn OFF any 'Haptic feedback' settings on your phone (Keyboard, Phone DialPad, Screen/UI Interactions, etc..)
For Calls (Ringtone) and Notification settings, don't have them set to 'Ring and Vibrate' or just 'Vibrate' because the Vibration Mechanism will eat alot if battery. Some may argue that the Notification 'Vibrate' setting and even the Haptic feedback (which does in fact use the phones Vibration mechanism) would not kill battery because it's a 'quick' or 'minimal' use (depending on use) and but if your keyboard had the Haptic feedback on, thinking of how many times your touch the keyboard for even on Text message, try will add up and help kill the battery.
Turn OFF any/all Homescreen/UI Animations
Turn OFF any Auto Sync setting and instead have APPS sync in a specified interval, (Of course Depending on how important the information that's being pulled like Email) , Could be set to like every 4 hours to sync an so on.
Manually input Date/Time settings instead of "Get network provided values" because it'll be one less thing pulling from Internet.
Set Screen Timeout to 30 Secs and Never have Auto-Brightness set, instead use a brightness toggle of some sort (Stock 'Power Control' Widget works well) to only have it as bright as you need to view in current conditions.
Open the Google 'Talk' application and uncheck the 'Auto log-in' setting, and then 'Sign out'. For some reason this always runs in the background and eats alot of battery.
If I think of more things ill post them
Hope these tips help, if they do don't forget to hit the thanks button thanks.
MoPhoACTV Initiative
There are many ways...
Switch on WiFi, 3G at only using, and close the not using application, decrease display brightness etc...
And if you root your phone, you may change CPU governor, or build.prop tweaks, script tweaks... Or change to custom kernel or custom ROM.
I forgot that 'LED's hack' is not available in the market anymore, I attached it below.
i hv just downloaded screen-filter lets c how that works...
Juice defender
Try JuiceDefender by Latedroid. It helps a lot to turn off things you don't need when you don't need them. Sorry I can't post the link- I'm new to XDA
my experience:
undervolting does not help much. you have to test a lot for only a little bit of improvement.
in my opinion you will not really remark it.
but what helps, i think, is set cpu speed, if possible. for example i use samsung galaxy s2 where cpu has max 1200mhz. i set max cpu freq to 800mhz. with a good rom (hydrogenics f.e.) android keeps running smooth with 800mhz and battery lasts noticeable longer.
I agree that undervolting doesn't help so much.
Like in up post, best thing to save Your battery is to change cpu power. You can also use diffrent cpu govenor : good for battery are smartassv2 and power save. Just need to have rooted phone and download app, fx. Antutu CPU Master or Set CPU. U can also make your cpu speed profiles.

Tips to Squeeze up to 200+ hours of Battery and 65% free RAM on Stock!

I made a lot of experiments trying to squeeze most of my LG G2 battery & RAM, and finally I reached those results by the below strategy (please note that this will be just strategy/tips, not detailed steps), and on ROOTED STOCK ROM It currently gives me:
Average Screen Off Discharging Speed 0.3-0.5%\hour (so battery needs 200 hours to discharge, or more than a week!)
Average Screen On Discharging Speed Between 10%-20%\hour (no Gaming) (so working hours about 8-7 hours)
Free RAM after full startup 65%.
(I gathered those statistics by setting Tasker to calculate them for me).
Battery Tips:
So to see almost a perfectly horizontal line of your battery discharge during your sleeping, you will need:
Rooted Stock ROM (I tried this on KitKat latest version).
Greenify.
Tasker
Your brain)) and some work.
OK to get most of the battery, do the following:
Remove all LG & Google Bloat ware; search XDA how to do that.
Disable all animations in you Settings-> Accessibility, this will save our battery and make apps faster.
Now all of the work should be done in Tasker, I assume that you already know how to work in this thing, if not search XDA there is a lot of tutorials...
Once your screen is off, do the following in Tasker:
Turn off the following : WIFI, Bluetooth, GPS, Auto Sync.
Greenify all bad behaving apps, after that use tasker to force close many of the bad behaved one (you should experiment with this).
Down Clock your CPU, for some reason my device reboots unless I set Governor to conservative or onDeman, so here we put it on conservative, with CPU clock between 300 and 652 MHz, there is no need to make it lower, because it gives no better battery life, and it makes wake up time longer.
Those steps are enough to make sure that you will lose about 0.5% per hour only! (my CPU needs about 5-10 minutes to enter deepsleep, this means that your battery drain during this time will more than 0.5%)
On screen ON, you need to immediately set back your CPU to onDemand mode, otherwise it will lag, actually I made 3 profiles for CPU, low (during screen of), medium (when screen on), and high (during gaming), so here I set the OnDemand with frequency 300-1190 MHz, and you will not notice any lag with those settings, also you need to set the maximum priority for the Tasker profile that will do this, well actually I made my own Lock Screen by Tasker screen so that tasker will stay foreground app and has best CPU priority, so swapping CPU profiles will be quite fast and you will see no Lag.
Also I set a periodic sync, when screen off each hour my phone wake ups and turning on wifi (or 3G if I’m out) and turning on AutoSync for couple minutes, and then turn all those things again to enter DeepSleep (step 1).
you need to make a good Screen brightness management in Tasker, there is tutorials on line for that.
Finally, during working, I set many specialized profiles for different apps I use a lot, for example, you don't need AutoSync when you are talking by phone, or reading a book, also when reading books, you don't need high CPU frequency, so I lowering it down, all this tweaks needs some work, but anyway you it will give you considerable battery gain, and you will see that the application that you really using a lot are not more than 10 apps.
I would like to note that I tried many ways to optimize this (except trying different ROMs) like playing with application's wake locks, but nothing worked as good as this strategy for me, if you have some more suggestions it will be great.
RAM Tips:
Many of us trying to make our phones customized and more beautiful, but after a lot of tries I found that all those things only making things worse, even for a monster like LG G2: I tried almost 99% of Launchers available on store, and all of them are very bad in scene of resource usage, for example the most beloved Go Launcher, having 200+ apps, and 3 pages of widgets, uses about 150 Mb. of RAM, this is too much, considering that android itself using about 200Mb. in worst scenarios, even the launchers that claims to be very efficient like Lightning & ssLauncher, that is not true, because once you install them, they indeed use too little at the beginning, but once you customize them and will add widgets, objects to them, they will jump up to 100Mb., well this still is better anyway than Go Launcher.
So to be short, the best one in terms of memory usage, is definitely, and without any competition, is Smart Launcher, it seems that it has a unique possibility to draw/load the widgets on demand (you can add them on special pages) and once you go back to main screen, it will free up used memory in minutes, that's really great, because this launcher on average uses only 50Mb. whatever the widgets you use!!
Also I would like to note that most Lock screens are very memory hungry, I tried lot of them, and none of them used less than 40Mb.!! so it almost like a second launcher! even the best of them like widget Locker or C-Locker! that why I made my own by Tasker itself, but note that after designing a scene in Tasker, it will use a lot of memory (70-80Mb.), and for some reason doesn’t free it unless you restart Tasker, and fortunately after that it will use not more than 20-30Mb. even when the scene is visible! so considering other things Tasker is doing, it's pretty low! so I highly recommend this.
Also any programs like recent app's viewers, side bars, screen buttons etc.. are also very memory hungry, I tried a lot and none of them really efficient, don't dream to get one with less of 50Mb. usage! so it's better, in my tests, "on screen buttons" are the best one with about 10-15 Mb. usage in case you don't like the navigation bar as me))
Well those tips allowed me to have very long battery usage, and about 50-60% free RAM, and without animations, makes my phone LG G2 fast like a Hell even with lots of apps installed, hope this was helpful.
Cheers!
Wow...
Nice Tips...could you mind to share your tasker lockscreen?? =)
If you switch off WiFi/data, you loose connectivity..isn't that the point of a phone anyways? Say somebody sent you a message on WhatsApp, you might get it only after 1 hr under your profile, the whole point of the message is lost ..guess that is too heavy a cost to pay for battery..but people are different, so somebody else might have different priorities
Sent from my LG-E980 using XDA Free mobile app
iall5tar said:
could you mind to share your tasker lockscreen
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can but it will be useless for you because I have a lot of tasks that works like functions and depends each on other... I can explain the main Idea how to make it if you would like...
vivebatu said:
you might get it only after 1 hr under your profile
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well you can decrease the time, but of course if you need stay online, that will not work for you....
TMSxXDA said:
I can but it will be useless for you because I have a lot of tasks that works like functions and depends each on other... I can explain the main Idea how to make it if you would like...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure, just import it like a project and i will check it.
or explain it =)

Bug Reports

There doesn't seem to be any bug report thread on English forum, only other languages so thought it would be a good idea to post this.
Here is some bugs I've noticed, mainly related to performance.
-When you open notifications and switch to toggles, the animation is not smooth first time.
-The transition effects except default seem laggy, especially windmill. Not like this on my other Honor phone with significantly less powerful cpu.
-When you scroll to end/top of page, such as in play store or phone settings, then tap on something right away, the tap is not registered. You must wait until 'end of scroll' animation completes. Not like this on other phones I've tried.
- In balanced power mode, opening some apps such as phone dialer or browser causes the brightness to drop. Kind of annoying. The power modes should only affect the cpu.
Storage space lost after update from b100 to b121 bug.
I updated my phone before using it and storage space dropped from around 9.8gb to 9.1gb.
Space seemed to have been taken up by apps according to the storage info, but no additional apps were installed. Must be a bug where after the update, the app optimization made the phone think previously installed apps were installed again.
A power mode should only affect the cpu? Why? Its job is to save power so doing it in other ways to just cpu throttling is perfectly logical.
Sent from my PLK-L01 using Tapatalk
mgolder said:
A power mode should only affect the cpu? Why? Its job is to save power so doing it in other ways to just cpu throttling is perfectly logical.
Sent from my PLK-L01 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's how the power mode worked before in EMU, and the brightness transition is glitchy and unsightly. It also mentions nothing about brightness changes in description, just cpu adjustments.
Most people like to set their own brightness, having it lower when you open the browser/dialer is just annoying and pointless. You can easily change brightness yourself but not how the cpu scales.

Battery saving app / cpu control app

Hi to all, currently on N910C Stock Sammy Marshmallow 6.0.1, as much as I hate it (the theme, colours, bloatwares), one thing I appreciate it comes with is that, it is for sure stable, and it comes with permission setting (like finally.)
I can deal with all these themes bloatwares easily, am rooted anyway, but one thing annoy me a lot is that the power saving options. We are no longer able to control what we can in previous version (i.e. select only screen output and limit CPU usage), now it restrict background activity as soon as I activate power saving mode. I need that to be disable as I know that my emails won't sync automatically if I had it switched on, and email is quite important for me as for now.
So, I need alternatives. I hope to get some suggestions for application that can do power saving for me, or control my cpu frequency, like underclock. I've tried a few set cpu app, they all doesnt stay at the setting I put. Meaning I put my MHz to 1200, it later went back to 1900MHz again after awhile. So i need a really good recommendation, as long as I can push my battery life to maximum.
*P.S., make sure it is user friendly, I am not familiar with coding/technical stuff myself.
Thanks in advance,
Anyone can help me with this one?
Sent from my SM-N910C using XDA-Developers mobile app

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