Is it normal for wifi to have constant data usage? - Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

When wifi is turned on and the phone is otherwise idle, there is a constant but small stream of data up and down. I have NetCounter installed which monitors wifi as well as cell data. This morning, when I turned the phone on, with the wifi counter at zero, I enabled wifi and then just let it sit on the desk for 4 hours. At the end of four hours, there was a total of 3.83 MB of wifi data usage, 3.52 MB received and 320.7 KB sent. Also having wifi on when the phone is idle eats up the battery. Starting at 100%, at the end of the 4 hours the battery was down to 64%. With wifi off, after sitting idle for 4 hours it would still be above 90%.
By the way, the phone is now rooted with sre 1.3.1c and with lag fix installed, but the wifi has behaved the same from when the phone was new, and I ran it for about a month stock. I'm just curious if this is normal operation for wifi. I have read in other threads that some leave wifi on all day without much battery usage.
When I first got the phone, I thought that it might be some application running in the background that was causing the data usage, so I installed ATK and experimented with killing everything, but the data usage was constant. (I can also see the data usage on my router because the wifi light flashes continually when the phone's wifi in turned on, and is solid unflashing when the phone's wifi is turned off, assuming the laptop is not connected.) I was unable to stop the data usage by killing off applications.
Any ideas? Thanks.

Did you agree to send anonymous usage data to Google when you configured the phone?

Interesting thought. Normally I never send anyone any data, unless I'm forced to. Would the tech at the store have set this up? Where do I look to check?
Edit: if you mean "use wireless networks" in settings | location and security, it's usually on, but it doesn't make any difference to the wifi data usage if it is turned off.

Gmail does push email, so does exchange. Are either installed? Any widgets? Facebook accounts?
There are many core apps that use data, tell us more about your config and we can help pinpoint it.

I have the google and youtube widgets, the Android power control widget, and the juice defender and juice plotter widgets. The last three were installed after I started trying to find the solution to the wifi issue.
I have Gmail installed. However, Auto-sync is always unchecked, and even though I leave bacrkground data checked most of the time, if I uncheck it, even with a reboot, the wifi data still goes on.
Installed applications: AndExplorer, Any Cut, AutoKiller Memory Optimizer, Google voice, Grocery IQ, JuiceDefender, JuicePlotter, Listen, Maps, Market, My Tracks, NetCounter, OruxMaps, Quadrant Standard, Rom Manager, SL4A, Startup Auditor Free, Titanium Backup, XDA. All the root apps were installed recently.
Installed sre 1.3.1c recently, which removed samsung and at&t bolatware.
That's all I can think of for now. What else would be helpful to know about my configuration?

I don't see it on your list of installed apps but when I installed (ad supported) MailDroid, I noticed I got 4MB of data downloaded in 4 hours while the phone was sitting idle, charging (not even on WiFi. It was on my 3G!). When I Force Stop MailDroid, the data activity dropped to near zero.
Could it be some ad supported apps that run in the background? Data leaks?

I have the stock mail application, which retrieves mail from two accounts.
Grocery iQ has coupons. I use the program for inventory, so I never even look at the coupons page. Anyway, that app does not run in the background. You can't find any process associated with it unless you start the app from it's icon.
Startup Auditor has ads in it. I tried disabling it (with Startup Auditor) but that did not make any difference in the data, even after reboot. Anyway, that program was added since I've been working on this.
I don't think any of the other apps have ads in them.
One other thing I'll mention. There have been two occasions when the data stream stopped completely while wifi was still turned on, each time for a period of about 20 to 30 minutes. I could see this from the wifi activity indicator light on my router. This happened about two weeks apart. The more recent one was yesterday afternoon right after I made the OP of this thread. In both cases, I could not correlate what caused the data to stop, nor what caused it to start up again. But at least it seems to indicate that there is something causing the data to flow, and that it can be inactive while wifi is on.

are you sure its not another device that is using the wifi and not ur captivate

labbu63 said:
are you sure its not another device that is using the wifi and not ur captivate
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Yep. There's only the laptop and the phone. The laptop is on the ethernet connection, hard wired. The laptop has an on off switch for the wifi. It's off. Also, the indicator light goes solid when I turn off wifi on the phone, and starts up again when I enable wifi again.
Tonight I decided to put DG's Cognition on the phone. After I Oden3 one-clicked to stock UCJF6, I checked the wifi, and sure enough, still getting the constant data stream. When I bought the phone, I never really became aware of the problem until after I had loaded a number of apps. But here it is in the "just out of the box" state, and it already driving my router crazy.
So now I don't know what to think. Is this normal for all Captivate phones? Is this a hardware problem on this phone? Something else? Btw, the flash to cognition went smoothly, and the phone is running well, but the data stream is still there when wifi is on.

I wouldn't get all in a frenzy just because your router is blinking. Your router blinking doesn't mean your phone is downloading something. Install an app that monitors your wifi data usage. If it reports unusually high numbers then come back here.

gtg465x said:
I wouldn't get all in a frenzy just because your router is blinking. Your router blinking doesn't mean your phone is downloading something. Install an app that monitors your wifi data usage. If it reports unusually high numbers then come back here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please read the OP and the whole thread. It isn't that long. True, while I was in the midst of flashing Cognition, I didn't take time to install NetCounter on the stock rom and take time to check the actual data flow. But the fact that there is actual data flowing when the indicator light is flashing is established.

I've uninstalled MailDroid because of the annoying ads (and because I thought it was doing unnecessary downloads at night). I woke up this morning and NetCounter shows 13MB of data downloaded for Today (from midnight to 6am). I suspect it's the 4 windows (tabs) I have opened in my Browser. Two of them were full (desktop) websites that have banner ads in them. Hmm...

Less than 1MB of data per hour is not a big deal. I'm sure it's a combination of apps that pull or sync data from the internet. Or it could just be an app you have installed that's downloading ads like RexEscape said.
Also, do you have the wifi sleep policy set to never? It should be set to never for best battery life.

RexEscape said:
I've uninstalled MailDroid because of the annoying ads (and because I thought it was doing unnecessary downloads at night). I woke up this morning and NetCounter shows 13MB of data downloaded for Today (from midnight to 6am). I suspect it's the 4 windows (tabs) I have opened in my Browser. Two of them were full (desktop) websites that have banner ads in them. Hmm...
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Click to collapse
What do you show for data usage when your phone is idle but wifi is turned on, meaning nothing you know of would be using data? Would you mind doing a brief test like that? Thanks

gtg465x said:
Less than 1MB of data per hour is not a big deal. I'm sure it's a combination of apps that pull or sync data from the internet. Or it could just be an app you have installed that's downloading ads like RexEscape said.
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Click to collapse
It appears to be drawing data without any apps installed. I assume that after flashing odin3 one-click to the stock rom, the phone is configured almost exactly like it would have been out of the box.
Also, do you have the wifi sleep policy set to never? It should be set to never for best battery life.
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Click to collapse
Just checked it. It is set on Never now. I'm pretty sure it has been set on never since I first started trying to optomize battery life, and discovered the wifi issue.

gtg465x said:
Also, do you have the wifi sleep policy set to never? It should be set to never for best battery life.
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Where in the settings do I check this option??
dm

dwmoss said:
Where in the settings do I check this option??
dm
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Click to collapse
Settings | Wireless and netowrk | Wi-Fi settings. Then press the menu button and select advanced.

creepyncrawly said:
Settings | Wireless and netowrk | Wi-Fi settings. Then press the menu button and select advanced.
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Click to collapse
Thank you very much.

I hate to bring this one back from the dead but I am having the same issue. When watching network usage in SystemPanel, I am getting 0.6-0.2kbps up and down constantly. Then when I switch Wifi off, it sits on zero. That seems to indicate something directly related to the relationship between the phone and wireless routers and not a specific app or general setting. Any ideas? Thanks guys.

I also just noticed that under Wifi settings it will pop up saying "Scanning" every 2-3 seconds. It does it whether network notification is checked or not. Not sure if that is normal behavior or not.

Related

Wifi cuts out after standby

Every time I put the Nook Color in standby, it loses my wireless. Upon taking it out of standby, it doesn't reconnect automatically- i am forced to actually go into settings- wireless before it finds my wireless network.
I have installed Spare Parts and set the Wifi sleep policy to never, but it still doesn't automatically connect to my wifi network. Even if I turn off my wireless and turn it back on via the widget I have on my desktop, it won't connect. I am forced to enter into Settings- wireless every time.
Thanks in advance.
bumping once- seriously nobody else has this problem?
Yes I have this problem too but don't know how to fix it. I just turn wireless off then back on.
No issues here at all, reconnected within seconds. Rarely do I even notice it was disconnected at all.
Are still on the 1.0.0 firmware? I had this issue, but since updating to 1.0.1 (which stated it improved wifi) I haven't had this issue.
Yeah, I see this too. I saw there was a hack somewhere to make it persistent. But that would certainly drain your battery more. It didnt bother me all that much, but if you need it for Gmail/texting/Google Talk, I could see why you would want it to be persistent for notifications. Didnt bother me, since I have a phone too.
By any chance did you install the wpa_supplicant to enable use of adhoc networks? I've only had the issue since I did that. More info below:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=868354
Gabryael said:
By any chance did you install the wpa_supplicant to enable use of adhoc networks? I've only had the issue since I did that. More info below:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=868354
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Click to collapse
Same here mine only does it since the install, but I knew that going into it as well.
I always had that issue, before the adhoc fix and after. Learned to livevwith it. Haven't upgraded yet... still on 1.0
Sent from my NookColor
Same exact thing is happening on mine. I have AutoNooter v1.01 currently and every time my device goes to sleep the wifi turns off, which hasn't been an issue until just recently.
In the past as soon as I would turn back on my device, the wifi would reconnect. Now I have to manually go to Settings> Wifi to get it to reconnect to the network.
I have tried the SpareParts fix, but it doesn't help. I have also tried on different wifi networks, but the connection issues still occur. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
I also have the same problem, running auto-nooter. The only thing is that my signal never reconnects, I have to manually reset my internet router in order to get it back. Rebooting, or turning off Wi-Fi settings within the device doesn't help.
The only thing that works is never allowing my NC to fall asleep on it's own. If I manually put it into standby mode, it works fine.
I have the 1.0.1 update, and I called BN, but they only offered to replace it. I have it tricked out just the way I want it, so I'm just going to hold on to it for now.
CocoaGoddess said:
I also have the same problem, running auto-nooter. The only thing is that my signal never reconnects, I have to manually reset my internet router in order to get it back. Rebooting, or turning off Wi-Fi settings within the device doesn't help.
The only thing that works is never allowing my NC to fall asleep on it's own. If I manually put it into standby mode, it works fine.
I have the 1.0.1 update, and I called BN, but they only offered to replace it. I have it tricked out just the way I want it, so I'm just going to hold on to it for now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had the same issue as well on 1.0.1.
I've found that the wifi doesn't turn off for me if it is plugged in and charging. I did enable wifi to never sleep w/ spare parts, but it still turns wifi off when it goes into standby when not charging.
My wifi stays connected with the screen off, but some times when I turn the screen back on the wifi disconnects. I know this happens because I am listening to Tune in radio and it does not disconnect until I turn my screen back on.
Sent from my Nook color using the XDA app.
hxxp://nookdevs.com/NookColor_Keep_wifi_alive_by_preventing_sleep_mode
This also explains why the wifi doesn't kick out when a music player is playing. I don't have enough posts yet to post a real link :/
aho43 said:
hxxp://nookdevs.com/NookColor_Keep_wifi_alive_by_preventing_sleep_mode
This also explains why the wifi doesn't kick out when a music player is playing. I don't have enough posts yet to post a real link :/
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Dang, I wish I would have found that app before I made and released my own.
http://www.appbrain.com/app/softlocker-free/otis8.softlocker
Mine does it.
I have to turn off then on.
This is only after the adhoc patch. I think I'm going back to infrastructure only.
I'm using wake timer:
http://www.appbrain.com/app/waketimer/schaze.waketimer
Same idea as SoftLocker but lets you also setup a timer where after a certain amount of time the system will actually sleep. Useful for night time or other extended periods of non use where you don't want to drain the battery.
Problem is that it does not activate on boot like SoftLocker and also after the timer expires and it goes into sleep, WakeTimer does not reactivate on wake.
Edit- after testing both programs I think SoftLocker is better. Running battery tests, there was not significant battery drain having SoftLocker on all the time. A few % overnight, probably related to the accumulation of e-mail, tweets, RSS downloads etc, but really minimal. Like that Soflocker can be checked to start on startup.
+1 for SmartLocker
This has happened for me as well. My remedy was to create a Tasker task where it's set up to connect to my SSID whenever it's detected.
colorado_al said:
I'm using wake timer:
http://www.appbrain.com/app/waketimer/schaze.waketimer
Same idea as SoftLocker but lets you also setup a timer where after a certain amount of time the system will actually sleep. Useful for night time or other extended periods of non use where you don't want to drain the battery.
Problem is that it does not activate on boot like SoftLocker and also after the timer expires and it goes into sleep, WakeTimer does not reactivate on wake.
Edit- after testing both programs I think SoftLocker is better. Running battery tests, there was not significant battery drain having SoftLocker on all the time. A few % overnight, probably related to the accumulation of e-mail, tweets, RSS downloads etc, but really minimal. Like that Soflocker can be checked to start on startup.
+1 for SmartLocker
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I'm the SoftLocker dev...so...I'm listening.
I saw the waketimer option for a timer and liked the idea...perhaps a future update?

Extreme battery drain on extended battery

Please bare with me, I am a fairly novice xda user.
I purchased my Bionic at launch, and it has been working perfectly until about a week ago. I always run the phone on stock OS not rooted, automatic brightness, 4g turned off, no wifi/sync/bluetooth. I would generally get down to 20% of my battery from 7 am to midnight on these settings, which was fantastic.
Suddenly, I now lose 10% every 20 minutes. This is not an exaggeration, I have been testing it with Battery Spy. CPU Spy reports that my phone never goes into deep sleep and is always running at the lowest mhz setting when idle.
Under battery usage, Cell Standby is reporting 45%, then Phone Idle at 35%, then Screen at 15%. The remainder its split between K9 Mail and Handcent SMS.
I have uninstalled everything that I thought could be causing this... Facebook, Google+, etc. Apart from the stock bloatware and k9/Handcent, my phone is like new. The best I could do is a factory reset at this point...
I don't think it is a bad battery because the stock battery goes from 100% to 0 in less than an hour when it would last half a day beforehand. I am really at a loss.
One thing I do know is that the 3g and bars are almost always blue, which I think it means is transmitting data. Maybe this is the culprit?
Please pardon my ignorance with the whole issue. Any help would be very, very appreciated. The Bionic was the best phone I have ever owned up until this battery fiasco, and I would like to find out why this is happening.
Thank you.
EDIT: would just like to update, Battery Spy reads that my phone is running at 104° Fahrenheit. I do not know if this is normal, but this was after an hour since a cold boot. Sounds high to me but I'm not sure.
Sent from my DROID BIONIC using XDA App
Sounds like you have some thing that is really using up some cpu cycles. One way to see what's going on is to install the app Android System Info from the market. It has a section called Tasks and it will let you look and see what part of the system is using how much cpu. I do not think you have to be rooted to use this, but I could be wrong. I did go to the market and look and saw no mention of needing to be rooted.
I know this will sound extreme, but I would definitely do it if this was happening to my phone: Factory Reset and start fresh.
Good luck.
Thank you for the advice. I installed it, and appear from the Android System Info app taking up 50% of my cpu, and Android System using 4%, everything else was listed at 0.
Sent from my DROID BIONIC using XDA App
Feoen said:
Thank you for the advice. I installed it, and appear from the Android System Info app taking up 50% of my cpu, and Android System using 4%, everything else was listed at 0.
Sent from my DROID BIONIC using XDA App
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Click to collapse
Well, that didn't help much. Oh well, I would definitely do the Factory Reset then. Again that's just the way I would handle it as something is going on with your phone that wasn't happening earlier. Just go to the Privacy settings and make sure you have Backup and Automatic Restore checked. If your launcher has a backup feature, go to preferences and do a backup of the launcher settings. Then do the Factory Reset. It's a pain to have to setup everything again, but a reset really does cure a lot of ills that pop up.
Good luck.
Oh BTW, here's some general Battery saving suggestions:
Battery Life – BY: NoBloatware on DF
consider doing a factory reset. Do not sync apps, wifi connections, etc. with Google services as that may cause a problem. Install all apps and wifi connections from scratch. A bit of a pain, but not too bad.- install a home/launcher replacement. I use Go Launcher EX, which is free, and I love it. No reason not to try out an alternative launcher as you can always go back to how you had it.
- don't use an automatic task killer--not even the one that comes with the phone. Reboot your phone and look at what's running. If anything that you've installed is running and there's no reason for it, then uninstall it and find an alternative that behaves. Ignore any stock apps that run on boot as I've found them to be more or less benign.
- weather widgets, live wallpapers, news/social feeds, any app or service that you use that runs--do without it if you can.
- don't use antivirus
- the DLNA app pops up a dialog box that will set your WIFI sleep policy to never. The default is "turn off when screen turns off" and I personally think that this setting is the best thing for battery life. Under wifi settings view your connections then hit menu to see "Advanced options" where you can set the sleep policy
- if you have access to wifi, leave it toggled on as it is more efficient than 3G. This is different from the sleep policy.
- I leave GPS toggled on too by the way. Apps use it as needed. When I'm done with Maps or an app that uses it, I'm sure to return to the home screen so GPS can stop. Under wireless settings turn on "Google location services" so that an app is able to use network resources to get your location instead of GPS. I have "VZW location services" turned off--don't know why that option is even there. By the way, I increase the speed of voice output > text to speech > speech rate because I like the directions to get spit out faster. That saves a bit of battery. Turning off the display and just listening for directions help. Also, often I just get the directions and then exit back to the home screen: GPS uses so much battery I try to get it over with ASAP.
- when you get a new battery, do a factory reset, or an OS upgrade run your battery all the way down until the phone shuts off and then charge the battery all the way up. This will callibrate the phone's understanding of the battery's capacity. Do this once every month or two also, but don't do it too often if you can help it.
- I have my battery set to "Performance Mode" and data is on all the time because I am on call 24x7. If you don't mind, try out a more conservative battery profile to save more gobs of energy.
- set screen brightness to "Automatic"
- under Accounts, click on any account listed and turn off sync for any items that you're not interested in syncing. For example, Google Books if you don't use it. Don't use Backup Assistant--I prefer syncing my contacts with Google. You don't need both. Also go into your contacts > menu > display options > backup assistant > UNCHECK. Also do contacts > menu > more > settings > contact storage > and select your Google account and "remember this choice"
- if you never use bluetooth then toggle it off. If you do use it sometimes, it's fine to leave it toggled on all the time.
- consider turning off voice privacy. This may not be a big deal but it will save some processing (and therefore battery). It may also improve call quality.
- turn off haptic feedback, animations, and any un-needed sounds in Android settings and in your apps
- set your screen timeout to as low a time as you can stand (I use 1 minute) and manually turn the screen off when you're done using the phone. I use an app to lock the screen so I don't wear out my power button...as happened on my original droid.
- turn off in-pocket detection
- keyboard: turn off vibrate on keypress and sounds for any keyboards you use
- use a red screen background. On the original Droid screen--not sure about this Droid 3 screen--red was the most efficient color that could be displayed. Anyone know if this still holds true?
- camera app: i like keeping location on and flash on auto. Consider turning location off or at least returning to the home screen ASAP when using camera if location for camera is on.
- in stock browser the default home page is Google and it uses your location. This is a bad idea as it can waste your battery for no reason. Make something else your home page and make sure to close any web page that uses your location when you're done viewing it.
- charge your phone via the wall charger instead of computer USB as it is faster. Also, don't use long USB cords--use regular power extension cords instead. I stick with the charger that came with the phone.
Feoen said:
Please bare with me, I am a fairly novice xda user.
I purchased my Bionic at launch, and it has been working perfectly until about a week ago. I always run the phone on stock OS not rooted, automatic brightness, 4g turned off, no wifi/sync/bluetooth. I would generally get down to 20% of my battery from 7 am to midnight on these settings, which was fantastic.
Suddenly, I now lose 10% every 20 minutes. This is not an exaggeration, I have been testing it with Battery Spy. CPU Spy reports that my phone never goes into deep sleep and is always running at the lowest mhz setting when idle.
Under battery usage, Cell Standby is reporting 45%, then Phone Idle at 35%, then Screen at 15%. The remainder its split between K9 Mail and Handcent SMS.
I have uninstalled everything that I thought could be causing this... Facebook, Google+, etc. Apart from the stock bloatware and k9/Handcent, my phone is like new. The best I could do is a factory reset at this point...
I don't think it is a bad battery because the stock battery goes from 100% to 0 in less than an hour when it would last half a day beforehand. I am really at a loss.
One thing I do know is that the 3g and bars are almost always blue, which I think it means is transmitting data. Maybe this is the culprit?
Please pardon my ignorance with the whole issue. Any help would be very, very appreciated. The Bionic was the best phone I have ever owned up until this battery fiasco, and I would like to find out why this is happening.
Thank you.
EDIT: would just like to update, Battery Spy reads that my phone is running at 104° Fahrenheit. I do not know if this is normal, but this was after an hour since a cold boot. Sounds high to me but I'm not sure.
Sent from my DROID BIONIC using XDA App
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Click to collapse
i have the same problem man! i have the extended battery and it lasts maybe 9 hours and i have tried several batteries from verizon store i keep swapping them lol and im on 4G all day and performance battery and data on all 24/7 too and i could get 20 hours ++ out of thunderbolt extended and cant get half that with bionic. there is something going on and nobody at verizon can figure my problem out!
Format the sd card in ur pc. Then put sd card back in bionic and transfer ur stuff back on it. Ur bionic is scanning sd card non stop for errors drainin battery. I had this problem for weeks beofre i figured this out. Was gettin 7-8 hrs on ext battery. Now ibget 30 hrs
Sent from my DROID BIONIC using xda premium
I had a similar issue and the problem was my sim card needing to be reinstalled. It was not seaded correctly and caused my radio to act up. I truned off the phone and removed the sim card and then reinserted it and rebooted and I was back to normal.
I am not sure if this is your problem but it is easy enough to try.
Would this apply if I am not using 4g? I have 4g disabled and it was my impression that the sim card was only used for 4g.
I uninstalled k9 which for some reason began using 7% of my battery though I had never opened it since reboot and now I am getting a loss of 10% per hour of normal use.
I went to bed with the battery at 70 and woke up with it at the same so I at least solved the sleeping problem. Not sure why k9 was responsible though.
Sent from my DROID BIONIC using XDA App

[Q] WiFi Battery Drain

Alright I hate to ask this question, but my searching and reading is not leading anywhere. I recently upgraded to GB (Illuminance with Corn) and I'm loving how fast my phone is. The only problem I notice is how fast my battery drains while on WiFi (Wireless N with WPA2).
Example: I was at my parents house for 2.5 hours, but didn't bother turning wifi on. I only lost a few %. Once I got home, I kicked on the wifi and within an hour I lost 20%. It appears that when wifi is turned on it is almost constantly in use. I checked for rogue apps and data usage and found nothing. The only thing I notice is that every 5 seconds (yes, I actually timed it) it is polling for new networks.
After doing some reading I checked and the build.prop mods are in there (wifi.supplicant_scan_interval).
Any suggestions on where to go next?
Recap of phone config:
Rom: Illuminance 3.01
Kernel: Corn 7.06
Modem: KK4
Yeah...I've noticed that the build.prop tweaks for wifi scanning don't actually seem to change the scanning interval on gingerbread ;/
Try going to, Settings> wireless and networks> wifi settings> menu button> advanced> set wifi sleep policy to "when the screen turns off"
That'll help while it's asleep.
studacris said:
Settings> wireless and networks> wifi settings> menu button> advanced> set wifi sleep policy to "when the screen turns off"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
I switched my ROM from Apex to Illuminance to test a theory that this functionality would work as it had in the past on Apex ROMS. For whatever reason kernels/framework were swapped in a newer version of Apex that killed this very helpful functionality. Once I switched to Illuminance and enabled the functionality, it works again and I get 2+ days worth of battery life with moderate usage (rarely a video/music played, but I do a lot of browsing and email usage/fb/twitter usage is high).
It drove me nuts on Apex trying to figure out the issue. I had thought my settings.db files that control the wifi functions had gone corrupt and the dev ignored any requests for assistance.
Glad I made the switch.
studacris said:
Yeah...I've noticed that the build.prop tweaks for wifi scanning don't actually seem to change the scanning interval on gingerbread ;/
Try going to, Settings> wireless and networks> wifi settings> menu button> advanced> set wifi sleep policy to "when the screen turns off"
That'll help while it's asleep.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was the first thing I noticed. The ROM defaulted to Always On. I changed that the first day. Unfortunately, I still have the issue. As it stands, I only get one day at most out of my charge. The only thing I let sync is the gmail account. I mostly browse and talk less than 1 hour per day.
I'll try to do a more statistical approach when I get a chance. I'll see about taking readings ever half hour with the wifi on and no other use.
I was under the impression that if the phone downloads data over WiFi it actually uses less battery than if it downloaded data over 3G. When I'm at home, I leave my WiFi on intentionally when my phone is asleep so that my incoming email is more efficient since I have WiFi available.
Am I wrong here? Just curious if I've been mislead all this time.
I don't think you're wrong. That is why I always use wifi at home. I think I found some errant scripts that were running and causing the excess battery drain. I have taken those off.
I'll probably master clear and reload when I'm no longer on call this weekend just to make sure I got everything.

wow turning off data and WiFi really helps battery life

I've always had my data on in all my phones.. .I got fed up of the gnote's battery life so I decided to turn it off when I was not using it and God I was surprised, I watched a whole movie and played that train game and I lost only about 15 -20% of my juice.....
so today I turned off my data and WiFi before i went to sleep and when I woke up 6 hours later I had only lost 1%
that has never happened before...
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wifi has been known to be a great battery hogger on the note, interestingly enough it should be the other way around
as for the data, the phone works extra hard in lower signal areas to boost reception, hence drinking juice
I always disable wifi and data when I'm not using them.
I use the Go Power Master widget to switch between different profiles I have set up for wifi, mobile data, wifi with autosynch and no data.
There are other widgets that do the same thing. Just saves you having to toggle each setting separately.
If I stay connected with wifi, it's not too bad, but if I move out of a wifi area, and leave it on, it seems to drain battery faster (I'm guessing because it keeps rescanning for connections?).
I have somwhere describe this
Any way you will find this solutione better.
Use phoneweaver, you can describe the time, it will stop data at defned time, as well switch on too at your describe time. So if you set data off time just after your time to sleep, N switch on time just b4 your wake up time, you even need not to bother do do it manually
same way this can be triggered by location too, you can switch on/off data/wifi at perticular place.
And there are lot action you can set.
agree to rechlum if you are connected to wi-fi is consume less battery thn you are connected to net with 3G, N keep wifi open with connected to data is draining battery too fast.
could it all mean that I wasted a lot of time trying to reduce my battery consumption with WiFi on?
so far by disabling the unnecessary apps strartups (Autorun Manager) and turning off non-essential syncs I was able to get down to ca. 7mA (Battery Monitor Widget estimates) in standby mode, BUT only when WiFi is off.
When it's on, the power consumption stays at ca. 60mA in standby mode, which is something I cannot comprehed - using CyanogenMod on my previous device I was able to stay below 15mA regardless of WiFi state.
Turning off data is pretty stupid. I don`t about you but my phone is actively working in the background.
checking email every 5mins
gmail syncing
facebook notifications
twiter syncing
Linkedin updates
ebay notification
3G data monitoring
weather updates every 30mins
Latitude monitoring
stocks updates
sports scores updates every 1min with your choice of espn, score mobile, fox sports...
bottom line is gotta use a smartphone as a smartphone. With data turned off notifications are not happening.
just_visiting said:
Turning off data is pretty stupid. I don`t about you but my phone is actively working in the background.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I know I'm not going to be looking at my phone for a while, it's not much use wasting battery having wifi or 3G turned on.
I'm a teacher, so I often have 3-4 hour blocks of time that I won't touch my phone.
I just turn wifi or data back on when I'm ready and my updates still come through when I'm ready to view them. Any updates that might have come through if I had left data enabled, I wouldn't have seen any earlier...
If I'm watching a movie I'll often switch off data because I know I won't be looking at my phone for 2 hours.
I don't see how conserving the battery is "stupid".
One could argue that leaving data enabled when you aren't in a position to use it is "stupid"...
Just out of curiosity, is there some pre-made application that allows me to turn data and wifi off after 5-10 minutes after then screen has been turned off and then turn both back on when the screen is turned on? Or should I just code it myself?
WereCatf said:
Just out of curiosity, is there some pre-made application that allows me to turn data and wifi off after 5-10 minutes after then screen has been turned off and then turn both back on when the screen is turned on? Or should I just code it myself?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there's an option in Settings / WiFi Settings / Menu key to turn WiFi off when screen is off,
besides that there was one to do exactly what you need, but cannot remeber it's name, if you don't find anything satisfactory then try Lama - it has quite a large range of location-based triggers
Leaving wifi on when you're not using is awful. It completely prevents the phone from going to deep sleep.
I get awesome battery life simply by leaving wifi on only when the screen is on. My battery ranges from 18 hours to 1 day and 23 hours, depending on my use (temple run )
WereCatf said:
Just out of curiosity, is there some pre-made application that allows me to turn data and wifi off after 5-10 minutes after then screen has been turned off and then turn both back on when the screen is turned on? Or should I just code it myself?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Greenpower will do exactly that. You can set it up so it turns off wifi and 3G/data after a set amount of time after turning off the screen and turn it back on when the screen is turned on. You can have it sync once every n minutes/hours so you still get Whatsapp, emails and other stuff without having to turn on the screen.
It's working like a charm for me, before I used to lose 15 to 20% every night, now with the same usage I've only lost 30% in 67 hours.
just_visiting said:
Turning off data is pretty stupid. I don`t about you but my phone is actively working in the background.
checking email every 5mins
gmail syncing
facebook notifications
twiter syncing
Linkedin updates
ebay notification
3G data monitoring
weather updates every 30mins
Latitude monitoring
stocks updates
sports scores updates every 1min with your choice of espn, score mobile, fox sports...
bottom line is gotta use a smartphone as a smartphone. With data turned off notifications are not happening.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Everybody has different needs. If you need all this and to be aware of what i going on in your no-doubt busy social life, then you can do this.
On the other hand, it is utterly useless if you are not going to pick up the phone and see what the weather is (instead of looking out the window) and who is doing what on Facebook (or writing things in Facebook instead of actually doing things) as soon as it beeps at you. In those situations, turning of data will save battery with no loss of information.
Personally I love a 'pull' digital life, rather than a 'push' one. I have far too much to be getting on with to be constantly hassled.
Of course, in actually writing this, I am proving myself completely wrong, but what the hey?
I only care about my Google+ account and my e-mails, everything else matters only when I personally decide to check it. As such I've set my phone to turn data back on every 30 minutes, sync e-mails and Google+, and then turn data back off again.
I use Timeriffic (free from Market/Play) to disable Wifi/Data etc based on time of day.
I don't really care about emails when I'm sleeping!
A must have application IMO.

Sudden excessive data use by hotspot although hotspot not switched on.

Hi,
I hope I'm in the right place for this.
My partner uses a Nexus 6.
Last night she started getting messages from her carrier about data usage.
Going from 30% to 100% in a few hours.
I checked the data usage and the hotspot had used nearly 4gb even through she never switches it on.
I've done a quick search to see if any of the apps she downloaded from play store are potential malware or viruses or are associated with malware/viruses and nothing turned up.
She doesn't download apps from outside the playstore or go to suspect websites.
Could there be any other reason for the sudden data usage or is it definitely a case of an infected app being installed?
I haven't done for a while, 2013 to be precise, but I intend on flashing the phone with the last version of Nougat once I read up on doing it and may look at puting Lineages on it.
Thanks,
Chris

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