Data staying on and draining my batt

[shellguy]

hey all here is the issue for some reason my data connection is staying on, i turn it off and it turns right back on, it almost drained my batt since 6am till now 11am, I have only installed ppc-6800 hacks from Trianglepowers.



Will

[AFAngryWarrior]

You don't have any constant data hogs running, like continous non-push email checks or Streaming programs?

[psywzrd]

Maybe he's talking about the "active but idle "data connection (grey arrows). I have that all the time too. Is there a way to set it up so that once the data connection is no longer needed, it disconnects completely (no longer active or idle)?

[shellguy]

even after closing all programs from memory it still turns back on

[borealcool]

Originally Posted by psywzrd

Maybe he's talking about the "active but idle "data connection (grey arrows). I have that all the time too. Is there a way to set it up so that once the data connection is no longer needed, it disconnects completely (no longer active or idle)?

I just posted this comment so instead of repeating myself, read this, it might help.

[letsgoflyers81]

Are they arrows staying white all the time, or do they go gray? It sounds like something is connecting to data but if the arrows are gray it's an idle connection and it shouldn't have too much of an impact on your battery life. If they stay white, then the connection is active and that would explain the battery drain.

[borealcool]

Originally Posted by letsgoflyers81

Are they arrows staying white all the time, or do they go gray? It sounds like something is connecting to data but if the arrows are gray it's an idle connection and it shouldn't have too much of an impact on your battery life. If they stay white, then the connection is active and that would explain the battery drain.

Unfortunately not with my Mogul, idle seems to drain as much as an active connection. The only surefire solution I've found was to install nogprs and map it to button 5 for quick on/off access.

[dcd]

unless youve changed the connection settings, the mogul default is 600sec idle disconnect.

there is a reg key to make the connection always stay on, and there is a reg key to enable/disable the connection.

activesync will establish the connection and keep it on/dormant if you have an exchange server with schedule set to 'as they arrive'

i wrote the following mortscript and bound to a button to disable/enable the cellular data connection on my mogul with less taps/effort than nogprs. i offer no support for this, use it if you want, it works for me. i actually created it for an easy way to shut off data entirely so that everything uses wifi when im at home. my battery was fine either way.

# dcd connection toggle.mscr - 9-9-07 r3
ShowWaitCursor
If ( NOT Connected() )
	RegWriteDword("HKLM","\Comm\ConnMgr\Providers\{7C4B7A38-5FF7-4bc1-80F6-5DA7870BB1AA}\Connections\Sprint PCS","Enabled","1")
	Vibrate(100)
	Connect( "The Internet" )
Else
	RegWriteDword("HKLM","\Comm\ConnMgr\Providers\{7C4B7A38-5FF7-4bc1-80F6-5DA7870BB1AA}\Connections\Sprint PCS","Enabled","0")
	Vibrate(100)
	Sleep(200)
	Vibrate(100)
	Disconnect
EndIf
HideWaitCursor

[borealcool]

Originally Posted by dcd

unless youve changed the connection settings, the mogul default is 600sec idle disconnect.

Thanks that explains a lot for me. If you've got your email account setup to check every 10 minutes, you basically have an idle connection all day. You make it sound as though this is an editable feature, but I looked through the registry and all I could find with a 600 setting is:

HKLM\Comm\ConnMgr\Planner\Settings\CacheTime\600

I changed this value to 30 and it didn't seem to shut down the connection any faster.

[borealcool]

From Microsoft's website:

Why doesn't it (data connection) go away?

In our 2002 release, when an application requested a connection to the internet, we'd create a connection. Then, when the application said it was finished with that connection, we'd tear it down. In our 2003 release, we changed this behavior to the current one. Once you've connected once, it stays connected. We made this change for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that it allowed a much better user experience. In 2002, whenever you wanted any data from the Internet, you had to wait a few seconds for the device to request an IP address from the network. Staying connected all the time means that you get data much more quickly. Also, Mobile Operators requested it. It was more expensive for them to be constantly creating and tearing down connections than to just do it once. Finally, staying connected enabled us to develop a fast "push email" client that relied on the device holding an IP address.

It's important to understand that we only do this on connections with "Suspend/Resume" functionality. These kinds of connections are suspended when a phone call comes in and resumed again when it is finished.


Doesn't this cost me money?

In general, no. A long time ago phones sent data over "circuit switched" connections. These were similar to old style modems on your PC. They would make a phone call and send data over that voice connection. The Mobile Operator couldn't really tell the difference between those calls and other voice calls, so they charged per minute. Current data connections (GPRS, etc), though, are different. For these types of connections, every Mobile Operator that I'm aware of now charges per byte transferred, not per minute. So you can keep your data connection on all the time and only get charged when you send or receive over it.


What about my battery life?

Just having a data connection shouldn't affect your battery life. Most of the time, the device isn't doing anything with that connection. It just sits there idle. If you're sending a lot of data over the connection, though, that will definitely impact your battery life. Unfortunately, the arrows don't really tell you whether you're sending data or not (though I've seen devices that animate the arrows while data is being transferred).

LOL if you own a Mogul you bet your a$$ the idle connection affects battery life