[the7thson]

Originally Posted by cappy

Something curious has just occurred on my Diamond that may shed some light on the wide swings in battery life that many have observed. For anyone who has read some of my posts, the battery on my device has performed very well - I mean very well. I can get 2-3 days, depending on usage. So far, I have not used the device very much. Just fooling with the settings and observing battery discharge. A few phone calls and little Internet access each day. I use the Airave and signal is optimal. I have been able to predict my battery usage with accuracy.

I use Homescreen Plus to monitor the discharge readings and it also shows processor activity. Until today, the processor activity ALWAYS went back to 1% at rest. For example, when making a phone call or accessing the Internet, CPU activity will go from 1% to 30% or 40% or 100% for short periods. That is normal and expected. It would always return to 1%. The mA discharge rate also went up during the activity, as expected and then back down. However, I just received two phone calls that lasted about 45 minutes. After these calls, the CPU activity never went back to 1%. It stayed at 3% or higher. The mA discharge rate did not go back to normal, but stayed 60mA higher than it should have been. Bottom line is that the 60mA additional discharge rate is equivalent to 600mA in 10 hours - 600mA/1340mA=44.7% additional battery discharge. All else being equal, if usage would indicate an 80% battery level after 10 hours, this unexplained additional drain would leave the battery at 80%-44.7%=35.3%.

I did everything that I could think of to bring the processor back down to 1%. Started applications and closed them, made sure that nothing was running in the Task Manager, changed settings, toggled Flight Mode. NOTHING WORKED except a soft reset.

Something caused my CPU to remain active when it should have been at rest and continue discharging at 60mA higher than normal. That has not happened before. Whether it is specifically related to the phone application, Win 6.1 or hardware related who knows. But if this is the reason that battery life varies widely for different devices or the same device at different times, a few adjustments and tweaks will not solve the problem. By observing the CPU and discharge readings periodically I can soft reset when necessary. But that is sure no long term solution.

Great info! What are you using to monitor your CPU usage? We should probably all look at our own usage and see if it's staying higher.