How to make your gtab act like a tablet (never deep sleep)

[schettj]

I didn't make any of the software used here, I just worked out a way to assemble other people's hard work to make this work. All credit goes to them (mostly pershoot and his amazing kernels.)

The Problem: After no more than 2 minutes after pressing the suspend button, your gtab actually deep suspends. Wifi turns off. Calendar alerts and any alarms won't go off. Email is not checked. Heck, you can't even set a lockscreen to come on after X minutes where X is greater than 1, because the stupid thing goes into Deep Sleep before it locks the screen. Epic. Fail.

So, I dunno what the guys at TnT or VS are smoking, but in my world a tablet is always on, and does its best to cope with battery life not by going into "suspend" or "deep sleep" mode. What's worse, even in this "deep sleep" your gtab will STILL burn about 1% battery per hour. Which as you can see in a moment isn't really any less than with a decent kernel with proper power management. So you're not saving anything....

The Fix: This should work with any custom rom that can run pershoot's OC kernels - he currently has both Froyo and Gingerbread based builds, so that should be everyone. No idea if these work on the stock rom, for those still on stock.

Here's how you can fix this - I'm not going to tell you how to do the ROM/Kernel flashing, just follow the directions for each.

1) Use a custom rom. Obviously, the first step. Gives you Root. Gives you a functional OS. I'm using VEGAntab Ginger, but it should work with the Froyo based ones too.

2) Install these apps from Marketplace:
SetCPU - https://market.android.com/details?i...g.overclocking
Softlocker Free - https://market.android.com/details?i...=search_result

(you can get SetCPU for free if you're a registered xda member, search for it there... also, if you use any of the Gingerbread roms, you can use their inbuilt overclock settings instead.)

3) Install the correct latest version of pershoot's overclock kernel for your Rom:
Droid Basement
You want the GTab/Zpad 1.4ghz one, either Froyo or GB depending on which Rom you're on.

4) use SetCPU or your Rom's OC settings to set the top speed and bottom speed of your OC as desired (or as is stable) My gTab runs rock solid on the 1400/216 settings, which is the maximum over and underclock.

5) Run Softlocker Free, Disable device sleep, and check "Start service on boot"

6) Set Settings/Wireless/Wifi Settings - press Menu - Advanced/Wi-Fi Sleep Policy to Never

Now, you've got a much faster gtab, than only idles (with screen off) at 1% per hour battery use, and which NEVER fully goes to suspend/deep sleep. Wifi stays on. Alarms and Calendar reminders go off. The damn thing will go to lockscreen after the timeout you specify, even if that timeout is 30 minutes.

Basically, it now acts like a real always on tablet, and not some weird netbook without a keyboard.

Huge props to pershoot, who fixed the no-sleep timeout issue on a Saturday within about 90 minutes of me posting to his xda thread.

[NinjaMom]

Maybe be a dumb question, but why not just use softlocker?

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

[schettj]

Originally Posted by NinjaMom

Maybe be a dumb question, but why not just use softlocker?

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

I do use softlocker. It's right there, in step 2/5.

You still need to set wifi to never sleep if you want to remain connected even when in standby, and unless you keep it plugged in, you need the ondemand OC/undervolted kernel to keep battery drain at a reasonable level since the pad is going to be awake and running wifi all the time.

[NinjaMom]

I saw it in the steps. Just was wondering why it was not the only step. Thanks for the info.

Followed your steps. Testing now.

Do you find maxing out the cpu to cause heating issues?

[orangekid]

Good call man.

NM, SetCPU shows you CPU temp in the widget/app, if you're worried what you can do is set a profile for temp > 40c, UC to 700mhz or something like that, but it shouldn't really be overheating anyways.

Also, depending on which scale governor you use, that can have an effect on battery life. I don't know which governors pershoot uses, but I will find out when I get my gTab, I know on my other devices I generally use interactive the whole time, which has 245/245 built into the kernel so you don't have to set a screen off profile, good batter life and great awake performance! Smartass works pretty well too.


Thx schettj for the great writeup.

[schettj]

Originally Posted by NinjaMom

I saw it in the steps. Just was wondering why it was not the only step. Thanks for the info.

Followed your steps. Testing now.

Do you find maxing out the cpu to cause heating issues?

I have the min set to 216 and max to 1400 - it doesn't seem to warm up very fast at all, mostly because it's using the tegra scheduler, which does a pretty good job of shifting gears down as the load drops.

[schettj]

Some hard numbers:

I use pershoot's UV/OC kernel, keep wifi on all the time, and use softlocker to make sure my gtab *never* deep sleeps. This is on Vegantab-ginger.

I installed batterymonitor widget, and am collecting data.

My "screen off, but wifi on/not really asleep" power drain is 125mA

Given the 3650mAH rating of the battery, that gives me 29.2 hours total standby time in this state.

Working backwards, that's a drain of just under 3% per hour.

Given I am only awake 16 hours of the day, I have nearly half a battery to play on, or about 5-6 hours or so of full out battery, to use over 16 hours.

I'll keep collecting data and see if I can get even firmer numbers.

The widget is awesome, and free

https://market.android.com/details?id=ccc71.bmw

Make sure you go into settings and set the battery capacity to the rated 3650mAh to get accurate numbers/estimates.