Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

***All Credit goes to sh4o8kid over at android.

For people who's battery go from 100% to 90% in a matter of minutes

*IMPORTANT*
The results of this have been mostly positive. Although we aren't having problems now, we may run into a few bumps later on as this solution is very premature at the moment. Please do not put your hopes and dreams on this solution just yet until we have more time to play with it.


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I may have found a solution and you'll only need to do this one time (hopefully)

For most of who got the EVO's a bit later, we had the update that fixed the SD card issue. All was great so most of us most likely did not do a format on the micro sd card. I tried to make my battery last longer by doing all these tips and tricks and the one that helped most was the turning off and charging it over n over again. It's a pain doing that so i figured what else haven't we tried?

I charged my phone to 100% and decided to take the micro sd card out and just play with the phone. I noticed that my battery didnt drop 10-15% in a matter of minutes so i thought that was weird. I decided to format the micro SD card (the slow way) and now i notice that when I'm at like 90% and i start charging, it takes a lot longer to charge up to 100% . When i take off the charger, my battery doesn't drop anymore. Can anybody confirm this?


Format was 32kb, and unchecked "quick format'.

Formatting on a Computer
Step 1
Insert the tiny micro SD card into slot located at the bottom of the the larger SD card adapter. Insert the combination into a USB card reader or your computer's onboard card slots--if available.

Step 2
Open the "My Computer" menu and then insert the card reader into a USB port on your computer. Note the drive assignment your computer gives the reader when inserted (ex F:Card Read ).

Step 3
Right-click on the drive your card is inserted into and choose the "Format" option from the menu that appears. Click the "Start" button at the bottom of the "Format" menu.

Taken from:
How to Format a Sandisk Micro SD Card | eHow.com


edit: Ive been charging my evo when it hit 90%, it's been 25 minutes and its at 98% and still charging.

edit2: It's been 15 minutes since i hit 100% and i'm still at 100% battery life. with moderate usage.

edit3: it's been 37 minutes and i'm still at 100%

edit4: it's been 42 minutes, 100%.

edit 5: 43 minutes, 99% battery, 37% android system, 20% standby, etc etc. Not bad for using the phone for so long such as messaging and e-mails.

edit 6: Right now i'm at 83% battery life at 8H 35M

What i did so far since 99%:
4-5 Text messages
25 Minutes of Youtube video on my own wifi
1 Minute of checking forums
Check both my email accounts (I cycle through this only once a day)
Took 6 camera pictures with no flash

edit 7: I charged it back to 100% (It took some time to charge from 90% to 100%). The reason why i'm charging back to 100% is because this format fix is to only address the 10-15% loss of battery life. So here i am, i'm at 100%, no rebooting or anything of that matter. The 100% still sticks and is running smoothly! I for one will shout out to the world that the format of the sd card fixed my 10-15% loss of battery life issue.

edit 8: Some people have reported that it works, some reported that it doesn't. Try if you have nothing to lose. Note that a lot of people are still testing this and problems can arise later on in the future. In the meantime, the ones that got this to work haven't ran into any problems just yet. We'll see how this works out as it plays out in the next couple days.


Also, i wanted to thanks for all the feedback.

original link.. http://androidforums.com/htc-evo-4g/...r-minutes.html

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

Interesting! I'm going to have to read some more on this and will look forward to others experiences with it as well. I don't have a huge battery problem but more is always better! This reminds me of something I've been meaning to ask, if anybody knows the answer, enlightenment would be appreciated. I've got a class 4, 8 GB card from my old TP, would doing this trick result in any noticeable speed increases over the class 2 that was included with the EVO in addition to the possible battery life win? If so is there any worry about loosing anything that might be on my current EVO card, will I need to copy it's contents over to my fresh one? I haven't explicitly saved anything there to my knowledge.

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

I just did and so far it looks to have done the trick. Now my phone will sleep when not in use. below is a link to the thread explaining my issue and what file on the SD card that seemed to be the problem.

http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=125010

It makes sense becuase everything you download or applications you use saves everything to the SD card and not the phones internal memory. So that would be why a hardrest would not fix the problem (when the problem is on the SD card).

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

Will try this now and report back with results.

Edit: did the reformat trick last night and then placed on the charger all night. When I removed my phone from the charger this morning, it quickly dropped to 96% (it usually dropped immediately to ~90-92%). I listened to music on my phone on the way to work (about 30 minutes) and when I arrived it was at 94%. My phone is definitely hanging in the 90's a bit longer. I am going to try the on/off charging trick and see if I can hover in the high-90s a bit longer.

I don't really have many battery complaints as I can easily make it through an entire day, though more is always better.

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

so I assume you just drag all of the contents from the sd card on your desktop first, then format, and drag them back on? Been a long time since I formatted one. lol.

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

haha yeah that is what I did. I noticed better battery life as well.

Not sure what is causing it though since I did flash to the new fresh rom today and did this trick, but one if not both of these things are helping my battery life, that's for sure. And I also have all the other battery tweaks like OC Widget and the cdma thing.

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

Thanks man, great to see you over here!

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

If I am not mistaken the class change would give you faster read write to the card but that would be it. The only thing you would need to save on the current card out of the EVO would be date you saved (pics or downloads) and the HTC sync software if you see your self using it.

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

Wow, slow format takes forever....

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

ummm. what if i dont have a SD card reader? Can i format through the phone?

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

does it defeat the purpose to format if you copy everything to the desktop and then put it right back on the card?!!

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

What I found was there was files on my card that was keeping the phone from not sleeping. So I brought over files and media over slowly. I found that it was either my thumb nail files (for pics and video I took on my TP2), Video files, or ebooks that was keeping my phone from sleeping. So long store short "Yes" it does defeat the purpose.

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

If you mount the phone's memory as a hard drive (Menu -Settings - Connect to PC - Disk Drive)then THEORETICALLY you should be able to format it while it's still in the phone, but don't quote me on that :mrgreen:

Maybe I will try it and post results...

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

I posted this at the other site but figured to throw it up here as well........Might save some people a lot of trouble doing all the battery voodoo tricks that I have already tried.....

Okay so here is the deal and I have now seen it proven.......This hack is not working. But I have read other things and one thing is now for sure.

What it is, if you charge your phone and remove it from the charger once it hits green you will not drop to the low 90's within minutes.

If you let your device sit on the charger green for a while, I have read other posts that saadi it is actually using your battary but just not registering it at the time. I totally believe this is true.

I took my phone off the charger this morning after keeping it on the charger all night and within minutes I was at 93%. I got to work and threw my phone on the charger to get back to full and it has been charging for over 40 minutes and still hasn't hit green yet. It is obviuos that my battery was drained more then just the few minutes I had it off of the charger......

I am now waiting for it to turn green as it is at 99% now. I am sure once I pull it off the charger this time without letting it sit there, it will hang in the 90's for a while....

Yesterday when I tested this after the reformat, I removed the phone from the charger right after it turned green and I was in the 90's for hours. So it looks more like the effect is to pull the device off the charger when it hits 100% but what are we to do if we leave our phone's on the charger overnight? It almost looks like it won't matter if we keep it plugged on or not.

This cannot be right. How can I start out with a true 100% battery in the morning without unplugging my phone and recharging every day? Something needs to be done about this!

I am now almost at an hour of charging, and my phone still hasn't turned green yet. All I did was have my phone off the charger for 12 minutes with no use!

Update****Phone has now been off the charger for an 1/2 hour since it turned green and it still is at 100% battery.........

Update 2*** Now after an hour off the charger after being removed immediately when it hit green, my device is at 96% with some light web surfing and a couple of reminders popping up...So what it looks like, if the EVO can hold it's charge while being plugged in, then the battery would be pretty good after all!!!
Unfortuetly, by charging the phone all night, it is like we are starting out the day with a device that is sitting in stanby for 8-10 hours or even more off the charger!

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

EMAN, After trial and error I found that I had a file on my SD card that was using up processing power and not allowing my phone to sleep. So Formating the card slowly bring files back ont he card allowed me to fined the Media file that would not allow my phone to sleep. In the end I did not have a battery problem I had a processing problem. Also to say this does not work would be incorrect.

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

I agree with this. I think HTC uses some shoddy batteries if you ask me. I have 2 TP's that I got within months of each other and one charges and stays charged throughout the day (12 hours) with moderate use and the other, well, dies in 8 hours with no use at all. Both have been charged at the same time the exact same way. Both have the same apps and configured equally.

Li-Ion batteries aren't supposed to have to be conditioned but I beg to differ. They need to be charged, de-charged and charged again over and over for a battery reaches its full potential. The best way I have found is to (if you can afford to do this) at night, turn your phone off and charge. But during the day, let it drain as much as you can possibly stand before charging. Do this for a week and you'll notice a slight increase in battery life if it's a good battery.

This is just a tip and in no way am I claiming that "it will" increase the batt life. There are so many different factors to consider but this has always worked for me.

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

One Word Sony. Remember those Japanese Made, Japanese Cell battery packs that would catch on fire on your lap? Dell, HP as well many other top name laptop/notebook manufacturers sourced their batteries from the same place. Even with high quality control, this happens.

Shoot even USA assembled "TOYOTAS" had their major failure and recalls.. although you have to remember, quality control at those plants aren't up to par with the Japanese plants..

Even the best can fail..

I've mentioned this before in other threads, remember your phone / charger will only charge your phone to 100% and then stop charging. It does not trickle charge.. So if you plugged your phone in at night and it finished charging to 100% in 2 hours and you unplugged it in the morning from a "full charge" you have to consider that the phone was using the battery the other 6 hours while you slept (assuming you sleep 8 hours) hence at 90%.. Best practice is to top off your battery (unplug and plug in your phone), before you leave the house..

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

Exactly what I am seeing......and describe in my post above.

Has nothing to do with a media file on my card as the other poster mentioned. As soon as I take my phone off the charger when it turns green, it hangs in the the 90's for a few hours. Charge over night and it drops to low 90's in a matter of minutes.......I am convinced the above statement is true....

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

How does this phone/battery charge differently than others, like the TP2 for instance? I never noticed this phenomenon until I started using this phone...

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

I've done so many of these battery "tips" and this is the only one that made a difference in my up/awake time and now I am getting better battery life. So, if "this hack is not working" ...

hoo-ray for the the placebo effect!

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

did that...two days ago...worked famously!!

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

Tried this and for some reason it magically worked for me too...Thumbs up. Worked!!!!!

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

Help, I formatted my SD card and now it's not recognized by my phone. I "think" I followed all the directions as indicated in the first post. Help.

I can see the card if I put it in an adapter. However, when I put it in the card and use Astro or some other file manager the card shows up as empty.

Help.

Okay, found a link to something about a special utility to format SD cards, used it, copied all of my stuff back from the local drive and reinserted the card into the phone, phew, everything is copacetic.

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

Did you format it to FAT32?

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

I formated mine to FAT32.

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

The first time in the PC I thought I had, I guess I hadn't. The second time I used the Panasonic utility that formats it properly but takes a bit longer.

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

It doesn't charge differently. If you search through other threads you will see the same suggestion posted. Complaints about the battery indicator dropping to 90% from full after removing it from the charger.

Reason is that Li ION batteries/chargers do not trickle charge, once full they stop, if not the battery would over heat and possibly cause a fire.

It is also the reason why you do not have to prime (fully charge, discharge) a Li ION battery, they include IC in the pack, hence they are considered smart batteries (that's why you can have widgets telling you the temp and power in the battery, they read this IC).

Third party, cheap oem some times have bad IC/programming or may not include one at all and may be dangerous, if not hazardous to your device. Same applies for cheap generic chargers.. YMMV

EDIT: Cheap/generic batteries and or charger manufacturers assume you will use their product with a decent battery/charger that will prevent over charge or over heating, but when consumers use both generic/cheap products, is when this possible hazard may come to happen.

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

Ok, but my TP2, Pre, Diamond, TP, etc all used Li ION batteries and would hold a charge at %100 and gradually drop down throughout the day, not like the EVO which drops to %90 right away, or at least it used to before doing this trick and the constant charge/unplug/charge trick. Now when I unplug the phone it sits at %100 for at least a half hour then gradually drops to 99, 98, 97, ... and so on. My other phones maintained a full charge at the time I removed them from the charger after an overnight charge, and now my EVO does too.

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

Don't remember where I found the link but went and looked up the software via google search and it works absolutely great (Panasonic SD Formatting Software):

http://panasonic.jp/support/global/c...oad/index.html

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

Here's something to try as a placebo effect with this that I noticed. I have the task killer app installed as a widget instead of as an app, it automatically kills everything running and when I do this prior to overnight charge I no longer lose battery life immediately after unplugging it. I've had it stay at 100% for around an hour or so with minimal use, which is still better than 30 seconds compared to before. it might be in my head who knows.

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

so just did this i'll let you know the wut my effects are... I did it earlier but I did the quick format instead of the slow and it didn't work lol so will post results after it charges up, at 90% now


edit:
So I'm thinking it works a lil for me, by now I would be at 90 and i'm still at 96 but it def didn't stay at 100% for 45 minutes....

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

How did you find the bad file and what do you mean copied over slowly. You didn't just copy and paste the whole card to/from computer

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

not to sound like a noob, but i have formatted my sd card to FAT32 but i dont know exactly why i do this everytime but been doing it since i had my vogue way back when. what do you gain by formatting to FAT32?

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

LOL some people will almost believe anything.... The sd card is not the issue UNLESS you have a corrupt file on your card and you can tell this by installing SystemPanel from the market and monitoring it for about 24hrs. Example: if your process "Android.process.media" is using a high amount of CPU then you have a bad media file on you sd card and the scanner is getting stuck on that file trying to determine what that file is. The "this battery or that battery" IS NOT the issue either, it's either a good battery or a bad one tho capacity does make a difference. The issues everyone is complaining about 10% battery drop is due to the battery not being charged to 100% capacity tho the phone thinks it is. I have tried over 5 different batteries (various sizes and capacities) as well as different OS's and it doesn't matter...the problem still remains. Either bump charging or charging the battery outside of the phone (like a wall charger) is the only fix until HTC or someone fixes the firmware. Again, this is a firmware issue...

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

I bought a 16gb class 6 Transcend micro sd and my computer wont read the darn thing! I'm gonna try the phone usb to pc (disk drive) method and report results.


EDIT:... I did it. I will report my findings later today.

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

Not really saying whether this works or doesn't work, but this solution doesn't make a god damned bit of sense.

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

for some reason I do see a difference. It's not a big difference but I do see one.

Edit: Today is Monday August 30... I can confirm that I got about 2:30 hours of extra battery after doing this. I'm not sure why or how, but this works!

Re: Anybody try formating sd card trick? Results?
 

You are 100% correct on that. It did not make any diff. after the format.

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I have found similar success by just de-fragmenting the card.