[Q] High CPU usage and Freezing for no reason - Atrix 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hey Anyone else in Canada experiencing their atrix freezing (especially when logging on to a new network...like say in the States) but also for no apparent reason.
My atrix has also been using high CPU cycles recently for no reason (minimum, 52 % but usually around 60-70%). I have frozen a lot of the motorola apps with Titanium but this freezing was there before. I am also using launcher pro. At first titanium and launcher pro really helped speed up my phone (not using motoblur made the phone snappier and more responsive), but now it's just back to the high cpu usage.
I should mention that I do have system manager and the advanced task manager and AVG installed but I dont using the task manager to end tasks and system manager is only to check the cpu cycles.
Frankly I am stumped.

If you've frozen something that shouldn't be it can cause erratic behavior. Unfreeze everything and see if the problem persists.
If it's fixed, slowly freeze apps again taking note about what you're freezing. It's sometimes best to try letting the OS handle things on it's own. When you put constraints on it, it can lead to irregular behavior.

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[Q] Background Apps and cpu usage

The vibrant is my first android phone, so apologies if I am simply ignorant.
Anyways, my battery life has been sucky lately (as compared to what it used to be).
I generally listen to streaming radio on my way to and from work. At work I oocasionally check email, play wordfued or send text messages. I used to get home with 60-70% charge left. Lately I have been lucky to get home with 40% left.
The change is that I am now running the Franekn-twiz rom and before I was running jfd or ji5. At first I assumed the difference was simply due to the new rom and was considering going back to stock when I noticed something odd.
I opened the samsung task manager included since ji2 and I noticed that Rom Manager was in red and said to be at 30+ cpu usage. It quickly changed to 0%, then to 2%, then 4%, then 0. It jumped arround a lot, but it was definitely doing something. I looked further and noticed that astro was was also fluctuation and getting to as high 13% cpu usage.
I had not used either application since yesterday. I killed them both.
When I restart either and then exit it (with the home button) I get the same thing again. Not trusting the samsung manager, I looked in the System Panel Light app and it also shows these apps using cpu in the background.
I know of no reason why either app should be using cpu, and I can't find a setting in tierh to stop it. Also, Rom Manager does not have an exit option, so I *have* to use a task manager to kill it to stop the cpu usage.
Please help me understand:
1. is there a valid reason for these apps to be using cpu when they shouldn't be doing anything?
2. Is there an easy way to fix this?
3. How can I figure out if this is a problem wit my phone, the rom, the apps, or something else?

At startup memory available is at 150mb but gradually decreases all day? Why?

So I installed automatic task killer just to see if I noticed a difference. So it says it is freeing memory when I engage it. Great, more memory available seems to allow the phone to run smoother/quicker. However, give the phone a couple of hours and gradually the available memory on the phone lowers and lowers until it goes below 100mb and beyond. Engaging automatic task killer frees some memory but does not bring it back to its startup memory of over 150mb. I of course do notice that my phone begins to get "laggy" once I start to dip below 100mb. I guess my question is, "where is all my memory going?". Im not too concerned about using automatic task killer. I just want to know where my memory is going cause this is most certainly the cause of a laggy phone. A quick reboot and my phone is back to its highest point of 158mb and running nice and smooth. What gives? Also where are the other 150mb or so that the phone has available according to specs? If its all dedicated to the the android OS than why is the phone so laggy by the end of day? Sorry if its too many questions but im just looking for some insight into the memory management of the x10 and android. Maybe a 1.6 issue?
It's nothing to worry about. Unused memory is useless memory. It's *nix based so the memory in use isn't going to drain the battery or slow the system down. It manages everything by itself. By repeatedly killing tasks you're actually stressing things unnecessarily.
The only time you should kill all the tasks is when you know something is being problematic, before locking your phone when you have a suspicious app that doesn't always stop automatically, etc. Otherwise the Android OS takes care of this by itself.
I stopped using task killers months ago (except for when I lock my phone because of what I mentioned above.. programs keeping it from going into a deep sleep) and my battery easily lasts two days with periods of very heavy usage.
I only use a task killer to kill certain things when they cause problems, which is not often. Things I use often I leave in memory, they only get reloaded anyway.
Tbh if things are getting laggy that quickly you probably have an app that is misbehaving.
Sent from my X10i using XDA App
Thanks for the quick replies. Automatic task killer has already been uninstalled. Looking forward to the update with hopes that it helps with lag issues
Sent from my X10a using XDA App
Well that still doesn't solve the problem of badly written apps draining the battery. Often I've found that without a task killer my battery life has improved, but on occasion when I download a new app, I look at my battery usage a few hours later, and that app has managed to use 45% of my battery even though I used it for a few minutes. So then I just reboot
In conclusion, don't use a task killer, but keep an eye on the battery usage feature if you find that it has suddenly gone down (Settings -> About Phone -> Battery Usage)
I use Memory Booster. Quiet amazing.
hi i used to be same as you and always used talk killers
then i came across this article http:// www.ipmart-forum.com/ showthread.php?t=528674 (watch for spaces in the link)
since reading this i installed watchdog lite and i only kill a task if its overusing the system.
you can set it to notify you when an app is using more than a certain % of resources and its great then if i need to i just kill that app/process
pngface said:
Well that still doesn't solve the problem of badly written apps draining the battery. Often I've found that without a task killer my battery life has improved, but on occasion when I download a new app, I look at my battery usage a few hours later, and that app has managed to use 45% of my battery even though I used it for a few minutes. So then I just reboot
In conclusion, don't use a task killer, but keep an eye on the battery usage feature if you find that it has suddenly gone down (Settings -> About Phone -> Battery Usage)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that doesn't work all the time is kinda annoying to keep checking your phone and see if the battery is alive or not
bongd said:
It's nothing to worry about. Unused memory is useless memory. It's *nix based so the memory in use isn't going to drain the battery or slow the system down. It manages everything by itself. By repeatedly killing tasks you're actually stressing things unnecessarily.
The only time you should kill all the tasks is when you know something is being problematic, before locking your phone when you have a suspicious app that doesn't always stop automatically, etc. Otherwise the Android OS takes care of this by itself.
I stopped using task killers months ago (except for when I lock my phone because of what I mentioned above.. programs keeping it from going into a deep sleep) and my battery easily lasts two days with periods of very heavy usage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
K i seriusly need some answers how the hell do people come to know which app prevents it from sleeping? how can you figure out a bad application . does sleep here means when locks itself and screen goes blank? confused :S

What do you do to keep your Eris fast?

At boot, once I close everything, I keep 80mb of ram free. (besides what I need.)
I have auto task killer set to aggressive, every 30 minutes. Phone is generally fast, however sometimes everything just gets restarted at once. Phone crawls until autotask killer does its magic again. These are default GAPPS and the like. I love maps, gmail, and the like, but I'm damn near ready to delete them.
Is there anything I can do?
(overclocked to 710, any higher and the phone gets slow as soon as it gets warm, anything lower doesn't help at all)
Maybe I'm missing something. I come from a blackberry, before that a windows phone. Task killing was important, I've read that it isn't so here. But I just don't know what to do to keep my phone from going into a crawl.
viogrep said:
At boot, once I close everything, I keep 80mb of ram free. (besides what I need.)
I have auto task killer set to aggressive, every 30 minutes. Phone is generally fast, however sometimes everything just gets restarted at once. Phone crawls until autotask killer does its magic again. These are default GAPPS and the like. I love maps, gmail, and the like, but I'm damn near ready to delete them.
Is there anything I can do?
(overclocked to 710, any higher and the phone gets slow as soon as it gets warm, anything lower doesn't help at all)
Maybe I'm missing something. I come from a blackberry, before that a windows phone. Task killing was important, I've read that it isn't so here. But I just don't know what to do to keep my phone from going into a crawl.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They really aren't so important here, and most ROM's already come overclocked with task killers and/or governors.
What ROM are you using?
Do you have alot of widgets on your homescreen?
The only time I've had your problem is when I had like a total of 5 homescreens COMPLETELY filled with widgets.
viogrep said:
At boot, once I close everything, I keep 80mb of ram free. (besides what I need.)
I have auto task killer set to aggressive, every 30 minutes. Phone is generally fast, however sometimes everything just gets restarted at once. Phone crawls until autotask killer does its magic again. These are default GAPPS and the like. I love maps, gmail, and the like, but I'm damn near ready to delete them.
Is there anything I can do?
(overclocked to 710, any higher and the phone gets slow as soon as it gets warm, anything lower doesn't help at all)
Maybe I'm missing something. I come from a blackberry, before that a windows phone. Task killing was important, I've read that it isn't so here. But I just don't know what to do to keep my phone from going into a crawl.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Personally, I used to use the task killers a lot, and while on 2.1 I think it helped a little. But as I switched around different froyo ROMs and am now on gingerbread, I noticed that the task killers actually hindered my phone's performance. Battery would discharge quickly, the phone would become sluggish and sometimes lag so bad I would reboot.
I found that just leaving the android system to do its own thing worked out the best. Memory management has been greatly improved, and really eliminated the need for task killing apps and the like.
Always good reading:
"FAQ: Why You Shouldn’t Be Using a Task Killer with Android"
"Multitasking the Android Way"
"Android Task Killers Explained: What They Do and Why You Shouldn’t Use Them"
Using Gingerbread, clocked at 604mhz. CPU governor ondemand. (Bump it to 748mhz and interactive for heavy games)
No killers, although I used to be religious about autokiller memory optimizer. GB handles memory and app killing very well.
And the stock app management tool loads quick and is easy to use to kill something that's acting naughty or hung.
I use cache cleaner, set to clean once a day.
I am picky about my apps. If I don't like their startup and shutdown behavior, I find an alternative program.
I'm also rather anti social so no twit, face, up ur butt, whatcha doing apps constantly syncing for me.
I do use genie for news and weather and smooth calendar synced with my exchange via gmail. But these don't update but one every 3-4 hours. Gmail on demand unless I'm expecting something, then I'll let the sync run.
Used to be an adw fanboy. But switched to LP. Its simple and light. Adw is still my favorite especially EX, but LP performs better for me.
I also uninstall everything I don't use, email, dpm, stock music, HTML viewer, setup wizard, keyboard tutorial, development, rom manager, carhome, couple other none dependencies. Use that free space to more some of my root apps, widget apps, utilities.
Also use. Zach's cache2cache. Freeing up a little more data room. No apps on SD.
Widgets I use; note everything 3+ Widgets, genie news and weather, smooth calendar, a photo slide widget app. Usually about it. Sometimes a full month calendar.
No lag or performance loss. My daily usage averages 4 to 6 hours a day.
Edit - also turn off orientation if I don't need it to keep my screen from redrawing every time I pick upmy phone or adjust my wrist
Sent from my GSBv1.7-ERIS using XDA App
I do as little as possible.
I kill some tasks when my phone first starts up, that's the only time I use my task killer unless a program is glitching out.
I keep setcpu profiles.
I keep my apps up to date.
I keep my ROM up to date.
After installing/ uninstalling a lot of programs (Such as when I first flash a new rom) I always make sure I Wipe my dalvik cache.
I always wipe between ROMs. It's more stable and always faster.
I suggest to keep your phone fast you DONT:
use setcpu's widget.
use autotaskkiller (it's just one more process. And once you kill tasks, there's no reason to continuously re-kill persistent ones)
Clear your cache too often. Your cache is there for a reason. I personally never clear mine, just my dalvik.
Dedication
amfetamine said:
Using Gingerbread, clocked at 604mhz. CPU governor ondemand. (Bump it to 748mhz and interactive for heavy games)
No killers, although I used to be religious about autokiller memory optimizer. GB handles memory and app killing very well.
And the stock app management tool loads quick and is easy to use to kill something that's acting naughty or hung.
I use cache cleaner, set to clean once a day.
I am picky about my apps. If I don't like their startup and shutdown behavior, I find an alternative program.
I'm also rather anti social so no twit, face, up ur butt, whatcha doing apps constantly syncing for me.
I do use genie for news and weather and smooth calendar synced with my exchange via gmail. But these don't update but one every 3-4 hours. Gmail on demand unless I'm expecting something, then I'll let the sync run.
Used to be an adw fanboy. But switched to LP. Its simple and light. Adw is still my favorite especially EX, but LP performs better for me.
I also uninstall everything I don't use, email, dpm, stock music, HTML viewer, setup wizard, keyboard tutorial, development, rom manager, carhome, couple other none dependencies. Use that free space to more some of my root apps, widget apps, utilities.
Also use. Zach's cache2cache. Freeing up a little more data room. No apps on SD.
Widgets I use; note everything 3+ Widgets, genie news and weather, smooth calendar, a photo slide widget app. Usually about it. Sometimes a full month calendar.
No lag or performance loss. My daily usage averages 4 to 6 hours a day.
Edit - also turn off orientation if I don't need it to keep my screen from redrawing every time I pick upmy phone or adjust my wrist
Sent from my GSBv1.7-ERIS using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
THAT is a lot of work and you do this EVERY day? WOW that is dedication!
Kent_Davis said:
THAT is a lot of work and you do this EVERY day? WOW that is dedication!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Errrrrrrrrrr?
Just an update. I used the majority of advice here. Installed watchdog. After about 4 days worth of running and watchdogs help I just Uninstalled Google Reader and Facebook. Never have to kill a task and everything runs smooth now.
Thanks!
Kent_Davis said:
THAT is a lot of work and you do this EVERY day? WOW that is dedication!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hee-hee... I live on my Eris
Naw, pretty much just the new rom setup routine. But I do seem to spend more time in settings menus than in actual apps
Sent from my GSBv1.7-ERIS using XDA Premium App
Contrary to what most people will tell you, I use a Task Killer and some will call me a liar but I see a very good improvement on my battery life. As soon as I'm done doing whatever I was doing on my phone, I open Advanced Task Killer and kill every task running then lock my phone (press the end button) and tuck it away. People say it doesn't work but everyone's Eris is different and reacts different to different apps. I love having it and I love using it. I usually go in to cyanogenmod settings and use the overclocker, 748Max, 122Min, Ondemand gov, set to boot. I also use LauncherPro Plus which seems to be faster and smoother than ADW therefore using less power. I also have absolutely no widgets whatsoever. Wifi is only on when I'm home and GPS is never on unless I'm using navigation. That's really about it and my Eris runs smooth as a baby's backside !!

So does freezing of apps really work ?

Ok, so i froze few apps through TB to save on battery. (like Buddies now,Wifi sharing, Reading hub, Samsung apps etc.). And then I installed OS monitor from the market to monitor the processes running. To my surprise, I see Buddies now and Samsung apps running at least once every 10-15 seconds. I have uninstalled Buddies now through TB as well. But the process still seems to be running.
Can anybody verify this. ? No wonder I am getting crappy battery life. I am on rooted stock rom.
Is it that i have not frozen some associated apps which is leading to this ?
Cheers
Ashish
Have you rebooted your device?
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
You should only freeze those which causes wake from deep sleep. You need to see what apps/processes are running on background with the help of application Better Battery Stats and see under Partial Wakelocks. I, for myself have frozen nothing because I don't have anything which causes any major wakes.
Besides, if you are on KF3 then there shouldn't be any Wifi sharing problem. Also Samsung app also doesn't involve in wake situations.
Regards.
I have pretty much frozen all Samsung bloatware that is ok to freeze and battery life is vastly superior now compared to what it was beforehand, i also froze Maps as i don't use it much and some other apps i don't use much if i need to use them it takes a few seconds to defrost them and there you go.
I am on KF3 and the only battery eating thing has been:
"Software Update Service (com.wssyncmldm)"
So I froze it and presto twice the battery life of what I had before.
I sometimes use MAPS with Lattitude. But when I am done I explicitly log out of lattitude, or out goes the power.... as it will keep running in the background.
BTW I use the FREE Anttek App manager to freeze stuf, works great!
-David
Thanks linux monkey, rebooting solved the issue, didnot know you need to reboot after freezing for it to take effect.
Cheers
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

The truth about battery saver apps, cleaners, etc

The last week or so since I got my HTC One Max, I have been slowly configuring it and setting it up to my tastes. On my previous phone, an HTC Rezound, I used an app called Clean Master to manage the phones ram, and Battery Doctor to extend its battery life. I tried an application called Battery Guru on my Max, but it actually drained the battery faster while the phone was not doing anything. After uninstalling it, my battery life seems to have shot upwards. I have not re-installed Battery Doctor. I have read the following things about these battery saver apps over the last few days:
1. Some say the applications are not needed and you should not use them, especially if they include a task manager. The logic was that Android was designed to have multiple apps in memory all the time, and closing them, then opening them again from scratch, uses up the battery.
2.Others have said just the opposite. They claim the applications greatly increase battery life. If you read the reviews on the Android Market about these two applications, that seems to be the case.
Both of these applications I have used get rave reviews from the many folks that have used them. Is the benefit they are seeing just imagined? Do the applications actually work? Is it also possible that they work for some and not others, since there are a lot of models of Android devices out there?
Most things that are ram "cleaners" are just giving you a slight point in time speed boost. Your ram will fill up again (as it should). Most so called battery doctors cripple your phone to extend battery life (think extreme power saver on the Max). What you want is something that blocks the applications that you do have running from performing activities in the background that you dont need at that moment ( think facebook looking for your location even when not using it just so it will know it faster when you open the app).
I use a combo of firewall to block most apps from using the internet (radio takes a lot of battery) and greenify which hibernates the app while keeping it in ram so it brings me into the app where I was before.
mikekoz said:
The last week or so since I got my HTC One Max, I have been slowly configuring it and setting it up to my tastes. On my previous phone, an HTC Rezound, I used an app called Clean Master to manage the phones ram, and Battery Doctor to extend its battery life. I tried an application called Battery Guru on my Max, but it actually drained the battery faster while the phone was not doing anything. After uninstalling it, my battery life seems to have shot upwards. I have not re-installed Battery Doctor. I have read the following things about these battery saver apps over the last few days:
1. Some say the applications are not needed and you should not use them, especially if they include a task manager. The logic was that Android was designed to have multiple apps in memory all the time, and closing them, then opening them again from scratch, uses up the battery.
2.Others have said just the opposite. They claim the applications greatly increase battery life. If you read the reviews on the Android Market about these two applications, that seems to be the case.
Both of these applications I have used get rave reviews from the many folks that have used them. Is the benefit they are seeing just imagined? Do the applications actually work? Is it also possible that they work for some and not others, since there are a lot of models of Android devices out there?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try greenify
Sent from my HTC One max using xda app-developers app
Free ram is idle ram. Having a lot of ram usage isnt a bad thing... Don't know how many people think the opposite. Now if it gets too high then yea its an issue when opening new apps but this issue died with gingerbread in all reality. Some would argue task managers even died with froyo.
Sent from my HTC0P3P7 using xda app-developers app
Thanks everybody! I have installed Greenify, and removed Battery Doctor and Clean Sweep, and my phone is running great! I like it so much, I have put Greenify on my other Android tablets. No more battery saving apps or task managers for me!!
The trick is to properly manage the apps that you use.
The problem with task killers is that some apps that you kill will simply "respawn" themselves automatically in the background. Killing apps that do this just means your phone is constantly closing/opening the app again and again which is worse than not killing it in the first place. You will just have to experiment and check which apps respawn after killing them and avoid having the task killer auto-kill those apps, or uninstall those apps.
You also have battery saver apps that try to manage turning certain features on/off like WiFi, GPS and Blutooth. The most efficient way of managing this is to manually disable those features when you don't need them. Having an app do this for you means that app now has to be running all the time to manage those other features, which itself will ironically increase battery usage.
Avoiding as many apps as possible that need to constantly run in the background to perform it's function. These mostly include instant messenger apps or other apps that regularly check the internet for updates in the background. Either avoid them or if possible increase the delay between how often the app checks for updates/info. The Greenify app will allow you to "suspend/pause/freeze" specific apps when they are not currently on your screen. This keeps them from performing any activity in the background, and will help save battery if used on apps that would normally be doing tasks in the background. The downside is that if that app is suppose to be doing something while in the background, it won't be doing that anymore...like checking for updates, chat messages etc...
Keep screen brightness on automatic, so you don't waste power on a bright screen when in a darker environment.
These should be more than enough tips to help you better manage your battery.

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