Is there a way in either the settings menu or an app that will prevent the Photon from constantly looking/pinging for a stronger tower? I have determined that once locked onto a tower and it stays locked (or locked onto wifi), my battery life is actually very good. For example, at lunch, I sit in my car for about 45 minutes connected to one of the 4g towers and am using the phone the whole time while listing to music/podcast and using the internet and I start with a full charge and will only lose between 10 to 15 percent of the battery.
However, where I actually live are a bunch of weak coverage areas. While sitting in the school car pickup line for about 30 minutes I will typically lose close to 40 percent of the battery and the temperature goes up to 107 – 110 while I do nothing with my phone. My normal temp is 93 – 95. I used one of the locale apps that tells you what cell tower number you are on and in the 30 minutes I was in the car line it connected to seven different towers switching between them all many times. The cell phone tower pinging also happens when at a football came (Bucs, Raymond James Stadium) because of the amount of people trying to use their phones. There is no possible way of making it through the six hours without the phone dying.
So my question is – without going into airplane mode is there a way to prevent the cell tower hopping? I would rather have a constant weak signal then having the phone constantly looking for a better signal.
I am rooted on stock rom.
I don't think so man. Cell signal plays a huge roll on cdma phones, obviously the better signal you have the better battery life. Ive never heard of a way to prevent cell tower hopping as these phones are programmed to link with the best tower it feels will offer best signal. Sometimes you'll be on a Verizon tower and that may be the best one around or it may be the worst but if its closest to you your phone will possibly connect to it. You don't have to turn on airplane mode; i use the data saver profile that only uses data when the screen is on so when screen is off i save a **** ton of battery because the phone isn't trying connect the radio.
This is the only feature remotely close to what you're asking and it won't prevent "tower hopping". This will just only connect to sprint towers if you choose "Sprint only" resulting in probably even worse battery life.
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/7494/20110915114711.jpg
Thanks for your input. I was reading some of the other threads hear and found what you show in the picture. Mine was on any cdma and I switched it to auto as it was suggested it might help with 3g.
I am going to see how automatically performs today when I pick up my kid. Tomorrow I will switch to sprint only to see if that makes a difference.
I will report tomorrow evening with findings.
If we can get custom radios for the phone that should make a difference. The radio (afaik) contains the algorithm for determining which tower to connect to based on the PRL, among other things.
What battery setting will restrict data to only when the screen is on?
Jeffrey_L said:
What battery setting will restrict data to only when the screen is on?
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Click to collapse
Go to settings and battery etc then find battery mode. Works like a charm i.swear.
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/6687/20110915145312.jpg
By turning off data when screen is off , will data sync automatically when I wake the phone up?
Also, switching to automatic in the settings did not help while in my kid's car line at school. I am going to change to Sprint Only tomorrow and reboot before I leave work. I did not reboot today when I changed to automatically. Not sure if that makes a difference.
korsjs said:
By turning off data when screen is off , will data sync automatically when I wake the phone up?
Also, switching to automatic in the settings did not help while in my kid's car line at school. I am going to change to Sprint Only tomorrow and reboot before I leave work. I did not reboot today when I changed to automatically. Not sure if that makes a difference.
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Click to collapse
Yes when u wake up the phone it will sync everything.
Just an update. Today my phone has never been better with battery and cell tower switching. The only other thing I did was reboot after changing to "automatically " . Real test will be this afternoon.
What really stands out is the battery tempature. At idle it is in the low 80s. After heavy use it is in low 90s. Maybe I did get lucky with the change.
Related
This has happened to me twice (in a row) lately. At around 8PM EST those two nights, service on my phone just disappears. The only way to get signal back was to remove my battery while the phone was on (soft reset) and everything went back to normal again.
Does anyone know the cause of this minor glitch?
Is it the Rom?
The kernel?
Or just the phone itself?
I need the answer to this ASAP because I have about 6 more days before my 30 day refund gives way. If it's the phone I would like to get a replacement before it's too late.
SpectraDawn said:
This has happened to me twice (in a row) lately. At around 8PM EST those two nights, service on my phone just disappears. The only way to get signal back was to remove my battery while the phone was on (soft reset) and everything went back to normal again.
Does anyone know the cause of this minor glitch?
Is it the Rom?
The kernel?
Or just the phone itself?
I need the answer to this ASAP because I have about 6 more days before my 30 day refund gives way. If it's the phone I would like to get a replacement before it's too late.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the only way to tell if its the phone is to revert back to stock and test it out. Its very odd that you're getting data loss at the same time everyday....i dont have an explanation for that.
Tower maintenance perhaps? Try switching to airplane mode for a few minutes and then turn airplane mode off and see if service returns. If the tower drops off for a short time, your phone may initially query the tower often but then after a couple of minutes, switch to querying at a much lower rate to save battery. Pulling the battery and re installing forces the phone to query at the higher rate - much the same way that switching on and off airplane mode might.
Just a thought. I've had similar issues in my area where the tower would drop out at the same time for several days.
Good luck!
nyydynasty said:
the only way to tell if its the phone is to revert back to stock and test it out. Its very odd that you're getting data loss at the same time everyday....i dont have an explanation for that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will try that and see if there is any difference.
FESCSteve said:
Tower maintenance perhaps? Try switching to airplane mode for a few minutes and then turn airplane mode off and see if service returns. If the tower drops off for a short time, your phone may initially query the tower often but then after a couple of minutes, switch to querying at a much lower rate to save battery. Pulling the battery and re installing forces the phone to query at the higher rate - much the same way that switching on and off airplane mode might.
Just a thought. I've had similar issues in my area where the tower would drop out at the same time for several days.
Good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The thing about the tower issue is that I thought the same thing. But my roommate has ATT and every time I had no service, he had full bars. The first time this happened I talked to an ATT rep and he was confused as well on why that would happened. Suggested returning my phone if it happened again, which it did.
I'll see if it happens again tonight
So I'm pretty sure my phone is turning off 4g by itself.
On Saturday I noticed I wasn't getting 4g at my house. I live in Los Angeles between Hollywood and downtown so I was thinking I really should be able to get 4g here and I remembered when I was showing my phone to my friend Friday night I didn't see 4g either, just 3g, and that was down in West Hollywood where it is very flat.
So I took a drive around and couldn't get 4g anywhere. Drove to a Verizon store and the woman downloaded LTE on/off and turned it on. I thought my phone had been shipped with it off but then I looked at a screenshot I took to send my friend a few days before and it said 4g.
Today I was sitting in my car after I parked outside my house messing around and seeing if I could get my mp3s to show up on my car's screen when the RZD was plugged into the car's usb port.
I saw the phone go to 3g. I have 4g at my house. I checked the network settings and mobile was turned on. I went into the LTE on/off app and LTE was turned off. I turned it back on and phone changed to 4g.
So apparently my phone's 4g is turning off by itself I believe unless I am doing something. But four Verizon employees, one that owns the RZD, told me you need an app to turn it off and on.
Is this happening to anyone else? Could it be something I'm doing?
I have seen the power settings do this when the battery level falls below some threshold. There is a setting under 'Power' that seems to affect this. It changes a variety of other settings too (like turn auto brightness off, etc.) but does not turn them back on when the battery level gets better. Looks like someone forgot context-save-and-restore.
I have disabled the power setting 'Economy' to see if things are better tonight when I let my battery drain below 10%.
I can't vouch for the first time it happened, but I know this afternoon the phone was at around 85% charge. I had been charging it before I left the house.
You know what? Both times I noticed was after I had it hooked up to my car usb. No idea if that could do anything but will try again tomorrow and see if it happens after driving around with it hooked up. Default setting is to charge only but today I did set it to data to see if that would make my mp3s show up.
I'm in california on business and I can't have 4g. I have to keep the phone in CDMA only mode and it keeps a rock solid 3G signal. If i turn it to CDMA/LTE then it will grab 4g for a bit, and ditch it and I'll have no data. No idea whats up.
As long as my 4g is turned on it works great.
So does this mean no one knows of a way I might be accidentally turning off 4g myself?
I'll be hooking it up to car tonight when I go out and see if it turns off after that.
I dunno. Just got my phone today and I went from 4G to 1x. Its quite irritating.
Yeah, there's network issues today all over. I just lost 4g about 40 min ago and this time it is still turned on on my phone.
Here's another thread about that: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1380438
Sorry your new toy can't be used to its fullest potential right when you got it, must be frustrating.
So I have a rather strange problem.
You all know those interference noises a phone causes while receiving a SMS or a call.
If I'm home the whole day I have no problem with those noises. I only have them occasionally when i get an sms or something like that.
But when I leave the house for uni for example and return later my speakers are constantly humming and it doesn't really stop. It will only stop after I turn on airplane mode and turn it back off.
Also during that time the battery drains rapidly. It's about 10% per hour.
I've had that problem with the stock rom and then went through all Resurrection Remix Versions since 2.1, but the only difference was the volume and the sound of the interference. But it never went away.
Currently I'm on Resurrection Remix 2.4 with Siyah 3.3.2 and Modem Version I9100DXLP9.
I guess I could try all diferent modem versions and look if it fixes the problem. But since I don't really know what I have to do to start it, it's a little tricky to check if it is really fixed. I only know for certain that the problem occurs after returning from uni.
Here's a screenshot of the battery drain of today.
It contains:
1. night
2. leaving the house and listening to beyond pod on my way to uni (first awake period)
3. while in uni checking the time
4. driving back, listening to beyond pod, playing on gbadroid
5. at least you see the gap in the wifi status, that's where i turned on and off the airplane mode
the prblm is radiowaves tht interfere the electronic devices,well i don kno wat settings or any tweaks u on,,,but a good idea is to check if ur cordless phone,oven,tv all r placed at far distance as per electronic rules,an yes sometimes these things happen.its not neccesary tht it takes place for all..during my studies we had this project on y the tv gets mass disturbance during lunch hrs,see the real prblm was the oven ,behind the wall and the phone,very clearly the oven will on,cause its lunch time an ppl usd to make calls cause it was free time too..so check ur devices an post
If you mean that another device is disturbing the speakers, then I can tell you that that is definitely not the case since the interference stops once I turn the phone off.
Also I don't think that any device is interfering with my phone because the problem vanishes after I reboot.
I wrote before that it suffices to turn on airplane mode and turn it back off, but today that also wasn't enough. The disturbance went away, but the battery drain stayed. So I turned the phone off, removed the battery, waited a few secs, put it back in and turned it on again. After that the battery percentage dropped instantly from 19% to 12% but since then it has stayed at 12%.
I made another Screenshot:
I think I have an idea what could be causing the problem. I think it has to do with GSM/UMTS.
Where I live there is hardly any UMTS connection. So I guess, when I leave the house and come into UMTS region my phone switches to that, but after I get home it has problems switching back to GSM and that's what's causing the noise.
It's only a wild guess, but I try to confirm it during the next days. I just switched to UMTS only. That means I have hardly any connection at home, but I'll see wether that helps my problem...
dolphx said:
I think I have an idea what could be causing the problem. I think it has to do with GSM/UMTS.
Where I live there is hardly any UMTS connection. So I guess, when I leave the house and come into UMTS region my phone switches to that, but after I get home it has problems switching back to GSM and that's what's causing the noise.
It's only a wild guess, but I try to confirm it during the next days. I just switched to UMTS only. That means I have hardly any connection at home, but I'll see wether that helps my problem...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
UMTS ought not provide the same sort of interference. I don't know the technical reason anymore, but my understanding is that only 2G induces that kind of interference in other circuitry.
That's why I think maybe it's stuck switching between UMTS and GSM and everytime it switches to GSM it interferes with my speakers and that constant switching is causing the battery drain.
I guess it could have something to do with the fact that there is no reception in my lecture hall at all.
I will have to try to track down wether that constant disturbance and battery drain only happens after the phone hasn't had any reception for a longer period of time or if it is always after I leave the house.
So today I was again in that mentioned lecture hall and after returning home the speakers again wouldn't shut up.
I noticed a little downward arrow in the connection bar. I don't really know what that's doing there since I have wifi active and no data connection.
After a while disturbing the speakers and not getting really good signal it changes to UMTS. The disturbance is gone but so is my connection.
After a reboot the arrow and the disturbance are gone. So I guess there is some data connection that is stuck or something like that?
Hi - Let me start of by saying I'm new to smartphones. The Galaxy S4 is my first one. Also, if I'm not posting in the right place, just let me know! Anyhow, for a while now, I've been having a problem with the "Android System" battery usage. It will be fine for a while, but then all of a sudden, it will spike up to really high levels that I know aren't right. For instance, after 12 hours after charging, with the android system around 3% or so, all of a sudden it will jump up to the 40s, 50s or even higher percentages. I would say that these spikes happen on average every 12 hours, but can be more or less frequent, though never more than a day. I've done a lot of searching around online about this, and it seems to be a fairly common problem. However, I don't really see any real solutions other than one that involves something called gsiff_daemon. I don't think that this is the cause of my problem though because when I click on "show CPU usage", it never shows up as an active process. I asked a friend of mine who is pretty knowledgeable about Android phones, and he suggested turning off the wifi for a while and see if it happens. Well I turned off my wifi and for 6 straight days the Android System never spiked. Within a few hours after I turned it back on, it spiked. (By the way, I also tried this with GPS, but it jumped high with the GPS off too.) My friend then suggested that maybe it's happening because it's constantly scanning for a wifi signal, so he said try unchecking "network notification" in the advanced menu of the wifi section. However, it appears that this option is not on Verizon S4 phones, even though it is on other provider's S4s! So at this point, we're at a loss. I want to add that I I think most of this excessive android system usage is not a true battery drain because it's impossible for it to go up so fast (within minutes) if you've already used 50% of your battery, for example. However, I do think there is a slight increase in the battery usage when this happens because it seems that way according to the info coming from the GSAM Battery Monitor that I have installed (but I don't know if that's always reliable either). I also have Better Battery Stats, and I can provide any wavelock info or anything else that might be helpful. I think I may just have to do a factory rest, but any help would be great!!
I was about to suggest a factory reset but it seems you're already considering that option... how strong is the connection to your router? If you aren't getting a good signal that could be a cause. Try to increase the signal strength of your antennas, if possible.
Have you taken the new OTA update? It's possible the new radio in the update may resolve your issue.
Crawshayi said:
I was about to suggest a factory reset but it seems you're already considering that option... how strong is the connection to your router? If you aren't getting a good signal that could be a cause. Try to increase the signal strength of your antennas, if possible.
Have you taken the new OTA update? It's possible the new radio in the update may resolve your issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As it turns on, I actually got the update message about the new software this morning and installed it this afternoon. So far so good. We'll see if any spikes still occur. I thought this was the Android 4.3 update at first, but then realized that it was just a Verizon thing.
I do have a weak wifi connection at my apartment as I'm using some open free wifi in the area. But actually maybe there's something there about that that could be causing all this. This wifi connection is really weird where sometimes even though it says it's connected with a decent enough signal, the data connection is just a trickle and essentially dead and then I have to turn it off and use the regular mobile data.
Well it lasted 24 hours after the software update, but yet again, I got another spike in Android System. Maybe I'll call Verizon before I do a factory reset to see if they can be of any assistance, but I'm pretty sure they won't be, and it'll end being a waste of time and energy. However, they should know that this is happening frequently. There are probably a lot more people with this problem, but they don't even look at their battery meter to see. There's got to be a solution to this. I'm afraid though that even if I do a factory reset, it will happen again.
I just want to add that the spike happened with the wifi turned off. In fact, it often seems to spike (as it did today) as I'm driving home from work with the wifi off.
Is the "WiFi on During sleeping" Checked? Also have you tried another router? 2.4ghz or 5ghz?
Zmnypit said:
Is the "WiFi on During sleeping" Checked? Also have you tried another router? 2.4ghz or 5ghz?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have it checked that the wifi is never on during sleep. It seemed to me to make sense to conserve the battery. Do you think it should always be on? I don't know anything about routers to be honest.
Check this
try this out...
go to settings-> connections-> wifi -> advanced (left select button) -> uncheck- " scanning always available" .
it has to work...
:victory:
donnys18 said:
try this out...
go to settings-> connections-> wifi -> advanced (left select button) -> uncheck- " scanning always available" .
it has to work...
:victory:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no "scanning always available" option on my phone. Maybe this is another thing that Verizon changes from other carries with the S4.
Anyhow, I discovered something a couple days ago. This may be a new "phenomenon" (lol), but now whenever I have my wifi on and I turn it off, Android System surges. When I turn it back it back on, it stops. But like clockwork, once I turn it off, it spikes once again. lol This is crazy. I'm just going to do a factory reset. I went to a Verizon store yesterday to have them look at it, and the girl there said they've never seen anything like this and that I should do a factory reset. If that doesn't work, then they'll give me a new phone. So a least I know that there is light at the end of the tunnel! lol I told her though that all you have to do is google "android system battery drain", and a whole bunch of stuff will pop up.
I've noticed an issue with my Moto G Power when walking around facilities I work at. The phone seemingly refuses to roam to another AP prior to completely losing its signal. Typically it simply disconnects from the wireless network, and completely reconnects. If I'm walking around a lot the phone essentially doesn't have wireless connectivity.
I compared with two other phones, a Pixel 3A and Motorola G6 Play. Neither of those phones show the same behavior, they will roam to the next AP seamlessly. The phone is brand new but I did do a factory reset with no change. Anyone else seen this / have a solution?
UPDATE 1340 - I was standing in one spot with fairly poor signal quality. I'd estimate it took approximately 10-20 seconds and the phone finally jumped to a closer AP. I doubt there is anything I'll be able to tweak, at least not without root to resolve this. Really bizarre behavior.
I'm having same problem. Just read where you can disable wifi scanning. Not sure if it saves the ones you want to keep.
I switched to a different SSID and the roaming works as expected. The only difference is the new SSID was protected, versus open. Doesn't make a lot of sense given the APs / controller are the same for both SSIDs.
Bake33 said:
I'm having same problem. Just read where you can disable wifi scanning. Not sure if it saves the ones you want to keep.
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Click to collapse