SGS2 + Dlink DIR-655 = Battery Drain on Wifi - Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Following many SGS2 battery drain threads, I've come to this conclusion that it is due to the rare combo of SGS2 with certain routers. This might be what the AOS bug is all about.
With newer kernels we are no longer able to see this drain easily on BetterBatteruStats. Instead, I've used SystemTunerPro to do many many recordings at 1 minute intervals to record the CPU usage with wifi on/off, with my regular set up, and with a bare rom with nothing else installed.
My findings: with a freshly installed rom or not, as soon as wifi is connected to my Dlink DIR-655, the CPU usage increases from roughly 0.3% to 1% (averaged over a 10-minute sampling period with screen off, background sync off), which drops back down as soon as wifi is turned off. More interesting, when the Dlink router is out of range, turning on wifi does NOT drain the battery.
I was puzzled by the result, so I went to a local coffee shop and connect to the public wifi access point, no increase with CPU usage whether on wifi or 3g only. So something is wrong with the Dlink DIR-655.
So, following some searches, this seems to be a somewhat recognized issue by some SGS2 owners (not too may because I bet not many would not suspect that the router could be the culprit). I tried changing from auto channel to CH8...11, changing from wireless N to G, changing authentication from wpa to wep to open, each time I change something, I made a new recording with wifi on compared to wifi off. Same thing. Only when connected to my Dlink DIR-655 does the drain occur.
Note: you cannot tell if your battery is being drained by just analyzing your wakelocks. In this wifi battery drain test, no wakelock stands out in terms of time on CPU. But if you use battery monitor widget pro, you can leave your screen off and let it plot. If with screen off your current draw is 100mh or above, here you have a battery drain. Your phone can very well be in "deep sleep" when this happens.
What to do:
I use JuiceDefender to make sure wifi is turned off when screen is off. You should set wifi sleep policy to never. Even though you could set it to turn off when screen is off, sometimes wifi cannot be turned off successfully using this method. When that happens battery drains without you knowing. This is why people have a fully charged phone before going to sleep and wake up with a dead battery.
Now it's your turn to share your experiences. If your SGS2 drains battery:
Do you have a Dlink router?
Do you have a DIR-655?
Or do you have this router by but have no battery drain.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

I have the same problem with my DIR 655 and SGS2. In 18 hours with WIFI on, Android OS was top process with around 9h runtime. I also changed the WPA, channel etc. settings without result. Currently I want to downgrade the router firmware from 1.35NA to 1.21. In BBS, if I order the kernel wakelock by count I get one for about 140K, and it's active only when connected to wireless. I think the router doesn't let the SGS2 to sleep for more than several hundred miliseconds. You may play with advanced wireless settings in the router and change the Beacon Period and DTIM Interval values. I only hope that DLink will address this issue.
Cheers

Hi Sysod,
Did changing thevbeacon period solve your issue? Or downgrading router firmware to 1.21. From the Dlink changelog I don't see how it can improve our situation.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

I have played a bit with beacon settings without succes. I noticed a decrease in battery drain, but also a decrease in wireless performance and I stopped tweaking. I'll see if dlink do something about it or else I'll buy a new router. The firmware to my router can't be downgraded, unfortunately, even with the russian modified one.:banghead:

Thinking I'm having this problem myself.
While researching I found this
http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=38655.0

ehrw said:
Thinking I'm having this problem myself.
While researching I found this
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why I didn't think of this? After reading that thread, I fired up Wireshark on the laptop. I found many broadcast ARP packets originating from my 2 PCs. The culprit was the Cannon scanner software. After I disabled it, no more broadcasts and no more battery drain. Android OS is still high, but this might be a fault in reading.
Cheers

This router is terrible. I have had so many issue with it as well as mobile/laptop battery drain.
I just got a new router (not from Dlink) and battery levels consumption is what I would call normal, as in what I would get at work/wifi AP.

I guess this about confirm the combination of dlink dir 655 and sgs2 is bad for battery. I was going bonkers with my battery flat out in few hours once connected to my dir655.
Without connecting to wifi, based battery usage apps, I can get about 1% for 20-23 minutes and it took 1% for 6 minutes with wifi connected.
Now that I found this thread, I will be using my older 150n linksys/Cisco, for the next few hours to check if this is really a dlink issue combo with android since my son battery on his galaxy mini and the older galaxy s also flat out in less than 10 hours.

wcg707 said:
I guess this about confirm the combination of dlink dir 655 and sgs2 is bad for battery. I was going bonkers with my battery flat out in few hours once connected to my dir655.
Without connecting to wifi, based battery usage apps, I can get about 1% for 20-23 minutes and it took 1% for 6 minutes with wifi connected.
Now that I found this thread, I will be using my older 150n linksys/Cisco, for the next few hours to check if this is really a dlink issue combo with android since my son battery on his galaxy mini and the older galaxy s also flat out in less than 10 hours.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, did it help?

DLink DIR-615, same issue, I was about to RMA the phone!
PS:
My fix with an updated DLink DIR-615: change WPA2 Protection from TKIP+AES to AES (TKIP only did not work with my i9100). In G Only it seemed draining even less (quick test), but I got this router for N+G and it seems working now.

Changing the DTIM interval from 1 to 255 solved the issue for me.
Had a battery loss of ~4% in 6-7 hours.
Let me know if this worked for you.
Gr,
Deva

I too am having this issue, but not on every single ROM that I run. I have a SII and so does my wife, running different ROMs. My phone has this battery drain problem with the Blu Kuban Kernal where I did not see it before. My wife is running Calkins old GB Rom and does not seem to have the issue. Changing the DTIM interval from 1 to 255 did not solve the issue for me, although it did seem to help. My phone stayed in deep sleep mode about 5 percent moer after changing this setting.

I think you should find Elins tech.szelins.com

Related

[Q] Wifi on 100% of the time or only when unlocked?

Dismissing things like sync and widget updates, etc., which option do you think ultimately saves more battery life? On the one hand you have wifi constantly locked on even if the phone is in deep sleep for hours. On the other hand, if you find that you use the phone quite a bit in spurts, wouldn't it seem that the wifi constantly turning on and connecting, then turning off during sleep, would actually use more power than just being constantly connected?
It might be a bad analogy but I liken it to when you turn a car off and then on as it uses more fuel compared to just letting it idle for a few minutes instead. Would this be the same with power consumption on our phone?
I've seen many articles that indicate Wi-Fi is much better on battery life then using 3g. So I've been running my like that for awhile. Not sure about the results though. Wi-Fi is now my second biggest battery drain, behind Display.
Mine is set to stay ON always. I get better battery life when using wifi.Some say the opposite, try both ways and see which works best for you.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using XDA App
I have the policy set to sleep when off. Even when I do use my phone regularly, I find that at times its going to help you save more battery life without having wifi constantly scanning for access points.
Red5 said:
I have the policy set to sleep when off. Even when I do use my phone regularly, I find that at times its going to help you save more battery life without having wifi constantly scanning for access points.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just up the scan interval.
Standby drain of our wifi chip is VERY low, less than 1/10 that of the original GalaxyS series if power_profile.xml is correct - and it's FAR more power efficient to transfer data over wifi than cell radio on our phones for a variety of reasons.

[Q] Certain WiFi network draining battery

Hey! I have a battery drainage problem. My batter goes down really, really fast when I connect to my WiFi network at home. This happens only with my WiFi at home, after I changed the router to a new one. This did not happen with the previous router. I DO NOT experience such drastic battery drain on any other WiFi networks. This occurs on both my SGS2 and SGS3. This is clearly not an issue with my phone or android version but the WiFi router. Could you give me some troubleshooting ideas what I could do/test with my router (maybe it's a certain feature that drains the battery) to reduce the battery drain?
I cant post links yet, so replace the spaces with dots:
i imgur com/kSHr5 png
Thanks in advance,
cheers
Any ideas guys? I'm really lost here. Using WiFi at home pretty much forces me to constantly charge my phone.

'keep wifi on when screen times out'?

what are others thoughts on some of the pros and cons of this update? i'm thinking it will actually save battery to have wifi 'always on' in standby mode rather than repeatedly switching between a on/off state which uses more energy.
It will definitely eat more battery if it's always on under the lockscreen...
Also there is an option to deactivate notifications when new wifi hotspots are around.. if you are about battery life you should deactivate this..
Ikkari said:
It will definitely eat more battery if it's always on under the lockscreen...
Also there is an option to deactivate notifications when new wifi hotspots are around.. if you are about battery life you should deactivate this..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I keep my Wifi always on because it consumes the least battery (vs 3G, LTE, etc).
If I don't play games on my Lumia 920 the battery can last 3 days.
This update is freezing my phone Dunno why but I have tested it. I occasionally get a freeze now and then, but when the keep wifi is on, it is like every couple of hrs... Will test it more though.
Ikkari said:
It will definitely eat more battery if it's always on under the lockscreen...
Also there is an option to deactivate notifications when new wifi hotspots are around.. if you are about battery life you should deactivate this..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wrong unless your phone is using 5-year old wifi chip.
Correct me if I am wrong, but is the wifi on this phone an on demand type system? From what I see on mine, the wifi unless being used for an actual update or downloading other content goes to sleep when the lock screen is on. It then wakes up if there is an update pushed to it or if something else needs it or of course if you unlock the phone. At least that is the way it appears that mine works.
Also your radio service are going to use much more power than the wifi will as they are higher power transmitters and receivers. There is a reason wifi only works within a few hundred feet and radio works for several miles that is due to the power difference. Of course with more power you get more battery consumption.
In the case of conserving the battery you are better off to use wifi when possible, leave it on and let the phone control it.
In my experience keeping Wifi on permanently lead to a remarkable decrease in battery life. That will depend on where you are though. If I have it sitting at home where it has Wifi connectivity it's likely that I would see better battery life because all actual transfers will happen via Wifi. At work though it can't connect to the Wifi network (private phone, work network) and so I have 3G running anyway while the phone keeps looking for Wifi networks to connect to.
The problem boils down to the fact that while you can switch off Wifi completely because everything can still work using 3G you can't switch off the phone part completely because only data is done over Wifi but you still need the mobile connection to receive calls/SMS.
I would suggest to anyone to simply try out what works better for them. For me it worked best to let Wifi deactivate automatically as it had been the default in WP since WP7 came out.
foxbat121 said:
Wrong unless your phone is using 5-year old wifi chip.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe Wifi is using less power when you are downloading something and need a lot of data... But when your phone is idle... Constant on Wifi is using far more battery power than 3G that checks for email or weather every 1-2 hours...
Simple enough...if you are consistently in an area with a WiFi signal, leave WiFi "always on"...it will consume less battery. If you're in an area without WiFi signal then turn it off, as searching for a signal will help run your battery down.
Sent from my LG-E970 using Tapatalk 2
Ikkari said:
Maybe Wifi is using less power when you are downloading something and need a lot of data... But when your phone is idle... Constant on Wifi is using far more battery power than 3G that checks for email or weather every 1-2 hours...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Again, simply not true unless you are using a 5-year old phone. Even if you are in an area that has no wifi connection, the extra drain caused by searching for Wi-Fi networks is minimum in a modern OS and modern chipset. I have left all my android phones (the ones that offer Wi-Fi always on feature for a few years now) wifi on all the time. Never have felt much difference vs if I turn wifi off. It annoys me that WP didn't offer this capability for so long.
foxbat121 said:
Again, simply not true unless you are using a 5-year old phone. Even if you are in an area that has no wifi connection, the extra drain caused by searching for Wi-Fi networks is minimum in a modern OS and modern chipset. I have left all my android phones (the ones that offer Wi-Fi always on feature for a few years now) wifi on all the time. Never have felt much difference vs if I turn wifi off. It annoys me that WP didn't offer this capability for so long.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tested a lot of phones Android and WP, my experience is that wifi always on is a battery killer... And I'm talking about state of the art hardware... It's just my 2 cent's but i keep it off...
When I don't charge overnight and wifi is always on my battery drops about 40%
with only 3G on about 8-10%
Foxbat: you can leave it any way you want to do it. I'm not saying Microsoft should remove the feature. But in my experience keeping Wifi on kills the battery faster. I tested it for my use case with always on and with Auto and in the end: Auto it was for me.
The best advice you can give to people is: try it out yourself and you will see what works best for you.
A picture or two says it all. See the attached files for my two testing: one with wifi always on for 24-hour and one with Wi-Fi in auto mode for 24-hour:
The right picture shows 0.0%/hour under current discharge rate... pretty impressive
Ikkari said:
The right picture shows 0.0%/hour under current discharge rate... pretty impressive
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The keyword is 'Current' -- means at that moment. You can derive the same thing from the left in various sections. The key here is that I don't see any discernible difference. Certainly not a battery killer in any sense as you claimed.
If you look at the first 12-hour period of both chart (when the phone is mostly sleep and not used), the result is almost identical. FYI, there are three push emails connected all the time: Hotmail, GMail and Corporate Exchange Email.
Yes the keyword 'Current' -- means at that moment... so your phone is not discharging although your screen is on... Very accurate app...
Ikkari said:
Yes the keyword 'Current' -- means at that moment... so your phone is not discharging although your screen is on... Very accurate app...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, what you saying is that if you have the screen on, you will see your battery percentage drop immediately? You should return your phone if that is the case.
Battery app get its information from the phone OS reporting. If the OS reported the same battery percentage over a short period of time, the discharge rate won't be anything other than zero. That's limitation of the platform, not app.
Instead of criticize the app which is not the point of the post, why don't you post your findings where leave Wi-Fi always on kills your battery?
it' % per hour... and your phone is using currently using 0,0% per hour so if you leave it like that it will run for ever... so where is the mistake?
Ikkari said:
it' % per hour... and your phone is using currently using 0,0% per hour so if you leave it like that it will run for ever... so where is the mistake?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
% per hour is a unit of measurement. It doesn't mean you have to take one hour to measure it in order to claim its rate. That will be average rate on that hour, not current rate which is meant to see what your current usage pattern is. It can't be used to predict your battery life. If you notice that when you take your phone off the charger, it will stay on 100% for quite some time before it starts to drop. Does that mean your phone battery can last forever? Think about it before post these ridiculous statements.
Foxbat - you are trying to tell us how our devices should behave while we are telling you how they actually behave in the real world out there. You can repeat your 5 years story as often as you want to but it clearly doesn't live up to the factual reality we experience every day and I guess after trying it out with different ROMs on the 920 and leaving all other settings the same I know the effect it had pretty well.
Nice to know though that you are having a different experience with different devices.

[Q] battery drain due to WiFi being enabled after update to 4.1.2

After updating my Galaxy S2 to Android 4.1.2 the battery drain increased significantly and I found out that the WiFi is responsible for it. With WiFi enabled I get a battery drain of about 4% per hour, turning it off lowers it to 0.9% per hour. Strange thing is that there is no big difference in alarm count or awake time if I turn it on or off so it seems to be just a WiFi related issue. Also the WiFi doesn't seem to shut down in standby if I tell the phone to do so. I turned the screen off, waited for a minute and WiFi was still enabled.
I'm on the Samsung Stock ROM with Siyah 6.0b5 and using a static IP.
Before the update I left my WiFi always on and it didn't cause much battery drain. Turning WiFi on when needed should only be a temporary solution because it's annoying and my plan only covers 200 mb of data.
I searched the whole forum but couldn't find a solution so your help is much appreciated
H4ndl3 said:
After updating my Galaxy S2 to Android 4.1.2 the battery drain increased significantly and I found out that the WiFi is responsible for it. With WiFi enabled I get a battery drain of about 4% per hour, turning it off lowers it to 0.9% per hour. Strange thing is that there is no big difference in alarm count or awake time if I turn it on or off so it seems to be just a WiFi related issue. Also the WiFi doesn't seem to shut down in standby if I tell the phone to do so. I turned the screen off, waited for a minute and WiFi was still enabled.
I'm on the Samsung Stock ROM with Siyah 6.0b5 and using a static IP.
Before the update I left my WiFi always on and it didn't cause much battery drain. Turning WiFi on when needed should only be a temporary solution because it's annoying and my plan only covers 200 mb of data.
I searched the whole forum but couldn't find a solution so your help is much appreciated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
Stock XWLSN
It was the static IP setting. I don't know why that causes a huge battery drain but after disabling it the main part of the increased battery drain vanished but the runtime is still not as good as before the update
H4ndl3 said:
It was the static IP setting. I don't know why that causes a huge battery drain but after disabling it the main part of the increased battery drain vanished but the runtime is still not as good as before the update
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello
Have to ask. Do you mean you switched from static to "dchp" on the galaxy s2 or on your router/broadband modem?
I ask since my broadband modem is not very configurable. Currently my sgs2 drains from 100% to 35% using wifi during the night. Without wifi from 100% to 93%.
But Id like to continue to use wifi at home and work. Today its not possible. Freshly updated with factory resets and formating of sd cards etc.
Regards

Battery drain with WiFi on

Since several original ROMs (currently on G925FXXU2COH2), my phone has a huge battery drain during sleep. In the evening with 100% battery and after 8 hours the battery is around 69-72% (without use). If I turn off the WiFi there is no battery drain, the battery is around 95% after 8 hours. So the problem seems to be the WiFi.
I already read about turning off VoLTE settings, but my ROM doesn't have that feature, so it has to be something else.
Anyone with the same problem or solution? Like to hear from you, thanks in advance!
Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-G925F met Tapatalk
I have the exact same problem and have not been able to find a fix or anyone really talking about this problem.
Wifi definitely seems to be the problem for me. If I put the phone into airplane mode and leave wifi on, the battery drains at an incredible rate. It will lose 30% or more overnight. Turning wifi off and leaving the phone running normally (everything else on) gives me normal battery drain 1% or so an hour...if even that.
Would love to see a fix for this. I'm on G925V OE2 rooted with custom rom, but the same thing happened when completely stock OE2.
Lots of issues here too, basically since i got the phone several roms ago. I've isolated the issue to Wifi settings: keep wifi on when asleep... Switch that to "only when on". This solves the battery drain, but when mobile data roaming is off on foreign networks, no mails/whatsapps etc will arrive at your phone until you turn the screen on (sucks also). I currently have Tasker manage my wifi power status, depending on my location (network based) and charge status (i.e. when in car). This helps the drainage to a minimum, cause wifi is only on when no 3G/4G network is available for me. Offtopic: the wifi setting "always scan" has also been set to "only when wifi on". When "scan always" is checked, wifi will also be used then not enabled. Besides that, it messes up my BT car connection when calling (not when streaming audio). I hope Marshmallow solves this, as i hate to sell the phone and go back to a nexus device (which i've had several without complaints).
Please note that some settings mentioned above, could be a little different on your phone. Mine is in Dutch and i've translated them for clarification (but perhaps not exactly how Samsund did).

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