What drains the battery of my Centro?

[tomtom1977]

Hi guys,

I currently experiencing a battery drain on my Centro. The battery lasts about 24 hours, thats it. No idea if this is a common problem.

On my TX I had a program which draws cute graphs when the battery is used/the TX is charged. But unfortunately I dont remember the name.

Does anyone has an idea or knows this program?

Many thanks.

[Clie Patra]

Could it be BatteryGraph (http://palm.jeroenwitteman.com/BatteryGraph/)? Or BattGraph (http://www.palmblvd.com/software/pc/BattGraph-2001-1-15-palm-pc.html)?

[palmandy]

Try http://discussion.treocentral.com/showthread.php?t=168260.

Good diagnostic is http://mytreo.net/downloads/treo-battery,309.html.

[tomtom1977]

It was BatteryGraph - just a question to stick the right words together... thanks a lots mate.

[tomtom1977]

That looks that I have exactly the same symptom. I already switched off severall programs like (I cannot look on my Centro right now, it is already off due to too much Battery drain.) Teallock, PowerMan and NVBackup, I even removed my lovely MicroSD card, but... battery is still drained.

Just imagine, yesterday around 11pm 95% battery, in the morning at 7am 65%, afternoon 30% and now at 5pm device is off.

Thank you very much.

[Aces]

Could it be interacting with your cell provider? I have a 680, & use AT&T. I'm amazed how much better the battery life is with the cell radio turned off; even if I'm not taking/sending calls. And I've noticed that periodically with the cell radio on, the screen turns on by itself. I use Powerman. and have it set to turn the radio off at night. I notice that the screen never does this "periodic on" behavior once it's switched to night mode. My best guess for this is that the carriers interact with the phone periodically, to establish location of the phone. When that happens (at least on the 680 with AT&T), the screen turns on temporarily.

The best way to see if this is significant would be one night, with a fresh charge, set the screen brightness very low; & check the battery life the next morning. Then the next night, repeat, but with brightness on max. see how significantly different the two morning %battery life readings are.

[JKib]

I didn't follow the link, so you may already know this, but here's some things that really helped me.

1. Check every app you have for an auto update feature (Like DocumentsToGo). If it has one, turn it off.
2. Under prefs and date/time, turn off network (set it to do nothing).
3. If you're using an email program, check if it has a disconnect feature. I have Snapper set to check email every 30 mins and then disconnect from the net.
4. I've found signal strength is a huge deal with Verizon. Under phone prefs, look for a Select Band and set it to Home Only (prevents the phone from trying to search for a stronger signal in low signal areas).
5. Last (though I'm not sure if it actually matters) turn off the background feature in Ptunes.

These adjustments really helped my Verizon Centro (especially the Select Band and Snapper disconnect since I live in a low signal area).

I also recently bought the expanded battery from Seido (1350, I think...the one that claims 15% gain in the same size battery...not the one that requires a larger battery cover) and I've been very happy with it.

Hope this helps.

[Adam Helberg]

Another idea is to turn off all extensions with CleanStart.

[jj2me]

2. Under prefs and date/time, turn off network (set it to do nothing).

This link tells you how to set up Network to have it controllable to set data on ("BroadbandAccess") or off ("NoDataCharges"). Use Step 2, which I've copied below.

http://discussion.treocentral.com/showthread.php?t=166413

"Step 2:
==========
On the Palm OS Device
Preferences > Network > Menu > Service > New
....Service: NoDataCharges
....Connection: Cradle/Cable
Click [Done]"

[tomtom1977]

Hiya,

thanks guys for countless hints, tips, programs and advice. I suppose I can call myself lucky, as I found the culprit which is draining my battery.

It is TealLock. When it is activated TreoBattery shows you pretty nicely that it using much more mA compared to when that program is not active. It seems that my Centro doesnt go properly into the sleep mode.
What I did to find that out - for the archive: I made a backup on my SD card and hard resetted my Centro, ie. deleted everything. I saved TreoBattery on the SD card as well. So I knew then the "normal" battery drain. Resetting with Clean Start that nothing gets started didnt show another value. And as this problem just started recently, I asked myself, so what could it be, what did I install and needs to run in the background? So I deactivated TealLock - and *magic* - the battery drain is _way_ better now. BTW, NVBackup is always doing a Reset after the backup and PowerMan is switching off the Radio over night, so I was able to exclude quite a lots of issues you brought up.

I will bring this issue to the attention of the Teal guys out there, I will keep you posted.

Many thanks for very useful programs again.

[JKib]

This link tells you how to set up Network to have it controllable to set data on ("BroadbandAccess") or off ("NoDataCharges"). Use Step 2, which I've copied below.

http://discussion.treocentral.com/showthread.php?t=166413

"Step 2:
==========
On the Palm OS Device
Preferences > Network > Menu > Service > New
....Service: NoDataCharges
....Connection: Cradle/Cable
Click [Done]"

Not sure if we're talking about the same thing. What I was meaning was turning off the Date/Time from trying to sync up with the network all the time. I never confirmed it myself, but I read that with Verizon in a low signal area, the Date/Time would search far too long to try and sync with the network. It might not even make a difference, but something I mentioned above did make a huge difference in my battery life even before I got the extended battery.

[Clie Patra]

Not sure if we're talking about the same thing. What I was meaning was turning off the Date/Time from trying to sync up with the network all the time.Preferences -> Date & Time -> Automatically set -> Nothing.