battery life problem

[Al Johnson]

On Wednesday 24 September 2008, Robert Norton wrote:
> 2008/9/24 Al Johnson <openmoko at mazikeen.demon.co.uk>:
> > On Wednesday 24 September 2008, Gothnet wrote:
> >> Pietro &quot;m0nt0&quot; Montorfano wrote:
> >> > Robert Norton ha scritto:
> >> >> I observed the same problem with my newly arrived freerunner running
> >> >> om2008.8 update. I fiddled with the wifi then did ifdown eth0 and
> >> >> suspend. Bluetooth, wifi and GPS all set to off in settings. Less
> >> >> than 24h later the neo would not turn on (thankfully there was enough
> >> >> charge left to boot and start charging when I returned home).
> >> >
> >> > Yeah, anyone know anything to see which of the many things on the FR
> >> > is draining my battery?
> >>
> >> I'd like to add my voice to this lot, I've been getting in the order of
> >> 8-12 hours of battery life with minimal conversation or testing and
> >> everything switched to off. I even looked to see if there was a higher
> >> capacity battery available (there isn't).
> >>
> >> It seems to be a little better with up to date Om2008.08, but not a hell
> >> of a lot.
> >>
> >> Any tips on diagnostics to run?
> >
> > My money's on the GSM module. I switched the GSM off because there was no
> > SIM in, suspended the phone on a Friday afternoon and powered it up on
> > Monday to find ~70% battery remaining. With GSM enabled and SIM inserted
> > battery life is variable; sometimes it'll make it through the night with
> > a fair bit of charge left, and other times it's dead by morning. I know
> > that I sometimes get persistent, frequent GSM reregistration, and from
> > the interference it generates on the PC speakers I know this is probably
> > drawing a fair bit of current. The reregistration is a persistent,
> > intermittent (for me) and as yet unexplained problem:
> >        http://docs.openmoko.org/trac/ticket/1024
>
> That's interesting! I didn't have a SIM card inserted so perhaps that
> is part of it. Perhaps the GSM module is upping the power in order to
> try and register but never succeeds because obviously it can't without
> a SIM (just hand waving here, I know nothing about how this all
> works)?
>
> How did you turn off the GSM module?

This is with a 2007.2 based image, so the gsm icon could be used to turn it 
off. I wouldn't expect it to try registering with no SIM, but you never know. 
I didn't have the SIM in so I thought I would turn gsm off. I was expecting 
it to be dead on the monday.