Rockbox General > Rockbox General Discussion

High battery drain in Rockbox

(1/5) > >>

Darthagnon:
Hello, I recently installed Rockbox in my iPod. It is either a 6th or 6.5th gen. I started with Rockbox 3.15 on the original HDD, but battery life was terrible. I figured this was likely an aging battery and the HDD, so I bought a "3000mAh" battery (actual capacity is more like 1700mAh, but it's much larger than the original) and an iFlash card and installed it. I also updated Rockbox to the nightly builds. The battery life is still terrible; I'm lucky if it lasts a day idle/screen off/not playing music. Then when I try and boot it, it comes up with the Rockbox Bootloader screen complaining that 3200mV is too low to boot (but it's enough for the screen to stay on forever with this warning).

Have I borked something, or is high battery drain when using Rockbox a known issue? I've seen forum posts from people claiming battery life in the region of days continuously listening to music through Rockbox, but no idea how they're achieving this. It can't be a purely hardware issue, as I have observed it in my dad's iPod 7g that I upgraded with an iFlash and a new 650mAh battery, my iPod 6/6.5g with original HDD and 650mAh battery, and then with iFlash and "3000mAh" battery.

saratoga:
24 hours runtime is pretty good. How long were you expecting?

philden:
One advantage of Rockbox is that it boots so quickly. So there is no penalty for shutting it down. I have a 2TB 7th Gen iPod, with a similar battery, which I tend to use for 30mins to an hour per day, then turn it off.

Frankenpod:
I have several similar modded ipods, and seem to get much better battery life than that.  Can't say I've tested methodically, but the battery life seems pretty good.  I do remember that in the past I've had a couple of (second-hand, modded) 5th gens at least that had some fault with the logic board or connector that caused them to drain any battery you put in them oddly rapidly, even if not in use.

Darthagnon:

--- Quote from: saratoga on June 28, 2023, 04:05:19 PM ---24 hours runtime is pretty good. How long were you expecting?

--- End quote ---

24h while "powered off", then taking 6h+ to charge again is more like what I'm observing. Powered on, playing music, I still need to test properly. I'm not sure what the idle/sleep state is called; I thought Rockbox fully shut down the system after a few minutes idle to save battery, but mine doesn't seem to do that. Does the iPod just not have a sleep state? e.g. my iPhone 4S lasts a week while "powered off" (idle/sleep state), and it's from a similar year with similar sized battery and more power-hungry hardware (actually "playing", i4S lasts maybe 3h).

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page