Rockbox Technical Forums
Rockbox General => Rockbox General Discussion => Topic started by: ShiningWolf on July 09, 2008, 05:54:05 AM
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I have an IPOD Video 30G. I seems that the best battery life I get is 1.5 hours. It also seems that if I turn off the IPOD, it still chews up battery life.
A couple of questions:
What general strategies/themes can I use to extend battery life
How do I turn the IPOD off so it does not use battery.
We would really like to continue using Rockbox, but the battery problems makes it impossible.
Thanks for any help.
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It sounds to me like you just have a battery that's nearing the end of its useful life. My iPod video is getting around 11.5 hours of runtime with Rockbox, and it's not even the original battery anymore (I had it replaced with a higher capacity battery).
If you want to get a new battery for you iPod, try iFixit (http://www.ifixit.com). They sell batteries for every model of iPod.
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What general strategies/themes can I use to extend battery life
The LCD eats the most battery so the less it's on, the longer it'll last.
How do I turn the IPOD off so it does not use battery.
How are you shutting down now? It shouldn't lose much, if any, while it's off.
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Shutting down by holding the play button
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What general strategies/themes can I use to extend battery life
The LCD eats the most battery so the less it's on, the longer it'll last.
Well, technically, he means the backlight. ;)
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I have an IPOD Video 30G. I seems that the best battery life I get is 1.5 hours. It also seems that if I turn off the IPOD, it still chews up battery life.
. . .
We would really like to continue using Rockbox, but the battery problems makes it impossible.
Thanks for any help.
You seem to hint that the original firmware does not experience short battery life. Can you confirm this? What is the battery life in the OF versus in Rockbox under similar operating conditions?
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Had no problems with the original firmware. Battery problems started only after I installed Roxbox
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So, the OF still gets "good" battery life? What is the battery life currently in OF? By the way, when did you install Rockbox and which revision are you using?
Also, you will get a better response if you use a descriptive title for this topic.
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Yip, don't know the exact measure in OF. but probably more than a day. On the way home I listened to a podcast (no video) on a full battery. 1/2 later the battery showed around 90%. I turned it off, when I turned it on 10 minutes later the battery showed around 50%.
In installed Rockbox this weekend the first time and installed the latest build this morning. (7 hours ago). R17991 080708
Point taken on the subject.
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Have you tried going back to the original firmware and seeing if the battery life is still short there? We need something to compare to.
It sounds, though, just like an old battery. If you've never replaced the battery in your iPod it will definitely be old enough to be showing signs of age by now.
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Will do so.
I am first going to run a full battery check. What is strange is that I while running the podcast to check the battery life, the harddisk was spinning like crazy - you could hear it. Then it suddenly stopped but the podcast is still playing (1 hour later). There was some background activity on the disk for a long time which could be chewing battery.
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At startup, Rockbox will initially background scan if you have either dircache or database auto-update enabled. This can take a minute or 2 if you have a lot of files and does munch battery.
I find it best to avoid shutting down and restarting too much - I had an almost dead battery on my H300 for quite a while and believe that I managed to get longer battery life by *increasing* the idle poweroff from 10 mins to 60 mins, purely because it reduced the number of startups I had to go through.
Once the disk has shut down, and the backlight has gone off, Rockbox doesn't use seem to use much power (assuming your music format and use of EQ etc. doesn't require boosting).
This is all unscientific, empirical, feelings I have based on weeks of trying to squeeze a bit of runtime from an end-of-life battery, so YMMV etc. etc.
pondlife
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The issue was very simply that the Rockbox did an database update at startup. As I have lots of files it took about 1/2 hour which totally trashed the battery. Trying to turn it off to save power made the problem worse.
Thanks for all the help.