High battery drain in Rockbox

[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]

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

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).

[saratoga]

Yes rockbox fully shuts down to zero power draw. If you're getting discharge, either it's not really off or you have some other problem that's discharging the battery.

[Frankenpod]

Is this an SD card mod or an SSD?

[Darthagnon]

512GB MicroSD in an iFlash Quad. Is there a setting to make Rockbox shutdown on idle? I've tried modifying relevant-sounding settings, but it seems to stay on, never shutting down, and idle indefinitely (well, until the battery dies).

Putting it to charge now. Battery is at absolute zero, 2818mV, charging...

Update: Charged from roughly 7pm until 9am (14h) to get to 3581mV, at which point it would finally boot. Battery displays as 0%, still, so I need to leave it a while longer.

Update 2: Still charging, 38h, battery voltage reported as just over 4000mV, Rockbox says it's around 52% charged.

Update 3: "Fully charged", 97%. Not sure how long it's been, maybe 48h to fully charge? Seems a bit excessive; seemed to charge faster when booted into Rockbox. 4130mV. battery icon is alternating between normal battery and crossed-through lightning ("not charging"?) icon. It keeps randomly booting even when shut down.

Will leave it until fully charged.

[saratoga]

See: https://download.rockbox.org/daily/manual/rockbox-ipodvideo/rockbox-buildch8.html#x11-1700008.6.3

[iPodVT]

I have a few iPods that think they are always connected to power, even when they are not.  With those iPods, Rockbox won't shutdown automatically or manually because it thinks it's being powered.  Even when I go into the iPod's Diagnostic Mode and choose 'sleep forever' it still immediately powers back on into either Rockbox or the Apple firmware depending on the position of the Hold switch.  This happens with every battery I put into it and so is clearly a hardware issue.  What are you seeing for a charging indicator when your iPod is not connected to power?  If it indicates that it's either charging or fully charged and connected to power then I'd say you have a hardware problem.

Re auto shutdown:  Settings->General Settings->Startup/Shutdown->Idle Poweroff.  But, again, if your iPod thinks that it's connected to power, whether or not it actually is, it will not shutdown.  As well, it isn't idle if it is in progress playing a track list.

I hope this helps.

[Frankenpod]

I have a few iPods that think they are always connected to power, even when they are not.  With those iPods, Rockbox won't shutdown automatically or manually because it thinks it's being powered. ... 

What are you seeing for a charging indicator when your iPod is not connected to power?  If it indicates that it's either charging or fully charged and connected to power then I'd say you have a hardware problem.
...if your iPod thinks that it's connected to power, whether or not it actually is, it will not shutdown. 

Yeah, had at least one ipod classic that developed exactly this problem.  Don't think I ever fixed it...

Did wonder if it was some sort of short-circuit on the 30-pin connector, but before finding what was wrong,  ended up doing the classic 'breaking the battery connector off the logic board' mistake while faffing around trying to fix it.

[Darthagnon]

Come to think of it, it does seem to display as "charging" when disconnected from power. The 30pin port is quite grubby and used.

I've now set idle poweroff to 5mins, will see if that works.

Looks like it might be hardware if it always thinks it's charging  :'( This forum seems to suggest shorts somewhere, guess I need to teardown again and polish and crud from PCB and port with isopropyl

I don't suppose I could request a software workaround for this could I? e.g. a setting idle poweroff be more forceful and always shutdown on idle even whe it thinks it's charging.

[iPodVT]

I'm just a member, not a developer, so my knowledge is limited and my authority is zero.  But it seems to me that the problem isn't so much about shutting down your iPod as it is about preventing your iPod from automatically trying to reboot when the hardware thinks that it's connected to power.  My understanding is that the hardware is designed to boot when connected to power.

[Darthagnon]

Guess it's harwdware, as I notice it keeps randomly booting even when shut down and battery icon keeps switching from battery to "not charging". Need to dig around inside, see if there's any dirt or corrosion to clean off, or if the battery is being squeezed in a weird place.

Anyone have any ideas?

Update: Battery life: 100/99% at 7pm, 91% at 1015pm, so 10% battery = 3h while off or idle, no music playing. Total should therefore last for around 30h while switched off. Normally, switched off/sleep devices (e.g. PSP, iPhone 4S, both 2009-2011ish) last around a week or so for me while switched off.

Screen keeps waking up randomly, guess it keeps thinking it connected to power...

[Darthagnon]

So, my iPod is still running (15 July 2023) off that charge. I've listened to it for several long car drives as well as at home. What changed?

I set the idle poweroff to 5mins (Settings >> General >> Startup/Shutdown >> Idle Poweroff >> 5min). It seems Rockbox's idle/sleep drains as much battery as playing music, so it's best just to fully shut it down on idle. The default setting of 30min idle poweroff is too much. It saves a lot of battery. My battery, after almost 2 weeks and probably over 12h listening time, is still at 78%

As for the random rebooting, thinking it's connected to power, that seems to have stopped once the battery's drained a bit, so I'm wondering if maybe at peak voltage, the 3rd party battery is triggering something on the circuit board. Especially since the peak voltage is around 4V, and the first 10% seems to drain the fastest.

Perplexing why the default settings on Rockbox are set to undesirable defaults. 30mins idle poweroff, HID device enabled, probably a bunch I've forgotten. It's so much better with the right settings.

I'm also working on another project, trying to figure out how to install Rockbox offline so I can install it on friends' iPods without internet. So far, it is self-hosting a proxy of the Rockbox server on my PC. I'll release a full guide once I'm done.