I started using SoftPowerOff as I read somewhere (itT) that it turns off the radios(wifi/bt), screen and locks the keys.

I did not change anything (that I know of) from the stock configuration other than un-commenting the entries to allow Reboot and SoftPowerOff.

I will test tonight with NO Home applets running...
Idle:6 days / in Use: 4Hrs

And SoftPowerOff

The problem with the battery drain started after the 4.2008.30-2 upgrade on my N810.

So far I have tracked down the problem to the email application. As others have written before, when I check my emails in the evening, chances are high that the battery is drained in the morning. Once I had 4 hours left, checked email, closed email and locked keys, waited three hours and then had to hurry for the power cord...

I can run any other applications without problems. Applications tested include emacs, R, sgt-puzzles, microb, statusbar-cpu applet, maemopad+. _No_ home applets running at the moment, never used omweather since flashing from chinook to diablo.

Hope this helps.

Update: completely subjective test

This morning 0530...

After sitting unplugged overnight in SoftPowerOff & NO Applets running, the "mostly useless" battery gauge still reads 6 days or 4 hours.

I will try and repeat over the next several days adding one applet each day until I get a repeat of the battery drain.

??Email App?? I don't use either of the Email applications on the N800. GMail all the way.

Would this cause the drainage even if not setup?

M

I have to say it got better with *.30-2, only more noticeable because battery performance in general seems to have imprved.

I've always had battery problems with my N800 and Diablo, but can't say if it started with Diablo because I never used another version of the OS with this device. I remember when the N800 replaced my 770 I was terribly disappointed with battery life; it impoved with *.30-2, but now those irregular battery drain situations stand out even more.

For those of you wanting to check your drain try running the battery-status app with the time flag (-d) and saving it to a file.

"battery-status -d 5 > bstat.txt"

This may tell you if it is dropping off to quickly.

not accounting for improved performance, but reduced performance could be because the batteries deteriorate, restating the point: a brand new battery will hold noticeably more charge and last longer. I'd say it's worth replacing the battery annually.

Ok, last night before leaving the the office Ive performed pretty much the same things Ive done the day before, except for uninstalling fm radio applet. Ive watched the same vids in my trip to my home, tried to connect to every wifi hotspot available during the trip (bus has several stops).
I only lock the screen of the N and place it in my backpack at night (no offline mode, BT on)
This morning my N showed that it had 4 hrs left of use. So I can say that for me, the battery drain problem was caused by the fm radio applet.
Could be a coincidence, so I will keep on testing the next following days and see if there is any change.

as my own anecdotal "cure" i uninstalled auto-lock and put back on the applets (OMweather, google search bar and gpe summary) and battery indicator jumped from "when in use: 4 hours" up to "when in use: 6 hours" and it has been rock steady all morning (i am leaving it tethered w/gmail imap running in the background along with rss feed in background) right now 2 hours later it shows 5 hours

i think autolock on diablo was the problem in my case.....

that may be something to keep in mind. anything that has a timer will probably keep the cpu from going idle and therefor being able to power down.

Before I upgraded to diablo on my n800 i found that when applets were selected/deselected a few times they would start eating cpu cycles. In the end some maemo-launcher processes could be consuming 20% of cpu.

I don't use applets under diablo 4.2008.30-2, so not sure if that problems still exists but haven't noticed any change in battery consumption with battery-status since the upgrade, idles at 0.4%/hr under diablo.

Have occasional found the 'dead' but just charged problem mentioned above. But that could of been down to the standard battery icon displaying 100% even though battery-status may say 60%.

3-4hrs use time is not enough, n800 needs a bigger battery, it's not really mobile if you have to have it plugged in most of the time.

cheers