Hacking Comparing DS-Lite and DSI-XL and 5 flashcards power consuming!

[CalleMan]

I have a bunch of cards and wanted to know which card that drains the battery most and with what application , using a multimeter connected to the battery i was able to get maybe not perfect but very comparable measurements.
Most of the tests is done with the settings i normally use ,

First test is to see the consoles just being left in their menu without cards.

Brightness 2 on Lite and 4 on XL is what my eyes like most , so im using them in the tests.


Next is to see what happens with Gamecard and Flashcards in Slot1 , still in the menu.

Gamecard eats nearly nothing and CycloDS is also very good , other cards did worse and DSTwo burns alot just doing nothing and also in standby.


This is what happen when playing a game and in the flashcards menues , also what happens in standby , sound off & after soft-reset in WiFi.

The ingamemenu with DSTwo is hard on the battery even with the lid is shut , soft-resetting with wifi going on is also a powertrap .Sound on or off is just a few mA.


And so a GBA game.

Not much to say , level up processorpower don´t do that much .


Multimedia then.

Wow , DSTwo does it better than AK2i .


Comparing a few MicroSDcards.

Not sure if im any wiser after this ? More tests needed .


And last some different tests with wifi , 3in1 and DSI-programs.

DSI programs seems to cut out slot1 , saving power !


Conclusion for this test :
* Flashcard consumes a lot of power even in standby when lid is shut
*Softreset in wifi-mode makes it a power trap
*Some flashcards consumes a lot of power just being inserted
*WiFi uses a lot too.
*Micro SD cards maybe differs ~10mA in some cases , not so much , more tests needed.
*Speakers uses very little power.
*DSI XL , big screens takes a lot of power
*BatteryLife in DS-Lite is 1000mAh & 1050mAh on DSI-XL , that means 10 hours of gaming with DS-Lite if the current is 100mA and the battery really containes that much .
*Im very pleased with my CycloDS card , works well and is easy on the battery , my favorite!

Left to test is cheat , real time guides and homebrewstuff etc. , maybe some other time.

Thats all !

 

[Fel]

This is a great contribution, cheers for the good work!

Looks like CycloDS is the best energy saver, while DSTWO with the exception of multimedia has the biggest consumption.

 

[trumpet-205]

I'm quite surprised, CycloDS consumes the least power out of all?

It will be better imo to use the same micro SD when doing this test. It will be even better to use second or third brightness on DSi XL.

If you have an iEDGE, mind testing it. Want to see if it consume better or worse than CycloDS.

 

[RupeeClock]

Well the CycloDS has a battery saving feature in its firmware, I wonder if other flashcarts can implement that?

 

[Rayder]

Well the CycloDS has a battery saving feature in its firmware, I wonder if other flashcarts can implement that?

Team Cyclops is very proud and very secretive about how that "battery saver" function works. All I know is that it did make a drastic difference. When I first got my CycloDS, it didn't have battery saver mode yet and it ate batteries very quickly. Once battery saver was implemented, then it was on par with an original R4....more or less.

 

[tomrev]

Thanks for your sharing interested information. Why you use the different Micro SD for each test? From Micro SD test, it looks like may cause different up to more than 10 mA. Furthermore, could you test on R4 original (IMO, this card should be the reference card)?

 

[tomrev]

Mini comparison test between R4 (Clone 1:1) and Acekard 2i on DS Lite

* Settings *
- Brightness = 2 , I need to get rid of irrelevant factor of Flashcard itself as most as possible!!
- Transcend MicroSD 2 GB
- Game CastlevaniaOR in intro-cinema
- no Slot 2 card

* Result *
R4
80 mA
Acekard 2i
90 mA

* Conclusion *

R4 is better than Acekard 2i in term of power consumption.

edit: I have only DS Lite R4 and Acekard to test.

 

[RedBaron]

I see you have a few micro SD memory cards, is it possible to do a test on them http://gbatemp.net/t260177-data-on-micro-s...ards-please-add and put the results there please

 

[CalleMan]

Well the test is not perfect and maybe i should have been using the same SDcard for every flashcard , i didn´t care so much for it cause there all Kingston japan cards (except for the SD test) and i dont belive it differs so much it should make a big difference , i got answers on a lot of questions what causes drainige on battery and im very pleased to have pointed them out , for example its a bit of a shock how much some cards "leak" with the lid shut , thats a surprise and now i know its better to power down than just close the lid if i have to take a break.With this information i can save a lot of power and that was the big point with the test , not so much for peeping mA.
It was fun and interesting to do the comparing and i promise that when i do the next test im gonna use the same SD card

 

[tomrev]

Well the test is not perfect and maybe i should have been using the same SDcard for every flashcard , i didn´t care so much for it cause there all Kingston japan cards (except for the SD test) and i dont belive it differs so much it should make a big difference , i got answers on a lot of questions what causes drainige on battery and im very pleased to have pointed them out , for example its a bit of a shock how much some cards "leak" with the lid shut , thats a surprise and now i know its better to power down than just close the lid if i have to take a break.With this information i can save a lot of power and that was the big point with the test , not so much for peeping mA.
It was fun and interesting to do the comparing and i promise that when i do the next test im gonna use the same SD card

Your test is not perfect but to test electric current is better than power on and wait for red light appearing. Thanks for inspiration me to measure my R4 and Acekard power consumption that I wished to know which card consumed less power.

 

[CalleMan]

I see you have a few micro SD memory cards, is it possible to do a test on them http://gbatemp.net/t260177-data-on-micro-s...ards-please-add and put the results there please

Have tested some of my cards before with HD tach

If i got the time i will test them with your program also.

 

[RedBaron]

I see you have a few micro SD memory cards, is it possible to do a test on them http://gbatemp.net/t260177-data-on-micro-s...ards-please-add and put the results there please

Have tested some of my cards before with HD tach

If i got the time i will test them with your program also.

Please could you do it with http://rapidshare.com/files/425154691/Bench32.exe as HD tach wont work with Windows 7

 

[KirovAir]

Just wanted to bump this topic, and say thanks, as these results are very helpful for me. Thanks.

 

[nintendough]

This may be a foolish conclusion to get from your findings, but doesn't your data indicate that the Acekard and the DSTwo are actually pretty comparable in terms of drain on battery life (if you're only using the cards to play DS files and not GBA), which would be the opposite of everything I've read GBAtemp (i.e. all anecdotal evidence points to Acekard 2 having superior battery life over DSTwo, but still worse than original).

Any comments on that or am I missing something? I ask because I'm trying to decide which cart to get and this complicates the process

 

[Rydian]

The DSTwo has multiple speed settings, and for GBA emulation you need to raise it, so yes that'd eat the battery life more.