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Can I/O issue be fixed by Software? Evidence based.

Undoubtedly this is the hottest topic on this forum (so it seems). Based on what I have seen, there has been no convincing proof on either way. The benchmarks score comparison are great, but my belief is it may not reflect day to day experience as most of time you never push the system to its max.
So my hypothesis is Transformer Infintiy's I/O issue related user experience can be fixed by software even if the underlying issue had been hardware related.
Since some people believes the opposite, and this is infinity forum. I wanted to make myself right for the sake of infinity owners. But given no previous good convincing test, I have decided to test one thing.
First video
This is one example video that Anandtech showed back in July that Infinity is indeed experiencing I/O issue. This video simply proved that while I/O is in use, the whole system slowed down. Based on the date of this post, which is 7/26/2012, I am assuming the firmware used was V9.4.5.22.
Second video
The credit of this video goes to BarryH. The reason why I included this is Galaxy note 10.1, which I owned for 3 weeks should be used as gold standard in this comparison as it is perhaps the only worth mentioning competition of TF700T and it is really great tablet of its own. You can clearly see that the downloading file in background really had no effect at all on the Galaxy Note 10.1.
Third video
The above is my very first Youtube video ever. But that's not a point. This is running stock ROM, rooted. No build prop tweaks. The only special thing I have installed here is Browser2Ram. So for this basically, I used AirDroid (WIFI file transfer application) and transferred 1G+ file over my network. While doing so, I basically opened browser, and went to the same site as Galaxy note 10.1 did in above. The little delay after opening browser is not hang in browser, but simply I forgot to set to landscape mode.
Conclusion: Based on these I believe I can conclude followings:
Compare first to third. Infinity had already significantly improved its I/O performance. How did it do? Clearly not by changing hardware, but rather software. So this proves my hypothesis of software can indeed fix I/O issue that user actually see.
*Please note that since I have browser2ram installed, this may be different for pure stock user experience. And Zeus users may even have better experience than me.
Special thanks goes to BarryH_GEG. Without him posting first two youtube clips I wouldn't have actually realized that Infinity's I/O issue had already been nearly completely fixed on my unit.
.
For clarification, basically all I am doing here is that there is indeed a way that what we call IO issue that can be alleviated by software modification. So if anyone state its all hardware and can never be fixed/improved, that is incorrect statement. However, this does not prove stock Infinity in the future will receive such update. So you can have a hope, but hope has no guarantee.
Different people use device differently so I say try the device and update to the latest firmware and see if you still face the IO issue that is significant enough for you. I can say that it is definitely not as bad as first video show. Whether you can tolerate the IO lag or not is simply your personal preference. In the end, all devices have lag to certain degree when stressed. Even PS3, Xbox 360, or high end PC games gets frame drops when you stress them. The question is whether you care, and whether you push to the limit.
If I ever get chance, I will try to turn off Browser2Ram and try do the same test again and see what the true stock experience is, though I am certain it is not as bad as Anandtech video.
Update 9/24/2012
Since some people are pointing to the issue resolution is purely due to Browser2Ram, I did same test with this time while AirDroid transferring 1.1 GB file over the WIFI, I launched Final Fantasy 3. No lag even while launching. Everything is smooth. However, if I launch Horn instead of FF3, I did notice significantly longer time to load. So this is simply proving what I have said. We can fix issue to certain degree but whether the certain degree is enough for a specific user is really dependent. I am ok not being able to play Horn while I am transferring 1GB data, but some may not.

Of course Browser2RAM will help on this, you're caching to just RAM instead of the stupidly slow NAND memory Asus decided to put in their flagship device. Try the same "test" on complete stock and you'll see that it's a vastly different experience.
Zeus ROM works around the I/O issue by reducing or even eliminating SQLite fsyncs. Risky business for your data, good for performance. I like my data without corruption, so I'll pass, but others may not see it that way. They simply want the performance this tablet should have had in the first place.
Asus did reduce the overall sluggishness slightly with the .26 update that changed from NOOP scheduler to CFQ in the kernel, but the tablet still stutters. Browsing is far from smooth, even with alternative browsers like Dolphin HD. Performance is decent right after a reboot, but once memory fills up and Android starts its memory management and closing down processes (doing a lot of fsyncs in the process) it grinds to a halt. This wouldn't be a problem if flash I/O performance was higher.
The CM-based ROMs starting to pop up for the TF700 seems to help on the performance as well, and that's still with the 2.6.39.4-based kernel. CM's always been smoother than pretty much any stock device in my experience though, so no surprise there. They can never completely get rid of it though, since it's a hardware issue. Asus were stupid and chose cheap, slow NAND that gets totally crippled if you're doing random writes. There's no magic software to just fix it.
I'm sorry, but I don't really see anything new here, and your "evidence" isn't really that, simply because you're not running stock. You're using Browser2RAM which greatly increases browsing performance by using RAM, which is several magnitudes faster than NAND flash. It's not even comparable. The TF700 (and TF201 and TF300 and TF101) I/O issue can never be completely fixed in software, only (slightly) improved, often at the cost of data safety (disable SQLite fsyncs or available RAM (Browser2RAM).
It's all well-known by now that Asus ****ed up (again!). If it weren't for the oh-so-sweet high resolution display and keyboard dock I'd get a different tablet.

Einride said:
I'm sorry, but I don't really see anything new here, and your "evidence" isn't really that, simply because you're not running stock. You're using Browser2RAM which greatly increases browsing performance by using RAM, which is several magnitudes faster than NAND flash. It's not even comparable. The TF700 (and TF201 and TF300 and TF101) I/O issue can never be completely fixed in software, only (slightly) improved, often at the cost of data safety (disable SQLite fsyncs or available RAM (Browser2RAM).
It's all well-known by now that Asus ****ed up (again!). If it weren't for the oh-so-sweet high resolution display and keyboard dock I'd get a different tablet.
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Hi Einride,
Sorry if I directed you wrong way. But my point here is not to prove stock has already fixed issue or not even to say IO issue can be completely fixed. The latter is simply unknown. But I am just proving here that there are ways software can make difference in user front, which some people questions.
To be honest, how do you even know RAM is not bottle neck? What about GPU, which is far inferior to the new Ipad in fact its even worth than iPad 2 by far margin? We see a number, and see its less than others so concluded its the conundrum, which could be true by good chance but not a proof.
Here I am basically proved whatever the method is, there is a way to improve what people call IO issue can be alleviated by software approach.
Because Anandtech showed IO issue originally on infinity stating background 2MBps download resulted in marked degradation in browser performance. I basically had 1GB file transfer over WIFI using Airdroid.
So I basically proved here that my infinity, which clearly has not touched anything on hardwarewise, but have improved performance since Anandtech review.
As for Zeus fsync, I don't use Zeus so cannot speak for it. But if they turn off fsync and still keep the system stable without data loss, why would you care?
Having said all this, I don't know if ASUS will ever put effort in fixing issue because if they would why won't they simply install browser2ram as part of their firmware? But they are doing something as I noticed they took out pixit from background with latest firmware, which kept running in background for no reason..

Einride is on target. This is a hardware issue, so any "fix" is going to be a kludge and come with a bunch of compromise. I can't believe ASUS specced the same crazy slow flash on the 700 that they did the 201/300.
FWIW, The best/cleverest hack I have seen is the TF201 dev who has been playing with remounting the internal SD card to point at the removable microSD card. If this can be made to work smoothly, it means that if you have an external card that is specced much higher than the stock internal flash you could eliminate the issue completely.
But of course that is really hacky. It's one of those you could brick if you don't install it right kind of deals so I don't ever see it being a mainstream options for these tabs unless ASUS productized it which would be a big expense in support for them, so, again, it'll never happen.

I've got to push back a bit. I think this is firmware related, but not of the device of individual components. I think this can be fixed with "software"

tf201 said:
I've got to push back a bit. I think this is firmware related, but not of the device of individual components. I think this can be fixed with "software"
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You can continue thinking that if it makes you feel better. I like and enjoy my Infinity but as a digital design engineer, to me this seems to clearly be a design issue @ the hardware level and will always limit the overall system to some degree. There are hard limits in any hardware software system. <Shrug>
My best advice to an end user is what I would give for any device issue: to decide whether it is a deal breaker for you *as it stands right now* and not sit around and wait for or bank on some kludgy cure that may be worse than the disease.
It's not too bad for me, I don't do tons of random I/O or web browsing. In fact, I'd say it would have taken me a long time to notice this on my own without the benchmarking and threads here... If it was unacceptable I would cut my losses and sell the tab and get a different device. Life is short, guys.

zenaxe said:
Einride is on target. This is a hardware issue, so any "fix" is going to be a kludge and come with a bunch of compromise. I can't believe ASUS specced the same crazy slow flash on the 700 that they did the 201/300.
FWIW, The best/cleverest hack I have seen is the TF201 dev who has been playing with remounting the internal SD card to point at the removable microSD card. If this can be made to work smoothly, it means that if you have an external card that is specced much higher than the stock internal flash you could eliminate the issue completely.
But of course that is really hacky. It's one of those you could brick if you don't install it right kind of deals so I don't ever see it being a mainstream options for these tabs unless ASUS productized it which would be a big expense in support for them, so, again, it'll never happen.
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Well, again (and I now added to opening post) my point is not denying IO hardware issue existence. I am just simply providing proof here that it can be improved by software (to certain degree). Whether it is to the extent of users complete satisfaction would be different issue. However, to be honest, if you see my video and it was original retail packaged Infinity fully on stock and from the day 1 performance, don't you think less people would raise a voice? It's because software workaround can change what you see as user, and that's all I am proving here. So yes. this should give a hope to someone who thought, it's hardware related so never can be fixed. However, this does not confirm or deny ASUS to take a step and fix this because I am sure it will take some effort on their part, which clearly they have not spent so far if this had been a problem existed since TF201.
To put into extreme, they can modify OS such that all front end basic programs such as stock browser, movie player or whatever to actually run on RAM if that is what makes the difference. But would they do it? Absolute not, because they won't spend money on such big project for device that had already sold well and gained essentially best Android tablet metacritic reviews (I did not take actual poll but just following Infinity news daily, it seems like pretty much most site gives the highest score for android tablet).
So yup. I don't disagree with you guys that IO issue there. But my point here was to help people clarify that there are indeed ways to make better by software. Whether happens or not is out of my control and would simply be guess for anyone.

I'm not just a noob either. Here's why I think this is software related:
1) The performance is so bad that it precludes just the hardware. Maybe the hardware sucks but there is alot of performance lost somewhere cheap NAND from 2 years ago outperforms SQLite operations by >10x.
2) Performance seems to degrade with time. This is indictive of a wear leveling and writing algorithm which may or may not be able to be adjusted with firmware.
3) SQLite fsync performance appears to be tied to T3 frequency, that suggest there is something with the T3 drivers that could be tweaked vs NAND hardware limitations.
4)...
I'll also mention the OP is right. ASUS could do things with caching data before writing, and writing in chunks the NAND is best with limiting Virtual Ram etc.

HoushaSen said:
Hi Einride,
Sorry if I directed you wrong way. But my point here is not to prove stock has already fixed issue or not even to say IO issue can be completely fixed. The latter is simply unknown. But I am just proving here that there are ways software can make difference in user front, which some people questions.
To be honest, how do you even know RAM is not bottle neck? What about GPU, which is far inferior to the new Ipad in fact its even worth than iPad 2 by far margin? We see a number, and see its less than others so concluded its the conundrum, which could be true by good chance but not a proof.
Here I am basically proved whatever the method is, there is a way to improve what people call IO issue can be alleviated by software approach.
Because Anandtech showed IO issue originally on infinity stating background 2MBps download resulted in marked degradation in browser performance. I basically had 1GB file transfer over WIFI using Airdroid.
So I basically proved here that my infinity, which clearly has not touched anything on hardwarewise, but have improved performance since Anandtech review.
As for Zeus fsync, I don't use Zeus so cannot speak for it. But if they turn off fsync and still keep the system stable without data loss, why would you care?
Having said all this, I don't know if ASUS will ever put effort in fixing issue because if they would why won't they simply install browser2ram as part of their firmware? But they are doing something as I noticed they took out pixit from background with latest firmware, which kept running in background for no reason..
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No misleading here, don't worry
You are just describing software workarounds, though. None of which can permanently fix it entirely since it's a hardware limitation.
A proper "fix" would greatly increase I/O performance with no downsides. Browser2ram helps browsing, nothing else. Disabling SQLite fsyncs increases risk of data corruption or data loss at the cost of better overall performance.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

tf201 said:
I'm not just a noob either. Here's why I think this is software related:
1) The performance is so bad that it precludes just the hardware. Maybe the hardware sucks but there is alot of performance lost somewhere cheap NAND from 2 years ago outperforms SQLite operations by >10x.
2) Performance seems to degrade with time. This is indictive of a wear leveling and writing algorithm which may or may not be able to be adjusted with firmware.
3) SQLite fsync performance appears to be tied to T3 frequency, that suggest there is something with the T3 drivers that could be tweaked vs NAND hardware limitations.
4)...
I'll also mention the OP is right. ASUS could do things with caching data before writing, and writing in chunks the NAND is best with limiting Virtual Ram etc.
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Click to collapse
I agree that they can probably make improvements with these kind of tweaks. The extent of the fix will always be limited by the low spec hardware in the end, though. So, I wouldn't encourage people to expect ginormous strides. For the most part, I expect more of the same with some evolutionary improvements but I doubt they will ever make a quantum leap. I would be angry if they made it worse but I'm an optimist at heart so I at least expect some slow improvement over time.
IMHO, as it stands it is usable and I'm hoping they can take it to "decent" (say the level pepole are seeing in Zeus). But to folks who are banging their heads against this constantly and unsatisfied as a result, I would still say there will be no true fix and you should bail on this device. It's a personal choice.
If you are willing to forgo your warrantly, I guess you could demo one of the custom ROMs. That probably shows you the extent of a software fix. But beware some of those fixes (cached writes) do put data integrity at risk. There is always a trade off.

Einride said:
Disabling SQLite fsyncs increases risk of data corruption or data loss at the cost of better overall performance.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2
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If I understand the fsync thing correctly it can only cause issues if the device suddenly powers off, correct? While that may be a risk, it's a *very* small risk and well worth the performance improvement, in my opinion... I've used ROMs that disable fsync for quite some time and have never had a single issue...
I tend to go by real-world results instead of "theory"...
Same thing with "browser2ram" - it can only cause an issue if the device suddenly powers off and even then - so you lose some web cache data - so what?? Who cares if you lose your browser cache - it's just a browser cache!
Besides, if your device is powering off suddenly, you have much bigger problems than worrying about your cached web data!
I truly agree with the OP. People get so caught up on benchmarks and "what could happen" (even though in practice, it really doesn't)... Truth is, we all just want a better end-user experience - if they can "work around" hardware limitations via software then it makes sense to do that.
Obviously, the hardware isn't going to change, so complaining about that will never help whereas implementing software tweaks to work-around these hardware limitations *does* actually help...
Just my two cents!
By the way, I've been *very* happy with the performance of my TF700 since installing the Zeus ROM - another perfect of example of someone using software to get around the hardware limitations - and it works very well! Another example of "real world" results - that's all of the evidence that I need!
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

Unfortunately random reboots are not simply theory in case of the Infinity, especially if you're doing some memory-aggravating stuff on yours. I'm getting one every few days.

d14b0ll0s said:
Unfortunately random reboots are not simply theory in case of the Infinity, especially if you're doing some memory-aggravating stuff on yours. I'm getting one every few days.
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While I agree that random reboots are not simply theory, what does that have to do with what we are talking about here?
However, since you brought it up, I've personally never had a single random reboot on my TF700, which may be yet another example that most of this stuff can be fixed by software (since that does not occur on Zeus ROM)... So that just goes further to illustrate my point. I'm assuming that you are not running Zeus?
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

jtrosky said:
another example that most of this stuff can be fixed by software (since that does not occur on Zeus ROM.
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This is from the Quadrant thread. The rest of the conversation describing what SQLite is and the role it plays in overall IO performance is in that thread. All Zeus' ROM does is tweak the SQLite settings and if you read more in the other thread you'll understand why that plays a relatively minor role in overall IO performance. Bottom line is whether or not someone has memory and/or IO issues is more determined by what they do with their device than the s/w running on it. Which is why some people running stock are perfectly content while others are pulling their hair out.
P.S. - Sorry HoushaSen, the lack of information on what SQLite is and the obsession with Quadrant brought me back in to the discussion.
BarryH_GEG said:
To show you what Zeus' impact is, here's a comparison to a Note and TF300 on JB. Red is perecent slower than the Note, green faster. After tweaking SQLite, the remainder of the TF700's IO scores remain significantly below that of the Note (or SGS3 or One X) and some are worse than stock. If you use the TF300 on JB as a proxy for how the TF700 would perform after the update the column on the far right shows the difference between the two.
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Wait until you see Zeus on Jelly Been. It's going to be so smooth and snappy and you will never think about I/O issue again!!!!

BarryH_GEG said:
This is from the Quadrant thread. The rest of the conversation describing what SQLite is and the role it plays in overall IO performance is in that thread. All Zeus' ROM does is tweak the SQLite settings and if you read more in the other thread you'll understand why that plays a relatively minor role in overall IO performance. Bottom line is whether or not someone has memory and/or IO issues is more determined by what they do with their device than the s/w running on it. Which is why some people running stock are perfectly content while others are pulling their hair out.
P.S. - Sorry HoushaSen, the lack of information on what SQLite is and the obsession with Quadrant brought me back in to the discussion.
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No problem. In the end this is still gray zone that (at least in my opinion) nobody knows what the end result is, and I think you stated well. It's really depends on user experience.
For those missed my last couple line update on opening thread. I actually had 1.1GB file download going on my infinity, and launched FF3 game, which was a breeze. No lag. So IO issue had been fixed partly from original already (assuming IO was really poor from get go, but I cannot confirm this because I do not have original firmware, and did not play FF3 when I had one). But I definitely noticed significantly far less ANR, which was one major reason I originally returned my infinity and hesitant to come back from Galaxy Note 10.1. However, if I launch Horn instead of FF3, it takes forever and even got ANR, which I hadn't seen for a while on my Infinity. Whether this is related IO or memory cap of 1GB or some other internal limitation is unknown, but since all I had was AirDroid transferring file and Horn is only other thing running, I am assuming 1GB is sufficient; hence, most likely related to IO issue. But having said this, how many would really complain about this? Not sure. Because even on my PC (which is not that high end) but I can basically get same issue. If I encode video and try to run high graphic PC game, the machine stalls, and even gives freeze. Would everyone complain about this? Some would and say that's why you get better PC. The other accepts it is what is, and simply don't encode, and play high end game at same time.
I am pretty satisfied with Infinity as all the concern I had before coming back to Infinity from Note seemed to be solved (at least for me) and got back to Full HD screen; however, there are clearly still people out there concerned of IO performance thus the topic continues to arise. Once everyone gets satisfactory IO result, I believe we will see significantly less discussion about this (if ever happens).
The fact we know are:
1. IO hardware on Infinity is last generation and not as fast as main stream current generation expensive tablets.
2. Software can change what user see (whole point my this particular thread)
Fact nobody knows
1. Degree of how much software can change user experience. Whether enough to completely hide relatively poor performance of underlying IO hardware. Or opposite extreme is basically just soften up a little without true effect on most users.
2. Whether ASUS will even try fixing it.
Benchmark number is great to assess, but I really don't think that's what users are really interested unless someone who just want to say "hey my benchmark score is high!" If this is the case, nobody probably would ever get Apple because they are usually not after benchmark of individual component but rather they use decent hardware, minimize bottleneck by deciding all the hardware on their own, and write optimized OS. But individual pieces are not cutting edge for its price.
And in all honest, I am a bit lost at this point after writing this thread, what is it exactly that we are calling IO issue? Browser2Ram improved my browser speed but even Final Fantasy 3 runs fine from launch while I download a big file at its maximum speed. So I don't think it's browser2ram that did trick here, but rather ASUS already fixed IO issue for downloading file completely hogs the system. If the issue is slow stock browser, that may not be IO related. It may simply be ASUS did not optimize the stock browser. Maybe my system runs so well because I have turned all the bloatware off and many stock user aren't?

I don't see Browser2ram in the store. Got a link?
Sent from my Rooted TF700T

i wish i saw this thread before i bought my Infinity + screen protector + case.
hope that JB will help with some of this, but i didn't realize it was just cheap-ass NAND.
ugh.

xPSYCHOTRONx said:
I don't see Browser2ram in the store. Got a link?
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http://mark-tech.blogspot.com/2012/06/browser2ram-fixes-transformer-prime.html

[Q] Should I consider a custom ROM yet?

So I'm looking over the current options and right now it's not really looking like it's promising. I have my Galaxy S3 rooted and with the help of tools like TitantiumBackup I've managed to clean up the stock ROM pretty well. Another thing of note is I actually get some surprisingly good sound quality out of my SGS3. I realize the US models aren't supposed to have the Wolfson DAC, but somehow mine sounds absolutely incredible with no noise that I can hear or anything (it's enough that I've been wondering if Samsung might have slipped the Wolfson into this one and perhaps there is variance in the DACs actually being used.) It even drives my headphones (modified HD555s -- basically you can consider them to be like the HD595s since of course I did the foam mod, but with the soundstage mod and a custom cable they're actually a bit better possibly) extremely well. It's worth noting that I have frozen the built in equalizer or whatever it was that I thought seemed like it was meant to mess with the sound (I like my devices to produce a relatively neutral sound.) Despite some complaints out there, I actually like the sound out from my US model SGS3 better than things like my Cowon D2 (which, btw, has a Wolfson DAC) and don't even use my CMoy (which has an AD8620 OPAMP that makes it sound far better than a typical OPA2132 CMoy IMO at only the cost of a bit of battery life) which I love the sound of because to me it sounds amazing on its own.
I only mention all of this because while I'm not a true audiophile per se, quality is of extreme importance to me all the same and I'm reading of issues with sound in the current custom ROMs which is not something I'm ok with. I want it to continue to sound this amazing. The idea of losing sound quality with a custom ROM bothers me. I like the idea of a few of the updates like Project Butter (though it's worth noting that mine does run fairly smoothly since I keep the number of programs running all the time as minimal as I can) and I really like the idea of having a custom ROM where I could maybe tweak more things (perhaps including better battery life options like maybe a better CPU governor built in? It drives me crazy how much my phone can run down over just a few hours while the screen is off even with SetCPU set to set the CPU to 384MHz and switch to the powersave governer with WiFi and mobile data both disabled and me not receiving any calls or texts.) For that matter, even while on it's not helping as much as it seems like it should, but I can't help but to notice that there are some more advanced CPU governors that I don't seem to have as an option and I wonder if perhaps a custom ROM could even help there as well. Plus I just plain like being able to tweak more things to my exact preferences instead and again a custom ROM helps. But, if I have to give up that sound quality that's a big problem. I think also it might be a problem to lose the camera. I don't use it a lot, but every now and then I really do kind of want to have it. Especially it would absolutely suck to lose the ability to scan QR codes or to have to do so via the front camera, but every now and then I do take some actual photos to share.
So my question is, have any of the custom ROM options out there reached that level of stability and quality to actually be worth updating and without losing those two things? The SGS3 has been out a fair while now, so it's hard for me to believe that there hasn't been a bit more progress along these lines, but I realize that it's no simple process to create a custom ROM all the same. (In fact, I only think more progress would have been made than what I've read thus far because the SGS3 is just so very popular. If it had been a less popular phone I wouldn't necessarily expect that much, but between its features, hardware, and etc, it's a pretty popular phone.) I want all the benefits of a custom ROM, but what I've read so far of them says to me that it's just not worth the trouble. Once I find one that really works I kind of want to stick to it as much as I can as I have a lot of apps installed and configured just so for my preferences. It sounds like I'm going to have to wait a good while yet though. Or have any of the custom ROMs finally "gotten there yet"?

ive been using CM10 roms for daily use and tehy do everything i need them to do without any limitations.
i suggest you make a nandroid of all your current setup and play with some custom roms. you can always revert back if you dont liek it or cant configure them match your usage. it made my S3 experience much better, btu everyone is dfferent.
---------- Post added at 08:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:07 PM ----------
there are also sound mods and stuff that are accessible with ROMs. ive never tried them but some people swear by them

You don't have any sound issues of any kind? Does the rear camera work perfectly?
BTW, I don't want any sound mod that actually changes the sound. I want it to basically leave the sound alone and produce it as well as it can without modification. None of that Beats or whatever like some do (I think that was what HTC was pushing?)

beats is a sound thing, yeah. it hink its just an equalizer though. i have used audio through headphone jack and over bluetooth to my headphones and the quality is fine for me. im not an audiophile though. it all kinda sounds the same to me lol
the only sound issues i have with my ROM are after flash some sounds do not function until you slide the volume slider from 100 to 0 then to 100 again. Its these types of quirks that come with custom rom sometimes.
my camera is working perfectly. its not as good as the touchwiz one however.
edit: heres a sound mod that might/might not interest you
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1883262
long as you do a nandroid you can always revvert back to your preferred current setup. you should also backup your IMEI

There are roms that are optimized stock. Maybe CleanRom. Don't think he adds sound mods but may be wrong. You may have used app to underclock CPU and it shows UC but probably not actually working on stock kernel as clocking must be enabled on kernel. Know this is true with overclocking.

I actually prefer to avoid all sound modifications whatsoever. Even equalizer. I like the results of a relatively neutral sound being fed to these headphones, it comes out just perfect for me. That's part of what I was worried about as some of the custom ROMs sometimes try to have stuff like that built in (and I guess that equalizer or whatever it was was Samsung or Verizon kind of doing that in the stock ROM even.)
About the camera, I actually have a commercial camera app anyway. If the only problem people have been having was the built-in app, that's a non-issue.
What's this about sounds not working until you go to zero and back though? Does this interfere with anything such as receiving phone calls (eg does it sometimes not ring because the sound isn't playing?)
BTW, where do I actually find the "official" CM10 for this phone?

no the sound works all the time after the adjustment. it takes 2 secodns to do. open volume, slide them all to 100, then all to 0, then all to 100 again.
http://get.cm/?device=d2vzw&type=snapshot
i think that these M builds are the monthyl most stable ones.

Personally I'm waiting for something built on the official VZW JB release. And yes I know I have months to wait... :-\
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

There is no DAC from Wolfson but yes it sounds kick ass! Qualcom is a beast! There S4 chip is there pride and joy so they didn't want to lag behind when it comes to quality audio! God does it sound so much better then my galaxy nexus. Qualcom is making the best arm chips right now. Can't wait to see how insane the 4 core S4 is!
I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH MY FELLOW MEMBERS WHEN IT COMES TO AVOIDING ALL THOSE STUPID AUDIO MODS LIKE BEATS AND SOME OTHERS OUT THERE. THEY SUCK AND DISTORT THE AUDIO!
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium

ddurandSGS3 said:
no the sound works all the time after the adjustment. it takes 2 secodns to do. open volume, slide them all to 100, then all to 0, then all to 100 again.
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Ah, have I misunderstood? Do you just mean it only needs this to be done after the initial flash of the custom firmware itself? That's definitely no big deal at all...
prdog1 said:
There are roms that are optimized stock. Maybe CleanRom. Don't think he adds sound mods but may be wrong. You may have used app to underclock CPU and it shows UC but probably not actually working on stock kernel as clocking must be enabled on kernel. Know this is true with overclocking.
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Well, I want to try to do this just once or at least no more than minor updates after this hopefully, so if I'm going to go ahead I want to go ahead and go straight to Jelly Bean.
I think SetCPU wouldn't be sold as only requiring root access to do its work if it required a custom kernel. It probably just works with the internal power management features that should be built in more or less by default.
mike216 said:
There is no DAC from Wolfson but yes it sounds kick ass! Qualcom is a beast! There S4 chip is there pride and joy so they didn't want to lag behind when it comes to quality audio! God does it sound so much better then my galaxy nexus.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting... I do definitely wonder why some people have complained about hearing noise and such then. Perhaps a bad setting and/or that MusicFX app (finally had time to dig through the list to find out what exactly it was called and that's the one that I just assumed was probably an equalizer/effects processing thing that would modify the sound, but honestly I never had any use for it even if it's not and never bothered to try it.) I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who thinks that the US SGS3 actually sounds good. I was beginning to wonder if my ears were maybe just getting that bad somehow even though I'm still far pickier than everyone I personally know, lol.
Let me ask you this, is the so called "Voodoo Mod" any good at least? I was never clear on exactly what it was supposed to do for audio. I know things like Beats probably mostly rely on a bit of processing to increase bass and probably play with things like stereo separation or something, but I've never been clear on what that one was trying to do exactly other than that people claim it's actually an improvement for many devices.
Anyway, back on the topic at hand, I think I'm more or less convinced to at least go ahead and give CM10 a shot. I'll use that newer monthly build from earlier this month after clearing enough space to make a full backup. (Besides CWM's backup option I've already backed up my apps and settings using TitaniumBackup, so in a worst case scenario it shouldn't be too painful if things go wrong and I have to go all the way back to a stock image with a factory reset or something. Is that option in CWM the correct thing, or must I use something separate for a Nandroid backup?) Also, it may sound silly, but how exactly do I backup my IMEI? I was looking for that already upon digging through a large tutorial thread a while back and it seemed to require something I couldn't get to work (when I try the numbers mentioned in the dialer I don't get any hidden menus, just a dialtone. Other than that I could only find something about manually restoring it if it has been completely damaged or lost which wasn't a fun looking process.)

Nazo said:
I think SetCPU wouldn't be sold as only requiring root access to do its work if it required a custom kernel. It probably just works with the internal power management features that should be built in more or less by default.
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It is sold that way. Depends on the manufacturer of the device. On stock HTC kernel it will lock 2nd core at max speed, kill battery life and cause heating problems. That is why I said it may not work correctly and without another app to monitor CPU you don't know what it is doing. How it works with Samsung I wouldn't know as I run custom kernels when possible and don't worry about clocking on stock kernels as they are under performing already.

Don't restore system apps with titanium backup! Only data apps (apps from the market)
CM is great good choice. I love the theme engine CM10 has and all CM10 based roms.
I'll tell you a super easy way to backup your IMEI! Need Root!
Download (terminal emulator)
Enter these commands. su (hit enter)
reboot nvbackup (hit enter)
It will reboot and create the backup on a built in backup partition on your SD card. The only way you could delete the backup is if you formated your SD. Super easy I just hope it works lol....
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium

Two quick questions before I take the final plunge.
1. Is the CWM backup to external flash function sufficient, or do I need something further for a true backup? (It says "Nandroid" in one part, but otherwise I'm not sure if it's truly "Nandroid." It seems like it just backs up each individual file or something and I get the impression that Nandroid is more of an image of the firmware? If it isn't sufficient, what should I use?
EDIT: Found this tutorial. Basically that's what I've done except instead of bothering with Odin I used the EZ-Recovery app to flash CWM directly from the phone itself (along with EZ-Unlock 1.2 from here to unlock the bootloader) as per another tutorial. The other tutorial just didn't call it a "Nandroid" backup, so I wasn't sure.
2. If anything goes wrong, is there a stock ROM image I can use for the Verizon SCH-I535 with Odin? So far my searching has taken me to a site that practically has every stock ROM for the SGS3 but that one... (Or at least if it has that one I couldn't find it on there, which isn't saying much since every single region was listed separately...)

The best way to get recovery is to get the latest recovery from the man who's created them all from the very beginning.
Get rom manager and flash the latest straight from that app. You must make sure your bootloader is unlocked. If you took the latest OTA from Verizon it locked your bootloader.
As long as your unlocked and rooted you can go straight in rom manager and flash touch recovery especially for your Verizon galaxy s3.
I've been using the latest touch recovery on my D2tmo, nexus 7,galaxy nexus and Asus infinity and it's worked perfect.
Make a backup of your current rom for safety before flashing. You can create a backup and rename it to whatever you want straight from rom manager!
I personally wouldn't back up to the external. It might work fine but when it comes to backups I just go straight to the internal
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
---------- Post added at 08:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:26 AM ----------
I soft bricked my phone because after taking the latest OTA it locked my bootloader! Recovered it fully from here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1840030
I seen the take to your local Verizon store bla bla bla.
Got in download mode at 4am and recovered in 15 minutes.
I wish I had someone that knew what I now know and that's why I'm here to help my fellow members!
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium

Hehe, funny thing about that. It tried to automatically update without bothering to ask. I presume because I had the FWupdate app frozen (for I guess fairly obvious reasons) it utterly failed and then complained, then demanded that I update again after a while, giving me an option to defer it. (I never did figure out how to get it to stop pestering, but I guess that's a non-issue.) So I didn't ever get a locked bootloader simply because it failed to do what it was trying to do.
Anyway, I've installed CM10 and so far so good. Well, I gave myself a good scare by forgetting to do a factory reset (*sigh* I wish I didn't have to do that, but, after all, it's a significant change going from a highly modified VZW infested ICS to a cleaner custom Jelly Bean) and it sat there stuck on the boot logo until I reread the instructions and rebooted to fix it (at least CM doesn't wipe out the CWM recovery like the stock ROM does...) I still have a LOT to do to get everything all reinstalled and reconfigured. I'm not going to be able to finish it all tonight, so won't really be able to comment about the results of the switch until tomorrow I guess. It's not helping that it's taking absolutely forever to download the Google Play package and all (and then I get to redownload a lot of the apps, though hopefully TitaniumBackup can safely restore a lot of it.)
EDIT: BTW, is it just me or do they really REALLY need to provide basic info on how to do simple tasks like the actual installation process itself, installing Google Play, and etc? I'm no stranger to googling for info, but wow what a pain to figure this all out (especially it never occurred to me that the gapps zip would have to be installed using CWM. I thought it was for the firmwares themselves only, not them and apps...)
EDIT2: Oh wow. I had no idea how much work this was really going to be! I said before that a full ROM install is something I wanted to do once. Well, I definitely want to never do this again. I'm having to fight all sorts of things. Google didn't even want to recognize my phone at first despite successfully connecting my accounts and registered apps such as, oh, I don't know, Titanium Backup Pro just for instance weren't showing up as already purchased... -.- I think I finally got it all restored and they now properly show up as owned, but I've lost hours just fighting with all of these various things...
It also seems to have serious issues with my WiFi. I haven't figured out what is going on exactly, but it seems like I'm having to turn wifi off and on a bit to get it to properly connect again -- I've put in my password so many times I'm about to go absolutely insane (unfortunately, for various reasons I'm still stuck on WEP 128-bit, so I have to type in a large hexidecimal encryption key and I'm just about ready to go postal.) Hopefully once everything is finally all setup and configured all will be well, but at the moment I've lost a pretty good bit of sleep while fighting this and barely have it up and running. I probably should have waited for an off day to do this.

Nazo said:
Hehe, funny thing about that. It tried to automatically update without bothering to ask. I presume because I had the FWupdate app frozen (for I guess fairly obvious reasons) it utterly failed and then complained, then demanded that I update again after a while, giving me an option to defer it. (I never did figure out how to get it to stop pestering, but I guess that's a non-issue.) So I didn't ever get a locked bootloader simply because it failed to do what it was trying to do.
Anyway, I've installed CM10 and so far so good. Well, I gave myself a good scare by forgetting to do a factory reset (*sigh* I wish I didn't have to do that, but, after all, it's a significant change going from a highly modified VZW infested ICS to a cleaner custom Jelly Bean) and it sat there stuck on the boot logo until I reread the instructions and rebooted to fix it (at least CM doesn't wipe out the CWM recovery like the stock ROM does...) I still have a LOT to do to get everything all reinstalled and reconfigured. I'm not going to be able to finish it all tonight, so won't really be able to comment about the results of the switch until tomorrow I guess. It's not helping that it's taking absolutely forever to download the Google Play package and all (and then I get to redownload a lot of the apps, though hopefully TitaniumBackup can safely restore a lot of it.)
EDIT: BTW, is it just me or do they really REALLY need to provide basic info on how to do simple tasks like the actual installation process itself, installing Google Play, and etc? I'm no stranger to googling for info, but wow what a pain to figure this all out (especially it never occurred to me that the gapps zip would have to be installed using CWM. I thought it was for the firmwares themselves only, not them and apps...)
EDIT2: Oh wow. I had no idea how much work this was really going to be! I said before that a full ROM install is something I wanted to do once. Well, I definitely want to never do this again. I'm having to fight all sorts of things. Google didn't even want to recognize my phone at first despite successfully connecting my accounts and registered apps such as, oh, I don't know, Titanium Backup Pro just for instance weren't showing up as already purchased... -.- I think I finally got it all restored and they now properly show up as owned, but I've lost hours just fighting with all of these various things...
It also seems to have serious issues with my WiFi. I haven't figured out what is going on exactly, but it seems like I'm having to turn wifi off and on a bit to get it to properly connect again -- I've put in my password so many times I'm about to go absolutely insane (unfortunately, for various reasons I'm still stuck on WEP 128-bit, so I have to type in a large hexidecimal encryption key and I'm just about ready to go postal.) Hopefully once everything is finally all setup and configured all will be well, but at the moment I've lost a pretty good bit of sleep while fighting this and barely have it up and running. I probably should have waited for an off day to do this.
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Click to collapse
Strange that you are having so many issues. First off, when I flash a new ROM I put the ROM and the latest GApps on the sdcard. Do a factory reset, clear dalvik cache, install the ROM then the GApps. As far as wifi, I didn't have a problem when I ran CM10, but maybe there is something messed up in the latest version. Are you running the nightlies or the M versions?

The M version from the link above (the 2012 10-11 one.) At first I thought the issue I was having was the one from before where it would decide that my network with the hidden SSID was out of range automatically the moment it lost connection (either me leaving the area or turning off WiFi) but I not only tried to use the hidden SSID enabler, but also even went so far as to just re-enable the SSID broadcast on the router, so it's no longer hidden. It seems like it's having troubles initializing the WiFi. Maybe I somehow managed to freeze/remove an app that did something or other along these lines (though I just can't see how given that it can work, it just has issues.) I'm having to turn it off and on once or twice to get it to finally reconnect. I guess it's not bad since I have the power widget in the notifications tray that makes this a bit easier, but that doesn't make this any more fun at all to deal with. EDIT: In fact, whereas the hidden SSID issue I ran into previously had it just show up as being out of range after it lost the connection until I "forgot" the network setting and reconfigured it again, it looks like nothing shows up at all until I turn it off and on -- but I don't have to redo the network setting, so this is definitely a completely different issue. I think actually it's like it's just not correctly enabling the wifi on startup if it was left on when I rebooted so I have to turn it off and back on to get it to truly turn it on in the first place.
And yeah, I cleared the cache and did a factory reset before installing. Well, bear in mind that it naturally was showing up as a different device and all. So some initial configuration was definitely going to be required to even get started, and I was switching from ICS to JB (and completely different sorts of ROMs besides) so some initial fight was inevitable even if CM10 were the most established and stable build ever made just going from the one to the other. Actually, one interesting feature of Titanium Backup Pro (once I finally got it to recognize that I had the Pro version in the first place) is apparently the ability to change the device ID to seem to be the same as far as installed programs and such go, so now Google Play among other things thinks this is the same exact device as before now as opposed to being a new device. It's actually weird because the "new" one doesn't even show up on Google Play's settings anymore (and Google still hasn't gotten around to fixing it such that we can remove devices, so I still have my old Archos 43 PDA listed in there for instance.) Between everything, Google now is letting me once again access my software without re-buying or relying on backups (which is especially good because a few things seem to just get stuck when I try to restore them -- it just sits there forever, not ever really installing.)
BTW, I lost all the Verizon-specific special numbers such as *86 for voicemail. Apparently CM10 doesn't bother to list them (but then as they are vendor specific I guess that's not a big surprise.) Is there any sort of list of the numbers Verizon uses out there -- maybe even including whatever special numbers that might be more specific to this phone itself (such as that hidden menu or whatever)?
EDIT: Ok, so far things are starting to come together slowly but surely. One oddity though, I noticed at the end of my work shift that, rather than the usual 10% or so of battery time lost, it seemed to have lost about 20%. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's double -- it might be more like 15% many times -- but it is very odd all the same. I thought I was seeing a bad trend along these lines last night, so went ahead and put SetCPU back on there with the profile to do powersaving and serious underclocking when the screen is off and in both cases I used the "conservative" CPU governor for the normal use with the maximum CPU speed at about 1GHz (conservative is supposed to be like ondemand with a better tendency towards power saving at the expense of taking longer to scale the CPU upwards when needed.) As this is CM10, there should be no room for doubt that the CPU is being scaled down -- in fact in the performance menu I often see the CPU at a mere 384MHz (which is my minimum setting) -- so I'm just not sure what to think just yet. The settings menu for the battery life shows mostly just basic system processes like the screen, idle, and etc being the main culprits for battery usage, so again odd since the screen is the main thing yet is off during my working hours (with the very short exception of my breaks.) I don't think the automatic brightness setting is any higher or anything either and, in fact, configured it to use generally lower settings until the maximum brightness.
Guess more tweaking and testing is needed to be sure, but it's odd all the same. If anything CM10 is running LESS all the time by way of hidden services and such (though as far as things that actually show up in the likes of Android Assistant I'm having to fight far more things including an "analog clock" that isn't even in the app list so I'm hoping is just the normal clock despite the fact that "analog clock" in normal firmwares is actually a separate extra thing.) Guess I'll still have to wait and see to some extent.
Edit2: Haha, I just read that you have to recalibrate the battery meter after flashing, so it'd probably just not being very accurate is all. I grabbed an app to help do that so hopefully this is all that was going on (and if I go by Android Assistant's voltage status I'd say that it definitely is off.)
Edit3: (Just kind of adding as I go along here.) Now that all the basics are in place and I had some time and the desire to drain the battery more quickly (as part of the recalibrate process you're supposed to drain it until it automatically shuts down) so I plugged in my headphones and started listening. So far so good. I was really hoping that one of the advantages of a custom ROM would be a more precise volume control (Google really dropped the ball on that one! Sometimes you're trying to get it just right and end up stuck between either a bit painfully too loud or annoyingly too quiet with no in-between) but other than some dissapointed wishful thinking, it seems sound-wise this release of the SGS3 CM10 is just fine. I don't really hear any bloat or distortion in the bass and in general the usual modifications that they do to the sound just aren't there (or at least if they are they are subtle enough to fool my, let's say "bronze" ears since I'm definitely at the bottom of the audiophile chain, lol.) In one thread where someone asked how the Qualcom compared to the Wolfson sound-wise someone said it was a bit tinny, but if it is it's far too subtle for me to notice (and this is bearing mind that these are headphones with a slight bass roll-off, so it does seem like I'd notice any significant loss in the lower ranges pretty quickly. In this respect I'm happy or at least satisfied that nothing has gone wrong.
Also, one way or the other the wifi issue seems to have gone away. I'm guessing it was an app I had frozen that I reenabled, but that's just a guess. It's so hard to be 100% sure with these things unless you apply a long painful scientific process every single step of the way...
I'm STILL trying to figure out a way to configure the haptic feedback level. It seems to be all on or all off with no ability to reduce strength of feedback that I've found so far.

Another word to the wise, backup your imei. Not sure if that was mentioned yet
Also, your ROM will work better after a charging cycle or two. It will initially scam for media and such I believe which maybe part if the reason you're seeing slightly higher usage at first. Also, in general you'll get slightly less battery life on aosp. I don't find much use in most battery stats though. They're easily manipulated.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app

Well, I had a small accident. I was replacing some fonts and manually selecting which ones to replace with what when I threw in Arial Unicode and another font that was still slightly large. I'm assuming because the font files were so big, but it completely stopped booting. After fighting with it for hours upon hours (and I have since found what might be a font zip file for CWM now that it's far too late to do me any good -- though of course it would have had to replace those particular fonts and it seems like most of my attempts to replace them ended up replacing everything but them.) I just couldn't get a driver to install for the phone while CWM was running (I don't know if you can maybe get an adb shell or what, but without the driver you obviously can't.) In the end, I ended up having to reformat and reinstall CM10 from scratch. So far (knock on wood) none of the real problems I was having before have really repeated. (And this time around I just kept my font changes minor and no gigantic overkill fonts.) Sadly, TitaniumBackup can't restore all apps it seems (it just sort of freezes on some) but overall I've managed to restore most of it. I was waiting to make a backup in CWM until I had fully gotten everything configured and running the way I wanted it. Guess I should have done one sooner, but now I'm close to the original goal of having it basically right where I want it before making the backup (thank goodness TitaniumBackup at least was able to get the bulk of the work. And I love how it can even restore the device ID so that as far as everything is concerned this is the same phone I've always been using.)
It does still have a worse battery life compared to the stock ROM, but I guess it's not too bad. Still better than most phones no matter how you look at it. I'm not entirely sure it wasn't the battery being somewhat at fault though. I was using a third party battery by Anker. By the feel of it, it actually is surprisingly dense for a third party battery -- it weighs about the same amount as the stock battery -- so it might actually have a pretty good capacity, but at the same time I'm not 100% sure it truly is every bit as good. At first it certainly seemed to be, but maybe it's starting to wear down more quickly overall. For now I guess I'll switch back to stock (my original plan was to just store it at some 70% or so capacity so it should last and then punish these two third party batteries, but now I guess I'll consider them to be the backups instead. I don't like that the charge goes as high as 4.33V or so though. 4.2V is supposed to be considered pushing things pretty hard as it is, so I have a bad feeling about the overall lifetime of these batteries...) Again I have SetCPU hopefully helping out a bit (I like that CM10 has options for this that it can set on boot, but it doesn't have any other options than that and I like how I can have SetCPU actually lower things much further while the screen is off. I don't care if some processes take longer to, well, process while the screen is off after all, so there's no reason not to use a lower CPU setting IMO.) Actually, I was beginning to become quite concerned because the battery was actually going down just doing a few basic things like restoring backups while plugged into the charger despite having the governor on conservative, the maximum CPU frequency at 1066MHz, and the I/O set to SIO (which at least one person claims is better, though I wasn't 100% convinced from what little I could tell -- if anyone has any suggestions for the best balance between battery life and performance in this respect I'm curious. I try to keep it on something that kind of scales so that games and such still work fine without me having to change it specifically for each or something while it could still at least not kill the battery when it's not being pushed as hard.)
Interesting thing about the whole WiFi thing. I read on one thread where someone suggested changing the device name (in the developer options) to no longer have a dash in it to stop the intermittent WiFi dropouts. It's kind of ridiculous and should have absolutely no effect whatsoever on this, but so far it actually seems like it might have worked. Again, knock on wood... It's odd though because I never had that trouble with the stock firmware (then again, for all I know it didn't have a dash in its default device name and I doubt I ever changed it if it was even an option though I can't really remember one way or the other if I could have.) I won't know for sure for a while as it was kind of random before, but so far it's looking promising at least. And I haven't had any trouble with it picking up my network yet either.
BTW, I forgot to do the IMEI backup before somehow. Is it too late to for it to be any good now? I know, I know, but I was a bit excited about the prospect of going to CyanogenMod 10 in the first place and just forgot along the way I guess. I went ahead and ran it ("reboot nvbackup" from the terminal anyway -- it sure would be nice if it actually properly shut down first instead of doing a cold reboot -- but other than some tiny blue text in the corner that might or might not have said something to the effect of that it was making a backup it just flashed by and booted up normally. I was expecting a recovery menu or something.) But I don't know if it's going to do any good to have run it now. Is there anything other than the IMEI itself contained in that data that I should be concerned about? I think the IMEI is correct still (I checked the numbers in the settings at least and they seem to correspond to what I wrote down from under the battery) but I'm not sure about anything beyond the numbers themselves.

Nazo said:
Well, I had a small accident. I was replacing some fonts and manually selecting which ones to replace with what when I threw in Arial Unicode and another font that was still slightly large. I'm assuming because the font files were so big, but it completely stopped booting. After fighting with it for hours upon hours (and I have since found what might be a font zip file for CWM now that it's far too late to do me any good -- though of course it would have had to replace those particular fonts and it seems like most of my attempts to replace them ended up replacing everything but them.) I just couldn't get a driver to install for the phone while CWM was running (I don't know if you can maybe get an adb shell or what, but without the driver you obviously can't.) In the end, I ended up having to reformat and reinstall CM10 from scratch. So far (knock on wood) none of the real problems I was having before have really repeated. (And this time around I just kept my font changes minor and no gigantic overkill fonts.) Sadly, TitaniumBackup can't restore all apps it seems (it just sort of freezes on some) but overall I've managed to restore most of it. I was waiting to make a backup in CWM until I had fully gotten everything configured and running the way I wanted it. Guess I should have done one sooner, but now I'm close to the original goal of having it basically right where I want it before making the backup (thank goodness TitaniumBackup at least was able to get the bulk of the work. And I love how it can even restore the device ID so that as far as everything is concerned this is the same phone I've always been using.)
It does still have a worse battery life compared to the stock ROM, but I guess it's not too bad. Still better than most phones no matter how you look at it. I'm not entirely sure it wasn't the battery being somewhat at fault though. I was using a third party battery by Anker. By the feel of it, it actually is surprisingly dense for a third party battery -- it weighs about the same amount as the stock battery -- so it might actually have a pretty good capacity, but at the same time I'm not 100% sure it truly is every bit as good. At first it certainly seemed to be, but maybe it's starting to wear down more quickly overall. For now I guess I'll switch back to stock (my original plan was to just store it at some 70% or so capacity so it should last and then punish these two third party batteries, but now I guess I'll consider them to be the backups instead. I don't like that the charge goes as high as 4.33V or so though. 4.2V is supposed to be considered pushing things pretty hard as it is, so I have a bad feeling about the overall lifetime of these batteries...) Again I have SetCPU hopefully helping out a bit (I like that CM10 has options for this that it can set on boot, but it doesn't have any other options than that and I like how I can have SetCPU actually lower things much further while the screen is off. I don't care if some processes take longer to, well, process while the screen is off after all, so there's no reason not to use a lower CPU setting IMO.)
Interesting thing about the whole WiFi thing. I read on one thread where someone suggested changing the device name (in the developer options) to no longer have a dash in it to stop the intermittent WiFi dropouts. It's kind of ridiculous and should have absolutely no effect whatsoever on this, but so far it actually seems like it might have worked. Again, knock on wood... It's odd though because I never had that trouble with the stock firmware (then again, for all I know it didn't have a dash in its default device name and I doubt I ever changed it if it was even an option though I can't really remember one way or the other if I could have.) I won't know for sure for a while as it was kind of random before, but so far it's looking promising at least. And I haven't had any trouble with it picking up my network yet either.
BTW, I forgot to do the IMEI backup before somehow. Is it too late to for it to be any good now? I know, I know, but I was a bit excited about the prospect of going to CyanogenMod 10 in the first place and just forgot along the way I guess.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No your OK you can get your IMEI underneath where your battery is. There's a tutorial on YouTube
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium

Fixed the lagg! Phone is now amazing. - Swapped Units

After having done everything I possibly could to speed up the phone, reluctantly, I just went to an AT&T store to see if any of the employees had a Galaxy S4 that I could compare my lag issues too. None of them did, however I was able to swap out my release day S4 for a brand new one.
Let me tell you guys, there is a night and day difference. This phone is now performing like it should. It is fast, responsive, and I am NOT experiencing any of the previous lag issues. Everything is butter smooth with this new handset. I mean smooth!!!!! Menus, Internet browser, gallery, and the camera. Even with all the bloatware still enabled, this phone performs as Samsung wanted.
I strongly advise and urge anyone with lag issues to go in and swap out their handsets for a new one.
Mod Edit: I have lightly edited the title of your post so that it is not misleading or representative of an actual lag fix

Given that the reports of lag seem to be like 50% or more, I reallllllllly hope this isn't a hardware issue....

burningembers said:
Given that the reports of lag seem to be like 50% or more, I reallllllllly hope this isn't a hardware issue....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I had to take an educated guess before, I would have said the problem is in the software. The phone seemed fast, but still lagged.
I had almost talked myself into waiting till the next update. What a sucker I would have been!
Even went into the AT&T store, only wanting to compare my phone with another persons. I had no intention of swapping them out, but the CSR offered so I said what the heck.
Previously, I had lag while surfing the internet with stock Internet app, lag while switching through menus or apps, and most noticeably, was when I took a picture and immediately selected the new picture for viewing in the Gallery app. This would take about 10-15 seconds to process. The Galaxy S4 now takes a second to process the new picture and display it in the Gallery app.
Interesting enough, and I suppose this should have been an indicator, but restart your phone and watch the Samsung logo fly in. Does it lag or shutter or stutter at all? My old one did, but the new one is silky smooth.
I am one happy Galaxy S4 owner at this point.

burningembers said:
Given that the reports of lag seem to be like 50% or more, I reallllllllly hope this isn't a hardware issue....
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Click to collapse
OP: I did a factory reset on mine and it was awesome then the lag came back. It's software related, which will be fixed in an update soon.
Highly doubtful the hardware would be cashing lag. If so, they'll have to do a recall.

OP: please keep us updated and if your phone stays this way.

Grant H said:
If I had to take an educated guess before, I would have said the problem is in the software. The phone seemed fast, but still lagged.
I had almost talked myself into waiting till the next update. What a sucker I would have been!
Even went into the AT&T store, only wanting to compare my phone with another persons. I had no intention of swapping them out, but the CSR offered so I said what the heck.
Previously, I had lag while surfing the internet with stock Internet app, lag while switching through menus or apps, and most noticeably, was when I took a picture and immediately selected the new picture for viewing in the Gallery app. This would take about 10-15 seconds to process. The Galaxy S4 now takes a second to process the new picture and display it in the Gallery app.
Interesting enough, and I suppose this should have been an indicator, but restart your phone and watch the Samsung logo fly in. Does it lag or shutter or stutter at all? My old one did, but the new one is silky smooth.
I am one happy Galaxy S4 owner at this point.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, this may be different than the other lag users are talking about. We see...miniscule stutter in glow animations, transitions, and the periodic 0.5 - 1 second pause in something happening that often times happens faster than that.
It sounds like perhaps you were having more significant issues. None of my lag is a 10-15 second delay. My Samsung logo is just fine. I still have what I consider to be "lag".
Glad you got it sorted out though, cheers!

MattMJB0188 said:
OP: I did a factory reset on mine and it was awesome then the lag came back. It's software related, which will be fixed in an update soon.
Highly doubtful the hardware would be cashing lag. If so, they'll have to do a recall.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My old S4 lagged from day one and even after a reset I did not notice an improvement.
It is quite possible though, that I had experienced a hardware fault on my last one, and that other people's issues will be fixed with a software update.

burningembers said:
Okay, this may be different than the other lag users are talking about. We see...miniscule stutter in glow animations, transitions, and the periodic 0.5 - 1 second pause in something happening that often times happens faster than that.
It sounds like perhaps you were having more significant issues. None of my lag is a 10-15 second delay. My Samsung logo is just fine. I still have what I consider to be "lag".
Glad you got it sorted out though, cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, those problems sound software related and fixable. I'll gladly wait for that update.

So you didnt actually fix the lag, you only swapped out the device. Kinda confirming the people with lag have faulty devices? :0

OP misstated, he switched out with an HTC One and that's why the lag was gone :laugh:

Can maybe someone post a short video of the lag that they experience coz im kinda skeptical if my lag is just right or may I just got used to it
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using xda premium

lyrad12 said:
Can maybe someone post a short video of the lag that they experience coz im kinda skeptical if my lag is just right or may I just got used to it
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using xda premium
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Click to collapse
I tried asking for this before since I dont have this terrible lag and noone has posted a video yet.....so it never happened.

burningembers said:
Okay, this may be different than the other lag users are talking about. We see...miniscule stutter in glow animations, transitions, and the periodic 0.5 - 1 second pause in something happening that often times happens faster than that.
It sounds like perhaps you were having more significant issues. None of my lag is a 10-15 second delay. My Samsung logo is just fine. I still have what I consider to be "lag".
Glad you got it sorted out though, cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SysAdmNj said:
So you didnt actually fix the lag, you only swapped out the device. Kinda confirming the people with lag have faulty devices? :0
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This was certainly my case lol. Maybe it it's others as well. I saw one other case where a swap fixed the problem.
Like others have just mentioned, I guess part of the problem was that I did not know the extent of my problem until I had the new phone. I thought that everyone was experiencing issues like mine with lag. Come to find out, I was probably experiencing far greater lag issues (possibly hardware related) than everyone else.

[/COLOR]
Grant H said:
After having done everything I possibly could to speed up the phone, reluctantly, I just went to an AT&T store to see if any of the employees had a Galaxy S4 that I could compare my lag issues too. None of them did, however I was able to swap out my release day S4 for a brand new one.
Let me tell you guys, there is a night and day difference. This phone is now performing like it should. It is fast, responsive, and I am NOT experiencing any of the previous lag issues. Everything is butter smooth with this new handset. I mean smooth!!!!! Menus, Internet browser, gallery, and the camera. Even with all the bloatware still enabled, this phone performs as Samsung wanted.
I strongly advise and urge anyone with lag issues to go in and swap out their handsets for a new one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You didn't fix the lag... you swaped phones! You thread title is misleading...

I exchanged mine today and all I can say is that's it's better then my old one.
Buttery smooth it's NOT and it still lags and shutters a bit..
My previous S4 did not have the black crush issues and this one does... YAWN!
Exchange one issue for another...

silkshocker said:
OP misstated, he switched out with an HTC One and that's why the lag was gone :laugh:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL, that would be the solution alright
Sent from my HTC One using xda premium

I think this is all placebo...
It's like when people flash a new rom and all the cache is cleared and no apps are installed - BOOM IT'S SO FAST NOA!!
Come on guys, the hardware doesn't have voodoo magic built in to it. This stuff is all manufactured down to tolerances within microns that are desirable for silicon-based electronics. They ALL perform within 1-2% of each other.. Outside variables such as temperature can affect this or current caches, etc..
Blaming the hardware is a rediculous joke IMO. If the hardware was at fault the phone would have much more severe problems than just some minor lag.

akira02rex said:
I think this is all placebo...
It's like when people flash a new rom and all the cache is cleared and no apps are installed - BOOM IT'S SO FAST NOA!!
Come on guys, the hardware doesn't have voodoo magic built in to it. This stuff is all manufactured down to tolerances within microns that are desirable for silicon-based electronics. They ALL perform within 1-2% of each other.. Outside variables such as temperature can affect this or current caches, etc..
Blaming the hardware is a rediculous joke IMO. If the hardware was at fault the phone would have much more severe problems than just some minor lag.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are right to a point.. Some phones will have hardware issues as it's the nature of the beast. Just like cars, washers, dryers, refrigerators, ect.. Make enough and some will not work properly..
My new S4 is a bit smoother as far as I can see but time will tell. I can say with absolute certainty that my old unit did not have black crush and this one does..

raqball said:
You are right to a point.. Some phones will have hardware issues as it's the nature of the beast. Just like cars, washers, dryers, refrigerators, ect.. Make enough and some will not work properly..
My new S4 is a bit smoother as far as I can see but time will tell. I can say with absolute certainty that my old unit did not have black crush and this one does..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Without any real concrete evidence this post is nothing but heresay and everyone should be taking his word with a giant pinch of salt.
He technically should have benchmarked it roughly 5-10 times, averaged it.. CPU and GPU benchmarks as well... then benchmarked the new device. That would rule out a hardware issue. But we have no evidence, so we can't simply believe him.

akira02rex said:
Without any real concrete evidence this post is nothing but heresay and everyone should be taking his word with a giant pinch of salt.
He technically should have benchmarked it roughly 5-10 times, averaged it.. CPU and GPU benchmarks as well... then benchmarked the new device. That would rule out a hardware issue. But we have no evidence, so we can't simply believe him.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, you are obviously correct about the needed benchmark evidence. However, its not that unusual for the specs of phones (especially ones that have been rushed for release) to vary a great bit. Though it is true that they are not supposed to. You have to remember that not all of these phones are manufactured and assembled in the exact same plant and in the past, it is known that panels and chip sets have been supplied differently because of demand issues. When the S2 Skyrocket was released, many of the first units had streaks or bars present in the display when it was dark...it was a hardware issue. Not all of them had it but many did. I'm sure other phones were released with similar issues to start with.
Overall, I think it is way to early to say if the majority of the problems on the S4 phones are software related, hardware related, or a little of both. It is also to early to tell if certain problems can be traced back to certain "lots" they may have been sub-standard. Releasing millions of phones to hundreds are markets in a short time causes a lot of confusion.
So maybe its hardware issues, maybe its software and can be fixed by the magical unicorn of all OTAs, or maybe it's a little of both. I think this is why what works for one phone might not work for the next. The only real fix will be to give things time to settle.

[Q] is it possible that a tablet can slowly die?

running Cromi-X, which made a HUGE difference from crappy stock. thing is: even with that ROM and using fsTrim and other optimizations and the occasional hard reset, the tablet is getting less and less responsive. and it's SLOW. the closest analogy is that the TF700 is now a third-hand, high-mileage rusting beater that has lost its power and paintjob while needing new brakes. (like, are all four cores still working?) it really feels like any day now, it's just going to stop.
at times, the screen will blank out and won't come on for 30 seconds or so, despite tapping on the power button. opening apps used to be fairly quick, but now opening anything takes a long time — so long that at times, it feels like the tablet has completely crashed. browser hangs much more quickly and often than before. the screen for whatever reason, will just top responding to touch for minutes at a time. and switching between apps is now an exercise in patience and frustration. sometimes, wi-fi just plain won't come on until i reboot.
how are you all keeping this thing running? or are you also finding that over time (i bought this tablet in September 2012), things are just ... breaking down?

AM Radio said:
running Cromi-X, which made a HUGE difference from crappy stock. thing is: even with that ROM and using fsTrim and other optimizations and the occasional hard reset, the tablet is getting less and less responsive. and it's SLOW. the closest analogy is that the TF700 is now a third-hand, high-mileage rusting beater that has lost its power and paintjob while needing new brakes. (like, are all four cores still working?) it really feels like any day now, it's just going to stop.
at times, the screen will blank out and won't come on for 30 seconds or so, despite tapping on the power button. opening apps used to be fairly quick, but now opening anything takes a long time — so long that at times, it feels like the tablet has completely crashed. browser hangs much more quickly and often than before. the screen for whatever reason, will just top responding to touch for minutes at a time. and switching between apps is now an exercise in patience and frustration. sometimes, wi-fi just plain won't come on until i reboot.
how are you all keeping this thing running? or are you also finding that over time (i bought this tablet in September 2012), things are just ... breaking down?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It sounds like you need a major tune up for your device....:laugh: PM to see if we could bring it up to life..:highfive:

LetMeKnow said:
It sounds like you need a major tune up for your device....:laugh: PM to see if we could bring it up to life..:highfive:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah! My first question would be: How many apps have you installed/uninstalled over time and how long since your last clean install?????
Any system bogs down with use. You gotta flush it, flash it, and reincarnate it on a regular basis.
LMK is gonna suggest a format of /data - his favorite pastime. LOL
But in this case, that may be the option... (but I would try a Factory Wipe and reinstall of the rom first).
[emoji12]

berndblb said:
Yeah! My first question would be: How many apps have you installed/uninstalled over time and how long since your last clean install?????
Any system bogs down with use. You gotta flush it, flash it, and reincarnate it on a regular basis.
LMK is gonna suggest a format of /data - his favorite pastime. LOL
But in this case, that may be the option... (but I would try a Factory Wipe and reinstall of the rom first).
[emoji12]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Darn it, you know too much about me but I do have secret weapon for case like this...

LetMeKnow said:
Darn it, you know too much about me but I do have secret weapon for case like this...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well???
You have my attention! What's that secret weapon?
You're not going to keep it up your sleeve, are you?? [emoji83]

berndblb said:
Well???
You have my attention! What's that secret weapon?
You're not going to keep it up your sleeve, are you?? [emoji83]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the attention...:laugh: Keep a little more memory available or reclaim the unused memory from old processes and use discard option.. I have said these stuffs at least 2 or 3 times before so it is not secret information...:silly:

You could try the app Watchdog, it monitors your background apps and notifies you if an app is above a certain cpu usage threshold. Also the app Clean Master will help rid your device of numerous junk files.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using XDA Free mobile app

Overall speed

Would you say that the Honor 7X is "fast" in day-to-day use? A higher rating indicates that you think the Honor 7X exhibits fantastic performance. Like, is it as fast as your tears when you watch The Titanic?
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!

No Problem with any performance and flies with the usage

Fantastic. Superb performance in this price range. Sometimes small lags is there but thats only if i applied any heavy modded themes. If we use stock themes no issues for me. Overall very happy with the speed. Never got any delay in any apps. Superb....

Day to day performance is great

Some APK`s i cant install, don`t know why, install Button is greyed out

You have to give the permission to file explorer & then you can install the app from file explorer doesn't work if you install from UC browser or other platforms directly.

Is XDA_RealLifeReview a real XDA-mod or just a normal user?
I mean, he starts threads in every phone section wit the same questions per copy&paste.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-5t/review/overall-speed-t3701250
https://forum.xda-developers.com/pixel-2/review/overall-speed-t3685573
https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-5/review/overall-speed-t3646088
https://forum.xda-developers.com/axon-7/review/overall-speed-t3430716
https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-3/review/overall-speed-t3400046
https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s8+/review/overall-speed-t3645715
https://forum.xda-developers.com/honor-7x/review/overall-speed-t3687356

Spillunke said:
Is XDA_RealLifeReview a real XDA-mod or just a normal user?
I mean, he starts threads in every phone section wit the same questions per copy&paste.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-5t/review/overall-speed-t3701250
https://forum.xda-developers.com/pixel-2/review/overall-speed-t3685573
https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-5/review/overall-speed-t3646088
https://forum.xda-developers.com/axon-7/review/overall-speed-t3430716
https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-3/review/overall-speed-t3400046
https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s8+/review/overall-speed-t3645715
https://forum.xda-developers.com/honor-7x/review/overall-speed-t3687356
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol bot!!

Not good for heavy gaming.

crayonicle said:
Not good for heavy gaming.
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Click to collapse
what if we play mini millitia

daalap10 said:
what if we play mini millitia
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
never heard of the game, get the phone and try it out then

My 3gb USA model gets me from day to day operations but suffers from severe freezing/lag at random times while browsing the web or viewing social media. I barely see any forums mentioning similar behavior so I'm starting to think I need to factory reset or I have a defective unit

Hakeem5 said:
My 3gb USA model gets me from day to day operations but suffers from severe freezing/lag at random times while browsing the web or viewing social media. I barely see any forums mentioning similar behavior so I'm starting to think I need to factory reset or I have a defective unit
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mine does this. Will basically freeze and not let me do anything. Does it often. I guess I will reset and see what happens.
Love the phone but can't handle the lag.
I'm stumped by people that say it's fast with no issues.

joho5 said:
Mine does this. Will basically freeze and not let me do anything. Does it often. I guess I will reset and see what happens.
Love the phone but can't handle the lag.
I'm stumped by people that say it's fast with no issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I feel like I'm in the twilight zone when I see people saying the speed is fine with minimal lag. That what leads me to think we may have defective units. With the Honor 6x I've seen people say that a factory reset fixed their issues.

Much better after factory reset. Slows still from time to time but no just stand still freezes. Bearable. I want this phone with these features with flagship internals though still. Thinking the view 10 may fit that when it comes to US.

joho5 said:
Much better after factory reset. Slows still from time to time but no just stand still freezes. Bearable. I want this phone with these features with flagship internals though still. Thinking the view 10 may fit that when it comes to US.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK thanks for the update, I will reset mine this weekend and will also be anticipating the View 10, especially if the price is right.

ya
Crackeds said:
Some APK`s i cant install, don`t know why, install Button is greyed out
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ya i am also facing the same problem when i am using third party application it shows gray button to install and i am not able to instal the app

Better performance.
I've found that disabling many of the Honor and EMUI apps (via Package Disabler or other methods) has made a huge difference in speed as well as battery life personally.

I've also experienced seemingly random slowdowns. Facebook seems to trigger it alot. clearing open apps speeds it back up.
Interestingly, it seems like it could be a ram issue, but i've never seen less than 1gb free ram, usually about 1.4gb free
I'll try disabling the emui/huawei apps to see if that helps.
I can't wait for oreo and project treble, then i can run regular aosp based without the emui bs.

joho5 said:
Mine does this. Will basically freeze and not let me do anything. Does it often. I guess I will reset and see what happens.
Love the phone but can't handle the lag.
I'm stumped by people that say it's fast with no issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They probably post after only using it a few days. Mine was fine at first. After about a week sometimes it would freeze, especially if I'd recently used facebook and chrome the keyboard would struggle. I'd need to either wait or kill a few apps and it would go back to being okay.
The stock camera software has a lot of features, but it is waaaaaay to slow.
I needed a new phone, but we had a lot of expenses last year and so I bought something cheap. It's not terrible. I'll be happy to get a year out of it.