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Posts: 473 | Thanked: 141 times | Joined on Jan 2009 @ Virginia, USA
#1
How often do folks reflash their N810s? Is "bitrot" a problem?

I have noticed over the past month or two, some odd behavior that my N810 didn't used to have.
  • When I plug the device into the charger, I hear the chime twice. Sometimes back to back, sometimes seconds apart.
  • The app manager seems to take forever to do anything. Updating can take up to 30 seconds.
  • When I reboot and the screen initially comes up, it takes 15-20 seconds for the battery charge indicator to update, as if it takes that long to connect with the power manager. During this time, I can't get into the home menu (select applets, applet settings, drag lock, etc.)
  • Apps just eem to take longer to load/update than before. I hate vague statements like this, because there is no kind of benchmark that I can point to.

Note that I am using the pb tools to run filesystem from the internal flash, but I didn't think this would cause performance problems...and I don't think it did in the past.

Thoughts?
--vr
 
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Posts: 1,217 | Thanked: 446 times | Joined on Oct 2009 @ Bedfordshire, UK
#2
Only had to reflash my N810 a couple of times in it's entire lifetime when I had done something daft and hosed the machine.
 

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Posts: 473 | Thanked: 141 times | Joined on Jan 2009 @ Virginia, USA
#3
Originally Posted by Fargus View Post
Only had to reflash my N810 a couple of times in it's entire lifetime when I had done something daft and hosed the machine.
Thats kind of what I suspected, but the other alternative is a hardware problem, though nothing obvious jumps out at me.
 
Posts: 961 | Thanked: 565 times | Joined on Jul 2007 @ Tyneside, North East England
#4
I'd check your drive space on /. lack of it can cause some issues. Re-flash will be a really good spring clean and remove loads of crap which you may not have realised was there.

Having said that re-flashing is a pain, as backup and restore does not restore all your files and settings.

I have had my N810 for 6 months and not flashed it yet, and my N800 has only been flashed a couple of times in over two years above what it needed for OS updates.
 
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Posts: 900 | Thanked: 273 times | Joined on Aug 2008 @ Fresno CA USA
#5
I've found the occasional bit of strangeness gets fixed with a reboot. I leave my N810 on 24/7. Some of the strangeness was the result of applications I'd installed.
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Posts: 961 | Thanked: 565 times | Joined on Jul 2007 @ Tyneside, North East England
#6
Originally Posted by fragos View Post
I've found the occasional bit of strangeness gets fixed with a reboot. I leave my N810 on 24/7. Some of the strangeness was the result of applications I'd installed.
Agreed. Make sure that you either use the reboot option on the advanced power menu if it is installed, or using xterm enter root to change user, and then type reboot.

Alternatively, just drop the battery out for a minute or so.

I have found with me that using the power switch to switch the device off seems to put it into a "hibernation" state, and isn't a true reboot or power-cycle.
 
Posts: 473 | Thanked: 141 times | Joined on Jan 2009 @ Virginia, USA
#7
Originally Posted by gazza_d View Post
I'd check your drive space on /. lack of it can cause some issues. Re-flash will be a really good spring clean and remove loads of crap which you may not have realised was there.

Having said that re-flashing is a pain, as backup and restore does not restore all your files and settings.

I have had my N810 for 6 months and not flashed it yet, and my N800 has only been flashed a couple of times in over two years above what it needed for OS updates.
Well, I am at 97%, but have 20MB free:

720.9M 664.3M 20.0M 97% /

Which is far more space than I had when on the flash.

I agree that I don't really want to flash, because I don't want to be without full functionality for any length of time...And I know how bad it is trying to get everything working the way it was. I did that a couple of times with back in the day on my Zaurus.
 
Posts: 473 | Thanked: 141 times | Joined on Jan 2009 @ Virginia, USA
#8
Originally Posted by fragos View Post
I've found the occasional bit of strangeness gets fixed with a reboot. I leave my N810 on 24/7. Some of the strangeness was the result of applications I'd installed.
Well, many of the problems show themselves after a reboot...Though I didn't think there was a difference in using the power button or the command line/battery as gazza_d suggested.

I will give it a shot.
 
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Posts: 245 | Thanked: 62 times | Joined on Jan 2009 @ Bad Homburg, Deutschland
#9
It could be that some poorly written applet is consuming too much memory/cpu cycles. Try disabling all applets, and then enabling one by one, to find out if maybe they are the problem. One was in my case.
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Posts: 93 | Thanked: 28 times | Joined on Jan 2009 @ Germany
#10
I haven't flashed my n810 since about one year. In the beginning, I used to flash the tablet about once a week due to overdoing and testing out the countless tips and tricks like rotating screen, booting from the internal SD card, ... Some of these actions broke the tablet and I had to reflash it. But as this is quite painful and time and battery consuming, I postponed my experiments until I get a spare n8#0.

icke
 
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