N7 slow down / laggy

[Guest ahatomastarday]

I thought the idea of not allowing microSD cards was (among other things) to somehow control the performance of the product: it's going to be always fast, you can't screw it up because you can't put a slow microSD in it that would make it slower. So this issue is just CRAZY and very dissapointing :(

[Guest Dabogues]

Tell me about it.

So anyway, as tipped in the thread, I disabled Currents, and saw maybe a tiny spike in performance, but not much. I then bit the bullet and deleted a couple of the larger games on the Nexus 7 and dropped used storage to under 10 gigs.

Sure enough, suddenly everything was much snappier again. One of the benchmarks I've been using for this was GMail. When that isn't loading quickly, you know there's an issue. This time, no problem.

So here I am, stuck with a device that is labeled for 16 GB storage, that in reality only has just over 13 GB of storage (don't get me started on how the industry can continue to get away with this), but due to performance issues, REALLY only has 9-10 GB of storage available for content and software (including the OS). What the hell do we do about this?

Colin Whiteside -- I'm not too familiar with the technicalities of the whole I/O-related theory, but it seems to be the best lead anyone has. If this is the case, is that a true hardware issue, or is it something that could be fixed with a firmware update? I need to figure out if I need to start badgering Asus about replacing faulty hardware, because it is unacceptable. But, if it's a software issue, I'd imagine every Nexus 7 will have this problem.

Edited September 7, 2012 by Dabogues

[Guest ahatomastarday]

If this is the case, is that a true hardware issue, or is it something that could be fixed with a firmware update?

That's the most important question. If it can be solved with a software updated, I'm very confident that Google will eventually solve it. Sure it's still annoying now, but it'll be okay soon. If it has to do with the hardware, it's a total dealbreaker.

[Guest rferrett]

It really is most frustrating. Been having similar problems myself. NX7 crammed full of comics so about to try getting the used storage down a little and see if that helps.

[Guest Colin Whiteside]

Colin Whiteside -- I'm not too familiar with the technicalities of the whole I/O-related theory, but it seems to be the best lead anyone has. If this is the case, is that a true hardware issue, or is it something that could be fixed with a firmware update? I need to figure out if I need to start badgering Asus about replacing faulty hardware, because it is unacceptable. But, if it's a software issue, I'd imagine every Nexus 7 will have this problem.

I honestly can't think of a hardware issue that would manifest like this, so I'm inclined to think it's a software issue. Whether that's down near the metal or up at the OS level I couldn't speculate on but there may be some kind of fix out there.

[Guest Colin Whiteside]

For what it's worth I decided to run AndroBench on this and it's got some of the worst IO performance of any device released in the past two years, which may go a way to explaining all our issues. It could still be hardware I think looking at these numbers, unless the low-level memory management is really, really awful.

[Guest Colin Whiteside]

In fact, for a giggle, here's AnandTech's benchmarking. http://www.anandtech.com/show/6073/the-google-nexus-7-review/6

For what it's worth, my current random write speeds are in the order of 60kBps. Literally, dial-up broadband speeds.

[Guest Josh92]

Just done mine, what the heck, it's two days old and my write speed is 9.88, despite the Nex7 having the highest in the standings at 28. What is going on!?

My read was only 25 when high end devices are in the 40s.

[Guest Dabogues]

This is depressing...has anyone tried to reach Asus for comment yet? I'd imagine this will be picked up by the tech media a bit more if this tends to happen when the memory starts filling up.

Out of curiosity for anyone who knows more about this than I do, any idea why the IO would be directly affected by the amount of storage space available? I don't get the connection.

Edited September 10, 2012 by Dabogues

[Guest Paul Cahill]

I have opened a case with Asus. Could others please do the same. I don't know how to open a case with Google. If anyone does, please post a link.

Regards

Paul

There is an issue with the 16GB Nexus 7 that many people are finding.

If this tablet is filled up with files, e.g. video or music files, until there is less than 3 to 4GB free, the tablet dramatically slows down. Apps are very slow to load. The interface becomes jerky.

Benchmarks show very slow sequential and random writes. This appears to be the cause of the issue. The only solution appears to be a factory reset. However the problem will come back.

http://rootzwiki.com/topic/31490-very-slow-nexus-7/

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1811432

http://www.modaco.com/topic/356978-n7-slow-down-laggy/page__st__20

http://forum.xda-developers.com/archive/index.php/t-1808952.html

[Guest Colin Whiteside]

Just done mine, what the heck, it's two days old and my write speed is 9.88, despite the Nex7 having the highest in the standings at 28. What is going on!?

My read was only 25 when high end devices are in the 40s.

I'm wondering if they fitted the white press-preview units with better storage...

[Guest Paul Cahill]

Please add your 2c and androbench results to this thread I've started on Google's product forums. Maybe google are watching.

http://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/mobile/loqbCbKVMWE

Paul

[Guest Colin Whiteside]

I'll throw in my findings tonight.

[Guest Dabogues]

I have opened a case with Asus. Could others please do the same.

I'll throw in my findings tonight.

Yes and ditto. I'll do both tonight, as long as my kids cooperate.

Edited September 10, 2012 by Dabogues

[Guest timfimjim]

I thought the idea of not allowing microSD cards was (among other things) to somehow control the performance of the product: it's going to be always fast, you can't screw it up because you can't put a slow microSD in it that would make it slower. So this issue is just CRAZY and very dissapointing :(

That's interesting - I'd never thought of that. I know in the Nexus 7's case, they wanted less storage so the user would stream media from the playstore instead of having it in the storage (thus making them more money)!

[Guest timfimjim]

Also I am not getting very much lag at all. I have definitely heard that if you have less than 1gb free internal storage then it can start to slow down but if you've got more than that then it doesn't seem fair... I mean - it's already advertised as 16gb with only 13 actually available for storage. Now if you've got to keep 2gb of that free just so that the tablet doesn't slow down then it's just silly!!

[Guest Spoke]

Looks like The Register has picked it up:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/11/nexus_7/

[Guest Dabogues]

Great, and all anyone is doing is taking my content out of context and turning it into, "what dummy doesn't know that a 16GB device doesn't actually have 16GB?" My point was this: devices are labeled for a particular amount of storage. Anyone who's ever bought anything storage related knows that that number isn't the actual amount of storage it has, but it tends to be particularly important when talking about devices without a ton of memory. There's less to work with, so every gig counts. In this case, instead of the storage being only ~80+% of the 16GB, it's actually more like 60+%, since the thing chugs unless I have that 3 gigs free (i.e. keep it under 10 GB full). That is a HUGE difference when we're talking about room for apps.

I'm under no delusions about how storage works. I just disagree with the way it's marketed. And, in this case, it's even worse, due to the (presumed) IO issues once you get past 10GB.

[Guest Colin Whiteside]

Glad this has been picked up. Another fun benefit of slowdown due to slow memory speeds: try downloading a rented movie while surfing the web in Chrome. Expect it to be asslike.

[Guest Colin Whiteside]

I mean, I get that this is meant to be a £200 loss-leader tablet designed for streaming, but if you're designing the unit for rapidly taking in and processing data you need fast internal storage.

Latest benchmarks are actually significantly better for reads, for some inexplicable reason, but writes are still sucking hard. Like, sub-Nexus One hard. Again, disable wifi and the scores actually hit the lofty heights of Poor. SQL transactions are so bad they barely even register on the rankings graph.

I've got to admire the contradiction of the thing: a tablet designed for streaming and speed with memory so slow it renders Project Butter pointless; a tablet for company that makes all its money online than only works reliably well when you disable wifi; a powerful multitasking device that grinds to a halt if background tasks try to write to storage.

Edited September 11, 2012 by Colin Whiteside

[Guest Dabogues]

Makes me want to cry.

[Guest Paul Cahill]

I and maybe others have managed to get an article published on The Register.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/11/nexus_7/

However the commentards have missed the issue and think that owners are bleating that they only have 13GB and not 16GB or that it runs slow when 99% full.

Please comment on the article that write performance is still a tenth of what it should be, even when the file system is cleared down so that lots of space is free.

So far the only solution is a factory reset.

[Guest Dabogues]

I ended up restoring to factory defaults and starting again.... I've only installed a handful of apps, but intend to near fill the device with mkv files and see how chrome, currents etc, etc behave. Going by some of the comments above re: I/O, I would expect to see that performance would go downhill again - although Colin's comments that it flies when wifi is off is interesting.. (BTW I'm using stock and non-rooted).

I'm glad you added that to the Register comments, Paul. I think people are getting back on track with it, finally.

Another question for the whole "a factory reset fixes it"---it doesn't really fix it, does it? If you do a factory reset and then reinstall everything back up past 10 GB, won't you still have the same issue? In my experience, it wasn't a factory reset that fixed it---simply uninstalling apps/clearing caches/deleting content until the available storage was below 10 GB.

[Guest ethicalstrategy]

I've definitely noticed it on JR7. I went back to an old nandroid of JR6 and it's been much better again.

[Guest Dabogues]

I've definitely noticed it on JR7. I went back to an old nandroid of JR6 and it's been much better again.

That's using the MoDaCo custom ROM? Was about to root my N7 when I started running into this, so I didn't move forward in the event I need to send it to Asus.

Edited September 12, 2012 by Dabogues