[Q] Display Problem (low battery dimming) and Audio Problem (reduced headphone vol) - Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I have recently purchased a Verizon Galaxy S4 and love it. Initially I planned on loading a custom ROM but now that it is rooted and I have removed much of the bloatware, I realize I don't want to give up most of these Touchwiz features. However, there are two simple issues I have never had with an android device before that are bugging me.
First of all, as I'm sure many of you have noticed, when the battery reaches a certain level, the brightness dims to the lowest level possible and you lose the ability to manipulate the brightness. Generally this happens when my phone has at least a couple hours of battery life remaining. Granted, a bright screen will reduce this time but I'd rather have some usable time than none, as the brightness level reaches a point where the phone is completely unusable if you are exposed to any sunlight at all. I have tried going through the settings as well as overriding the brightness with an app I have called Screen Dim to no avail. Has anyone had success brightening the screen at low battery?
Additionally, every time you plug in a 3.5mm stereo jack into the phone, it drops down the volume and usually forces you to acknowledge a dialog box prior to permitting you to raise the volume. This is a wonderful feature if you are completely oblivious and all you ever use are low impedance headphones. However, I use this almost exclusively on loudspeaker stereos, 90% of the time it is my car stereo while I am driving. Occasionally I use bluetooth headphones but I'm not dumb enough to blast that on full volume so this feature is pointless to me. So now here is one more button I have to read and push while in the act of driving in order to get music playing which is unsafe. Is there any way to circumvent this annoyance?

Related

High pitch sound from the display of the TyTn

After about a week of usage (no problems at all), a very high pitch tone is now heard whenever the display is on. If the display is turned off, everything is nice and silent.
This tone is (pure guess here) about 10-12.000 hertz and very annoying since you are holding the phone to your ear during calls. It can be heard from about 5 meters away in a silent room.
It does not matter if the sound volume is off, on vibrate or on. It does not matter if the display backlight is on or off or what level the light is at. A hard-reset didn't do anything either. It also does not matter if WiFi, Bluetooth of the phone radio is on or off.
Any guesses? Should I just return it for repairs or does someone have a fix?
Best regards,
- Soren
It is usually the backlight lamp emits this buzz on some PPC...
But u mention you hear this even the backlight is off...
That's weird... but u need to exchange it back ..looks like HW issue to me
Hi Soren,
Definatly a hardware issue - I'd send it back for repair.
It sounds like the PWM (pulse width modulator) circuit has gone funny. This circuit produces the required -10v or so the display requires from the +3v battery. It's quite common to hear a very low buz at the frequency you mention on most phones.
Gav

[Q] Automatic brightness and headphone jack

Hi guys, I had been playing with my nexus for around a week. Everything are very smooth and overall I'm satisfied with it, but there're 2 things that have been bugging me for a while.
First is the automatic brightness, if I put me device in the well lit area the screen bright up which is normal. But then if I bring it back to dark room it just stay there with the very high brightness and doesn't go down. I need to turn the screen off then on or toggle the auto brightness checkbox to make it back to normal. Is it normal behavior?
Second is the headphone jack, if I plug my phone's headset in (the one with built-in mic and a button to answer the call), the sound from my headset is very weird. It likes you ripped off the vocal and the bass from it, but if I hold the answer button it is normal again until I release it. I tried both headset from Xperia Neo and Nokia C3, it still the same. But this isn't happen with a headphone without mic, it works fine.
So I wanna ask if anyone have the same problems as mine and found a way to fix it.
Thanks for reading.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
skyline159 said:
Hi guys, I had been playing with my nexus for around a week. Everything are very smooth and overall I'm satisfied with it, but there're 2 things that have been bugging me for a while.
First is the automatic brightness, if I put me device in the well lit area the screen bright up which is normal. But then if I bring it back to dark room it just stay there with the very high brightness and doesn't go down. I need to turn the screen off then on or toggle the auto brightness checkbox to make it back to normal. Is it normal behavior?
Second is the headphone jack, if I plug my phone's headset in (the one with built-in mic and a button to answer the call), the sound from my headset is very weird. It likes you ripped off the vocal and the bass from it, but if I hold the answer button it is normal again until I release it. I tried both headset from Xperia Neo and Nokia C3, it still the same. But this isn't happen with a headphone without mic, it works fine.
So I wanna ask if anyone have the same problems as mine and found a way to fix it.
Thanks for reading.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Automatic brightness is clearly a software issue. I think they only increase the brightness in this setting, never decrease (unless you turn off the screen or change brightness settings). This is done to avoid screen flicker (brightness keeps going up and down when the amount of light falling on the sensor changes). This may happen a lot due to your own shadow.
CyanogenMod roms have an option to Allow brightness to decrease when setting brightness to automatic. This will be the solution to the problem.
The headphones may have different hardware setting (positions of Left / Right / Mic) on the 3.5mm jack. You can try by inserting the jack in the port not full but partially (keep some part in the air). I am talking about the 3 rings you see on the metal jack.
Some have it as Left/Right/Mic and some have it as Mic/Left/Right. Headphones without Mic will only have Left/Right and have last spot empty i.e. only 2 rings.
So try inserting headphone only 2 rings in. That may work.
smhtc said:
Automatic brightness is clearly a software issue. I think they only increase the brightness in this setting, never decrease (unless you turn off the screen or change brightness settings). This is done to avoid screen flicker (brightness keeps going up and down when the amount of light falling on the sensor changes). This may happen a lot due to your own shadow.
CyanogenMod roms have an option to Allow brightness to decrease when setting brightness to automatic. This will be the solution to the problem.
The headphones may have different hardware setting (positions of Left / Right / Mic) on the 3.5mm jack. You can try by inserting the jack in the port not full but partially (keep some part in the air). I am talking about the 3 rings you see on the metal jack.
Some have it as Left/Right/Mic and some have it as Mic/Left/Right. Headphones without Mic will only have Left/Right and have last spot empty i.e. only 2 rings.
So try inserting headphone only 2 rings in. That may work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tried CM10 before and it still have the same problem but I didn't dig into the advanced auto brightness option so I missed the "Allow brightness to decrease" setting you said. Now I'm using stock rom so I will take a look into that when I flash CM10 later.
About the headphone jack, you're right. Look like the mic and the ground pin are reverse in my headset and the nexus 7's jack. That's why when I press the button, the mic pin is connected to the ground so I can hear normal sound. Plug it in halfway doesn't work so I think I should find a new headphone without mic.
Anyway, thanks for your answer, it helped me a lot :good:

[working] sound issues and hardware/software link

Hello there everyone.
I am working on few of problems faced by Nexus regarding its sound quality and other issues related to hardware and software. One of the device has confused me completely is been addressed at the end of this thread.
Mostly, according to my experience, the sound is very loud compared to its previous model of Nexus 7 2012 which had mono speakers while this is loaded with two stereo speakers. Using it in portrait mode has best sound experience.
However, if you try the surround sound option via Google Music, the sound isnot really loud. Just without it, I have noticed best performance.
Also, in MX Player Pro, I have seen that with good headphones, you can increase the sound upto 30 (rather than normal 15) yet you can not do the same whilst using the speakers. It could be due to codecs.
Overall, the sound is loud in a quite environment but hardly noticed in busy areas with background noises like streets. shops etc even on its full sound.
However, some devices do have a bit low sound which could be increased by modifying files a bit but this is kind of increasing your speakers output more than it is optimised to be used for. Thus, sound may break and might be distorted. I am trying to find a combination where an optimum balance could be achieved but I haven't been successful. (If anyone has these values, please share)
I havenot come across a speaker problem related to hardware where no sound was coming out of it. Although, few devices do have different maximum sound if measured in db (3 to 5 db on same track)
THE DEVICE
The device came without its top speaker working and after opening it up and checking the speakers, both speakers worked. I thought the reason, it was not working was due to software. I tried looking into it deeply through software modification without any luck.
One day, after heavy gaming out of curiosity, I just turned on songs to check if both speakers were working and viola, both were working out of no where without any software modification (I gave up and reset the Nexus to give it for warranty claim the next day).
I was overjoyed and till next day, both speakers were working perfectly until I did some heavy gaming again and the sound vanished after charging it (It got hot again during charging)
This has happened twice and today I was gaming with sound turned on and nothing. The device top speaker didnot turn on for a second even like two times it happened before. Both that time, my device was silent while gaming.
I suspect some wiring issue but still not sure, I am now a bit sceptical to open this Nexus again and void the warranty as I have already have taken the back lid off few times. I do not intend to heat it with soldering Kit as I have damaged Htc Sensation a while back doing that. Any Suggestions about this device in particular?
How have been your experience with sound quality and do share any mods you have find useful and have tested.

Volume Fluctuations

So basically I've had an audio problem for all things (Bluetooth, earphones and speaker), where I've got media playing at, say 50% on the slider bar, then it suddenly drops to like 10% without the bar position changing before it suddenly returns to the normal state. This is extremely random for me and irritating, as the volume can stay low for an extended period of time, especially since by the time the volume returns to normal, I've raised the volume so it makes me jump when it suddenly blares a YouTube volume. Has anyone found a solution?
I have a rooted Samsung note 4 with the lamlazy note 7 port rom
Many thanks in advance

Viper4Android for cars

I've seen a few posts recently about how to set up Viper4Android on an Android head unit, so thought I would start this thread so that we could share some ideas. The configuration that I posted below is what I came up with in 15 minutes of experimenting yesterday. It's not a definitive or optimum config, it's just what I came up with, but I am very happy with the result. The purpose of this thread is to share ideas and configurations, due to there being a complete lack of this kind of information anywhere else that I could find.
First, a disclaimer: I'm half deaf, have constant ringing in my ears, and I am most definately not an audiophile, so take anything I say below with a grain of salt. Having said that, I do appreciate clarity when listening to music, so that is always my priority.
So I installed an android head unit in my car last week, installed the Hal9k ROM which came with Viper4Android (V4A) pre-installed. I've played around with V4A on my phone before with goods results, it's mainly geared towards phones with earphones, so don't expect too much from it using it in the car. But I played around with it yesterday and came up with a setup that I am really happy with, it gives in my opinion a richer, fuller sound, with no loss of clarity.
So here is what I did:
1) Select the speaker icon down the bottom. The headphone setup certainly has a lot more options available, but I went with the speaker setup as that's what I'm using.
2) Turn on the Master Limiter
3) I turned on Playback Gain control for a specific reason. My head unit has a bit of hiss with no signal at very high volumes. I can't hear it while the engine is running, but it's there. Bumping up the playback gain control let me turn down the gain on the head unit (look in Factory Settings) which reduced the hiss, but without any clipping or distortion that I can hear. I set Strength to 2, Max Gain to 9x, and output threshold to -1db.
4) I turned on the FIR equaliser. I was using the equaliser in the Amplifier app that came with my head unit, but I would rather just have all of these settings in one place, so I set the Amp equaliser to flat, and made all of my adjustments within the FIR equaliser. My setup tends to be a bit bass-heavy to my ears, so I just use the equaliser to gently taper off the bass, and I leave everything else flat. But just adjust it so that it sounds right to you in your car with your choice of music.
5) I turned on Reverberation. I dare say many will scoff at this, but I like the effect. It makes the sound more "full", without any loss of clarity that I can hear. I used fairly minimal settings to achieve this effect. Room size = 25m2, Sound Field = 6m, Damping Factor = 20%, Wet Signal= 20%, Dry Signal = 50%.
And that's what I came up with in 15 minutes. I'm really happy with the result though. Hopefully that will give others a starting point to do some more experimentation. And if you have your own ideas, please share them here
jrobbom5 said:
I've seen a few posts recently about how to set up Viper4Android on an Android head unit, so thought I would start this thread so that we could share some ideas. The configuration that I posted below is what I came up with in 15 minutes of experimenting yesterday. It's not a definitive or optimum config, it's just what I came up with, but I am very happy with the result. The purpose of this thread is to share ideas and configurations, due to there being a complete lack of this kind of information anywhere else that I could find.
First, a disclaimer: I'm half deaf, have constant ringing in my ears, and I am most definately not an audiophile, so take anything I say below with a grain of salt. Having said that, I do appreciate clarity when listening to music, so that is always my priority.
So I installed an android head unit in my car last week, installed the Hal9k ROM which came with Viper4Android (V4A) pre-installed. I've played around with V4A on my phone before with goods results, it's mainly geared towards phones with earphones, so don't expect too much from it using it in the car. But I played around with it yesterday and came up with a setup that I am really happy with, it gives in my opinion a richer, fuller sound, with no loss of clarity.
So here is what I did:
1) Select the speaker icon down the bottom. The headphone setup certainly has a lot more options available, but I went with the speaker setup as that's what I'm using.
2) Turn on the Master Limiter
3) I turned on Playback Gain control for a specific reason. My head unit has a bit of hiss with no signal at very high volumes. I can't hear it while the engine is running, but it's there. Bumping up the playback gain control let me turn down the gain on the head unit (look in Factory Settings) which reduced the hiss, but without any clipping or distortion that I can hear. I set Strength to 2, Max Gain to 9x, and output threshold to -1db.
4) I turned on the FIR equaliser. I was using the equaliser in the Amplifier app that came with my head unit, but I would rather just have all of these settings in one place, so I set the Amp equaliser to flat, and made all of my adjustments within the FIR equaliser. My setup tends to be a bit bass-heavy to my ears, so I just use the equaliser to gently taper off the bass, and I leave everything else flat. But just adjust it so that it sounds right to you in your car with your choice of music.
5) I turned on Reverberation. I dare say many will scoff at this, but I like the effect. It makes the sound more "full", without any loss of clarity that I can hear. I used fairly minimal settings to achieve this effect. Room size = 25m2, Sound Field = 6m, Damping Factor = 20%, Wet Signal= 20%, Dry Signal = 50%.
And that's what I came up with in 15 minutes. I'm really happy with the result though. Hopefully that will give others a starting point to do some more experimentation. And if you have your own ideas, please share them here
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I downloaded Malay Mod {and got the Full Version}. It also came with V4A but I hear no difference no matter what I've got selected. Mine has "Headset - Phone Speaker - Bluetooth Device - USB/Dock" tried them all ..
My headunit pushes amps via RCAs, so maybe it doesn't work through those channels?
Good ideas on your tuning {I've for tinnitus too}.

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