[Discovery]Prevent freezing issue due to unlocked bootloader - Zenfone 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So, as the title says, there may be a way to prevent your device from freezing due to unlocked bootloader. Here are 2 things I've discovered:
1) Most of you may already know of this: If you switch off cores 3 and 4 of your CPU in the app Kernel Adiutor you can prevent the freezing issue. However, you lose half your CPU power, and if you leave it that way for long you can't switch those cores back on for some reason, and you'll have to reboot your device(else your battery will drain out if left as is, from my experience), so it's quite a cumbersome task.
2) If you play games that require little more than average ram and CPU power(even games like hill climb) your phone won't freeze while playing. I play this game called Vainglory, and after having played for over 10 hours, I can say for sure it didn't freeze even once.
From these two things I can draw up a vague conclusion that the phone freezes when the CPU isn't doing anything much. When we switch off 2 cores, the workload increases on the CPU, this making it busy(which also leads to quick drain). Same goes for gaming.
So how do we work on that? I'm not sure. Anyone have any ideas? Maybe someone can create a kernel compatible with RR and other cm13 roms which has what's needed. Or maybe try a different CPU governor? Well, just wanted to put it out there.

I tried all what you're trying to do and I understand that. The thing is that it will freeze no matter what.
Of course you can try but don't expect too much.
Goodluck!

I am facing this same issue suddenly

there is no connection between ifwi and cpu core

paktepu said:
there is no connection between ifwi and cpu core
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Who said there is?

Another thing I found:
When you use kernel adiutor to switch off cores 3 and 4, and use your phone normally, the instant when your phone would have frozen if it weren't for the app, is when your phone gets much slower suddenly. At this point, you'll no longer be able to switch those cores back on, and only a reboot will resolve that.

I've mentioned this so-called "method" of preventing Z5 freeze long ago. I can confirm that switching off cores 3 and 4 somehow halts the phone's urge to freeze. I could've lived with limiting my "power use" as I'm not really a fan of entrusting your phone with large tasks. However, what turned me off was that disabling either one of cores 3 and 4 also disables the camera somehow (Ring a bell, Z5 users who lose their cameras whenever their bootloaders are unlocked?)
No one really replied with certainty back then and up to now, that thread is still collecting cobwebs.

Question: is battery drain a characteristic of disabling cores? I disabled only core 4. Cores 1, 2, and 3 are up and my ROM (Lineage 14.1) runs perfectly without freezing.

Related

Phone freezing in deep sleep; should I request an RMA?

I've been having a recurring problem where my phone will lock up in a deep sleep, leaving the phone completely off. In order to restart the phone, I have to hold Power and Vol Down which takes me to a charging logo, and then hit power again. This generally happens overnight when the phone is charging, but I've also had it happen once while making a VoIP call. I thought I resolved the issue by wiping the phone and flashing the stock 4.2 ROM. However, the issue just occurred last night after 4 days of bug-free usage.
My question is whether this is some sort of weird software bug or a hardware issue. I haven't seen others report identical behavior but I've seen lots of complaints about freezing and random reboots that seem to be due to software. Should I request an RMA?
+ 1 . I am having the same issue. I would say hang tight. Call the support team and let them know you are having issues. If atfer a few weeks the problem persists perhaps go through an rma. I suspect it is software related. Lets say you did RMA still had the issue then had a dead pixel or other problem? It would suck and you would have to go through the whole process again. rinse and repeat. Only if you want to return the device for a full refund, then I would say hurry up and make that call. My .02 Good luck.
NexUsandThem said:
+ 1 . I am having the same issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
Having the same issue. Although no clear pattern is visible. Sometimes I find the phone dead-locked after putting it aside for 10 minutes and sometimes it seems to run for a day or even two without issue. Running _motley kernel right now without any change on this front.
I rather think it's a software issue than hardware. So I am not going to RMA it.
Strangely when I power off the phone on such a lock-up and then reboot it I will see a substantial drop in battery after the reboot. So the phone seems to be in some state where it still drawns more battery than in normal operation. E.g. with _motley kernel and limited clocks I typically see 3-5% battery drop over night only. When it locks up during the night and I reset it in the morning then battery usually drops much more (e.g. 30-50% is gone). Maybe it's caused by some hanging/deadlocked driver.
If you full factory reset and flashed then i'd say some app of yours is causing the issue.
shotta35 said:
If you full factory reset and flashed then i'd say some app of yours is causing the issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In fact I got the device in dec 2012. Started to set it up and then decided to root it (including full factory reset). I only have a very minor amount of system-level applications installed. Actually the main reason to root was to use Voltage Control as I intended to limit clock rates and (if possible) voltages the same way I was used to do it on my Galaxy Tab 7 (P1000) where I was very pleased with 6-days battery lifetime.
Initially I found the minimum clock rate was set to 1GHz and I have reduced it to 304MHz (minimum with stock kernel). When I discovered first freezes/lock-ups then I reverted to default settings and found it still locking up occasionally. Meanwhile I am using _motley kernel which seems to include some voltage mod as well. Although Voltage Control does not show options to modify voltages. Then I found Trickster MOD which shows some voltage control but it seems to have no effect (at least I was used my galaxy tab to crash when undervolting too much and it's pretty "strange" to be able to set all clock voltages to 0.6V while still running stable; so I guess the settings won't have any effect right now).
I have also tried to remove all modifications and applications and/or profiles which could cause the issue without any difference. Even when run stock settings it occasionally completely locks-up the device.
Edit: I was wrong regarding voltages. In fact I found my device happily works at 1134MHz using 600mV. Since I am used to limit max clock rates to 810MHz I could simply put all voltages to 600mV without seeing a crash/reboot.
CAUTION: This does not necessarily have to apply to all devices. My one is "faster" binned Rev. 11 device. Some voltages of different users are collected here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnlqtEwFJwR6dE55WkZYSThEM3U4SGtKMVl2V1VqMmc#gid=0

[Q] Full stock n9005 - Hotplugging misbehaving, cores stuck online (2 or 4)

Hi,
Anyone been keeping an eye on hotplugging on the n9005 ?
Mine is still unrooted, so I'm talking 100% vanilla Samsung configuration...
I use Android Tuner's online core notifications to keep an eye on this, there are other apps that can to this as well.
At some point, after a few hours of uptime, sometimes only after quite a many (20h+), I just notice that it will never drop below 2 or 4, never had it lock on 3 minimum, so can't comment on that scenario.
Once this happens, it's impossible to get back to single core even on very low load.
Also when leaving the device doing nothing, freq. drops to 300MHz and still 4 cores remain online.
There is obviously an impact on battery drain as well.
Only way to get back to normal is to reboot...
JP.
I've noticed the opposite issue, two cores just going offline forever until I reboot the device.
So that would point to obvious hotplugging issues, except if you ran into thermal throttling, maybe.
Were you running some heavy stuff when this happened ?
JP.
i tested it out of curiosity using the widget in system monitor app.
i have exactly the same issue as SentinelBorg above. the two cores go offline and never come back online until the next restart.
very wierd.
Well for the very least we can conclude hotplugging is flawed in the current firmware ...
As soon as we get a proper recovery (nandroid restore that don't bootloop) I'll start working on an improved kernel, this is just not acceptable for a top notch 700€ pricetagged device
JP.
Send from my Note 3 (n9005)
Latest case ...
Send from my Note 3 (n9005)
Again ...
Send from my Note 3 (n9005)
You're on full stock. Doesn't that mean you have no options regarding CPU government?
nakedtime said:
You're on full stock. Doesn't that mean you have no options regarding CPU government?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct, so I cannot do anything about this misbehaving, except reboot.
I want to know whether this is something others observe as well.
The thing is, if you're not looking at it, you won't know it's happening, cause who really keeps an eye on online cores all the time ? I do as I do kernel coding and as such also work on governors, which make me look at stuff like that.
If this happens of yours, you'll just have a hotter Note 3 with less lasting battery without knowing why, or worse without knowing battery easily could last longer if that was fixed.
This clearly is a bug in the current firmware, since as you correctly stated, being full stock unrooted, I can't be influencing this in any other way than applying load to the CPU which is clearly not the case as you can see in the screenshots... and it just happens randomly.
Once I start on a Note 3 kernel that will be in the top list of things to take care of.
JP.
Sent from my SlimBean 4.3 build 1.8 / Yank555.lu CM10.2 kernel v1.6g-beta4 (Linux 3.0.99) powered Galaxy S3 i9300
I would have gone with the N9000 if I knew how to develop a kernel. BIG.little sounds like so much fun to dev on.
PS
Have you found any Info about the thermal throttling? I'd love to be able to manipulate the temps for less heat when over clocking.
I was actually not going to get any more Samsung device because of crappy open source support they (in fact don't) give
I ended up going for the note 3 because of the specs and exactly because it was the Qualcom and not the Exynos version and a one time offer I could not refuse, but I will go nowhere Samsung's own super secret Exynos CPUs ever again unless they change their policies, which I doubt.
I just do hope I won't regret my move...
JP.
Sent from my SlimBean 4.3 build 1.8 / Yank555.lu CM10.2 kernel v1.6g-beta4 (Linux 3.0.99) powered Galaxy S3 i9300
exactly the same here, after a reboot everything is back to normal
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk 2
Happened again after ~10h uptime while watching a live video stream...
Cores went to a steady 4 online, load was unchanged over a longer period (~45 mins of video stream over WiFi).
This makes little sense, hotplugging is flawed.
JP.
PS: Still stock unrooted.
Send from my Note 3 (n9005)
This is still happening for me, reboot solves it. Running 4.4.2 and thought this should be solved by now.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Stock kitkat XXUENB3, unrooted. I have a similar problem when all of the sudden all cores are stuck online with core 1 and 2 stuck at 1958 mhz and core 0 and 3 scaling normally just not going offline. A reboot fixes the issue untill it happens again randomly. This is my last Android device and I had gs2,gnex,n4 and now n9005.
I've rooted and when the issue happens, disabling mp decision and enabling it again fixes the issue so this means that hotplug doesn't play well. Maybe a custom kernel will fix this issue.
ciprianruse88 said:
I've rooted and when the issue happens, disabling mp decision and enabling it again fixes the issue so this means that hotplug doesn't play well. Maybe a custom kernel will fix this issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, long time I've open this thread
Indeed, on TW I used to do just that, "pkill -9 mpdecision", which killed the daemon and it respawned and all was back to usual.
I've since then moved to CM11, and this never happened again ever since, so I expect this to be a TW related issue, since mpdecision had the same MD5 signature in CM11 as on my stock 4.3 TW ROM.
And it looks like if the problem still persists on KK TW...
But it's certainly not a kernel related issue, as I've use my own kernel on JB TW, where this happened as well, once I went CM11, I ported my kernel to CM, and as I mentioned, never happened ever since.
Might be TW messing with DVFS (for benchmark cheating and maybe other things...).
Maybe worth trying to use Wanam's Xposed Module and disable ROM DVFS.
JP.
2 cores always online and the other 2 always offline= Dual Core
Ok guys I have experienced the bug with 2 cores being always offline which basically makes your Note 3 a dual core phone many times in the past untill I found what caused this! Even firing up Antutu the cores are still 2 and not 4 online! So yeah at first a reboot was an easy and effective sollution but that was not enough so I devoted 2 days trying to find out what caused this. Guess what? The problem was inside one of Samsung apps, specifically the bloody S-Finder app! I can reproduce the bug 100% whenever I want so I am very sure about it! Also I have tested this on 2 other Note 3s (n9005) and I noticed the same bug , with 4.3 and unfortunately now on 4.4.2!
Steps to reproduce it:1) Fire up S-finder 2) Search any app and launch it or even without launching just only by typing on the search bar the phone enters into dual core mode(!) after few seconds 3)Now this is the critical step, remember now the phone is already having only 2 cores enabled so if you press the home button then you are stuck with the buggy dual core mode!!! So this is how you end up with only 2 out of 4 cores working!
The sollution is of course to reboot the phone but another more faster and specific sollution is to close the S-Finder with only this (correct) way: while you are on the S-finder app close it by simply pressing the back button untill it exits completely and you are out to the menu. Incase you are not in the S-finder app then you must check if the program is shown in the recently used apps(longs pressing the home button) then tap on it to open it and then close it by hitting the back button." Don't close/kill it from the task manager or from the recently used apps, only close it when you are inside of the app and hitting the back button!"
Synopsis All in all, the culprit at least on my case is the S-finder app in which when it is used it somehow forces the phone to get into dual core mode and it stays like this because you forget to properly close it after the search is done. The sollution is simply closing the S-Finder gently/properly by using the back button from the inside of the app and not with any other way.
I don't know if this is truly a bug of Samsung or just a sneaky way to increase/improve the battery life at the expense of performance but I surely know that many people have this issue without even realising it!
I said too many things so that I can give a detailed review on this bug, I hope I have expressed it clearly and not to confuse you!
I think it is a very serious issue and it should be fixed as well as inform people about it!
SAVVAS. said:
Ok guys I have experienced the bug with 2 cores being always offline which basically makes your Note 3 a dual core phone many times in the past untill I found what caused this! Even firing up Antutu the cores are still 2 and not 4 online! So yeah at first a reboot was an easy and effective sollution but that was not enough so I devoted 2 days trying to find out what caused this. Guess what? The problem was inside one of Samsung apps, specifically the bloody S-Finder app! I can reproduce the bug 100% whenever I want so I am very sure about it! Also I have tested this on 2 other Note 3s (n9005) and I noticed the same bug , with 4.3 and unfortunately now on 4.4.2!
Steps to reproduce it:1) Fire up S-finder 2) Search any app and launch it or even without launching just only by typing on the search bar the phone enters into dual core mode(!) after few seconds 3)Now this is the critical step, remember now the phone is already having only 2 cores enabled so if you press the home button then you are stuck with the buggy dual core mode!!! So this is how you end up with only 2 out of 4 cores working!
The sollution is of course to reboot the phone but another more faster and specific sollution is to close the S-Finder with only this (correct) way: while you are on the S-finder app close it by simply pressing the back button untill it exits completely and you are out to the menu. Incase you are not in the S-finder app then you must check if the program is shown in the recently used apps(longs pressing the home button) then tap on it to open it and then close it by hitting the back button." Don't close/kill it from the task manager or from the recently used apps, only close it when you are inside of the app and hitting the back button!"
Synopsis All in all, the culprit at least on my case is the S-finder app in which when it is used it somehow forces the phone to get into dual core mode and it stays like this because you forget to properly close it after the search is done. The sollution is simply closing the S-Finder gently/properly by using the back button from the inside of the app and not with any other way.
I don't know if this is truly a bug of Samsung or just a sneaky way to increase/improve the battery life at the expense of performance but I surely know that many people have this issue without even realising it!
I said too many things so that I can give a detailed review on this bug, I hope I have expressed it clearly and not to confuse you!
I think it is a very serious issue and it should be fixed as well as inform people about it!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. I've did the exact same thing and cpu was dual core but after I've reset mp decision I couldn't reproduce it anymore. Good catch!
Yank555 said:
I use Android Tuner's online core notifications to keep an eye on this, there are other apps that can to this as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did you enable the online core notifications in Android Tuner?

[Q] CPU cores cannot enter offline under marginal load (not the deep sleep issue)

Hello.
I have an SM-N9005 Galaxy Note, running original KitKat 4.4.2 (N9005XXUENC3), rooted with Towelroot, with Xposed framework. I have a problem which consists in the CPU cores not becoming offline, when the load is marginal. All the cores run then at 300Mhz, but only one of them is really used and its load is marginal (<10%). Both process manager and the console top command show almost no activity. In a "good" state (after restart, for instance), 3 cores become offline, only the 0th one keeps working at 300MHz (which is good).
I'm not talking about the deep sleep, becouse the phone enters deep sleep without any problems - it simply doesn't turn off cores. It does not happen just after a restart, but some (random) time later.
The problem is, I cannot detect, what is causing such behavior. It seems that "something" is turning off the "offline capability". I have no idea, how to check it (and what). Has anyone noticed such weird behavior. Maybe the solution is known?
Seems that it's mpdecission process, that causes such behavior. Killing it from the terminal fixes the problem for a while.
Wytaptalkowane na notatniku

Multicore power saving - how to turn on?

Guys i need help. I have branded Huawei P8 Lite, and there is 4 cores locked. I found out (on my last phone, Alcatel One Touch Mini S 2) that this utility can unlock rest of cores, and improve performance on phone. I was doin that with Kernel Auditor app before, but on my P8Lite app just freezes when i'm selecting CPU settings. I tried other apps but problem was the same, or apps was not free (i'm broke). I've rooted phone, installed busybox and superuser, permissions works normal. Do you have any ideas how to unlock 8 cores in that phone?
btw, i was trying performance mode on cpu developer, works as 4 cores with maximum speed, not 8 cores, and i can turn off cores (of course only this 4 cores that are available)
If you help me i'll be very, very happy, i just hate limits on branded phones.
The cause of the problem is Huawei's Power Manager software, and this "core-locking" function cannot be removed, or disabled at this point of time. I'm almost sure, apart from the Power Manager, the kernel itself has such "core-locking" thing too.
I don't know know why Huawei did this, and why they didn't include an option to use all 8 cores with manual settings.
However, tests show that the last 4 core will activate under heavy load, meaning you should not need to manually unlock them.
Personally, I don't have any performance issues with the phone, all apps running smoothly, fast, and responsively, without any major lag.
I think without these regulations, the stand-by time would be much much lover than the current stand-by time, which is a solid 1 day for me, with WiFi/LTE always on, 10-15 calls, a few YouTube vids, and almost 5-6 hrs of Spotify music a day.
On the other hand, a few guys are already working on bringin AOSP and CM to our phone, with custom kernels, maybe after the new kernels, you will be to able to use all 8 cores, but as I said before, right now, there is no option to forcefully turn on all the cores.
Thanks for reply so fast, for me that utility is important cause it greatly improved battery life for Alcatel (like 2-3x time). But if it's locked directly from Huawei i guess on this time it's not worth to risk hardbrick. Anyway, thank You for clearing it for me
Good info on that:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/p8lite/general/octacore-4-cores-t3223533/page2
Conclusion: 8 cores work ONLY WHEN REALLY NECESSARY in Intelligent mode. CPU stats app seems to see all cores working nevertheless. CPUZ and CPUX don't see them working normally, in Intelligent mode at least.

Workaround for mmc_read_failed and mmc_write_failed errors

As many others here I started to have mmc_read and mmc_write errors with my N910F plus freezes and restarts or no boot. For me is another case of programmed obsolescence from our beloved Samy as I previously had with the Note 2 chip bug. I supposed that the problem comes from overheating (from a short-circuit or a failing transistor) and I got confirmed. The phone cpu and gpu go up to 90-100deg Celsius. In case you still want to keep your phone and save money until the Note 8 is out here is a possible workaround:
- In case you get mmc errors when flashing with odin you have to take out the battery an keep them both somwhere cool for 15 minutes. Then flash immediatly after starting in download mode, before is heating again.
-If you managed to boot and root you can install Kernel Adiutor or something similar and keep the processors at a max frequency around 1000MHz .
For me it worked and after 2 weeks of testing all kinds roms with repartitioningn, nand erase etc. I have a working if little less performant phone for a week now.
Edit: Device Control is another app that seem more stable and it has a thermal dedicated control over CPUs. Even with intensive use the phone doesn't freeze now. It still needs to be cool to boot.​*I also flashed RamKernel and I don't know it KernelAdiutor works with factory kernel.
Edit2: Wakelock app with level 4 setting > 3 days and going with no lag and no restart. So maybe all above is wrong...

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