Need a little preformance advise.

[enduser2941]

Hey good people of Droid Forums! I have a question I am hoping you can give me some little trick or suggestion here. I have a Samsung Galaxy Note with ICS4.0.4. It has a ton of apps installed on it, however I thought it has\d plenty of memory.. My problem is the device has been running VERY sluggishly. Like if I am in SMS mode and I am typing, the device can not keep up with how fast my fingers are typing. There seems to be quite a delay between when my finger hits the letter, and I hear and see the letter appear.

I have an 8GB MicroSD card 2GB used. On Board, using Easy Task Killer it says I have used 596MB of 720MB ..well I am not sure..cause that seems very low. I thought this thing had eithe 8GB or 16GM internal memory, so I am not sure.

EDIT: According to specs..
RAM: 1,024 MB
Internal Storage: 16,384 MB
Maximum Removable Storage: 32 GB Removable Storage Included: 8 GB <--Thats what I have
Removable Storage Type: microSD

For performance apps I have App Cache Cleaner and Fast Reboot. Though even after running them, I see no improvement in the sluggishness. The only time there seems to me any improvement is if I completely reboot the device but it seems to be lost pretty quick. Can you please PLEASE help me out here? I really need someway to improve the performance on this thing. This thing should be zippin and instead it seems to act better as a paper weight then the technological wonder it's supposed to be.

I know you guys will have some great ideas as even though I haven't got a Verizon device, you guys have never failed to impress me with your kindness and knowledge.

I am not outside of purchasing some app to help with the performance if you guys can guarantee me that it will help. I have tried a bunch of the freebee apps such as what I stated above and they work, usually, but for some reason, they just don't seem to be helping anymore and I am not sure at this point what to do.

Thanks guys! I really appreciated it!

 

[enduser2941]

WOW!! The droidforums has let me down for the first time ever and offered no assistance with this. Have I posted this in the wong spot? Could someone at least let me know if this should have been posted elsewhere? Over 200 views and not one suggestion? Sad really

 

[94lt1]

Sorry.. I don't think anyone saw this.

Rebooting helps but only for a short while.. have you tried clearing the cache? I can't tell you how because I'm not familiar with the note...


I would try that and see what happens... pull the battery out for a few minutes.. that "may" help.

 

[enduser2941]

Sorry.. I don't think anyone saw this.

I kinda figured that something like that must have happened, because of all the times I have posted here, everyone has been more then helpful which is unlike the other forums I go to. I always come here because everyone here is always so helpful.

Rebooting helps but only for a short while.. have you tried clearing the cache? I can't tell you how because I'm not familiar with the note...

I would try that and see what happens... pull the battery out for a few minutes.. that "may" help.

Yes I have tried that. In my post I mentioned that I use App Cache Cleaner which came highly recommended for this very reason, but it doesn't seem to help anymore. The pulling of the battery only helps for a short period.

I suspect there is an app running that is completely hogging all my resources or there is an app that has a memory leak and progressively keeps eating up memory the longer it runs. I wish there was a TOP program or something similar to help me figure out what app maybe doing this.

Would there be a better place to post this question then here to get some more views and suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[macpro88]

I feel like you might not have a firm grasp on "memory," that's what I get from your first post.

Often times people confuse memory with storage space and memory with RAM.

Storage is where your apps and media content and all that stuff is physically stored. It just sits there. This is where the internal storage, external storage SD cards come into play. They don't do anything but "keep" stuff.

RAM is where the important part here. RAM is what memory should be referred to as and should be looked as a volatile memory type. Meaning this is where your apps come alive. When an app is being used, its living in the RAM, so that you can use it and interact with it etc.. Some apps require more or less RAM than others to run. Aside from RAM to run, apps also need the processor as well to run which is another resource apps can use to slow down the device if too many are being used.

Android does a pretty good job at managing its RAM. When it reaches a certain threshold, Android kills the oldest task to free up more RAM. However, sometimes things can get stuck in RAM and some APPs are just pure RAM hogs. And certain apps also use RAM and even processor when not actually being used and are just in the "background."

There are apps out there that can monitor activity and see what apps are using the most resources when it comes to RAM and CPU usage, search for a few and see what you find.

You can also, as suggested above, boot into stock recovery and wipe the cache.

Cache are the temporary files being stored in a hidden spot that Android and apps use to recall items faster so you don't have to wait. If the cache gets built up after a while, things start to slow down.

I would also suggest going through your app list and uninstall any and all apps that you really don't use or need, and you just have to them to just have them. That can be problematic when apps just build up. Also, when going through the list of apps to uninstall, I always hit the "Clear Cache" and "Clear Data" button before I hit the "Uninstall" button.

Hope this helps.

 

[enduser2941]

macpro88, Thanks alot for the reply! Actually that was some excellent advice and I must apologize. While I am very knowledgeable regarding memory (volatile, non-volatile), cache, and physical storage, I lacked the understanding of how these were used withing the Droid, to which you have just cleared up for me. For some stupid reason, I had the impression that the on board storage also acted as virtual memory for the RAM as well as the data storage for the apps, settings, and files. I feel sot of idiotic for making such an assumption. I never really found a good design doc to explain in basic terms how Droids and I guess most smart phones are designed.

I should have indicated a little more info of what I have done as it may have cleared up some confusion for me and you guys. It's just that sometimes I get some amazing replies such as these that are not just useful but also informative and educational. Other times I get replies where someone just says, "go download this, and it should take care of your problem", therefore, I never know just how much information I should provide in the beginning. Going forward. I think I will just give as much info as possible regardless of the replies I get this way I avoid people spending their time writing a reply that contains things I either already know, or have already done and will serve to help anyone else who may encounter any similar issues.

So here goes. I have already gone ahead and removed all apps that I either don't use or rarely use other then the bloatware as I don't have root. I have read that there is a way to "disable" said apps, however, I have not done so yet as I have gotten mixed reviews as to how effective this is.

I also have the App Cache Cleaner app which I use when ever I seem to be in this situation, but as of late, it has not seemed to help things very much.

I only have 3 widgets running mainly because I really haven't found many widgets that I find useful enough for me to warrant them running all the time. The main widget that I suspect would use the most resources would be GO Weather EX. (I am not running the GO Launcher as I prefer the Apex Pro Launcher and had many problems when I used the GO Launcher EX and GO Weather EX works just fine under other launchers).

I am aware that there are many apps which can monitor activity and see what apps are using the most resources when it comes to RAM and CPU usage, however, that is part of my problem.. I know there are a lot of them but I find the ones I have tried tend to eat a lot of resources running as they tend to run as widgets. I would love if someone could suggest to me a low over head app / app-widget that would work good for me. Anyone have some personal suggestion?

The suggestion to boot into stock recovery, is that what 94lt1 was suggesting when he said to pull the battery? If not, I am not really sure how to boot into stock recovery. Clearing the cache would be of no issue as I already do that with App Cache Cleaner and this app does not run as a widget, but does allow you to schedule a clearing, currently set to remove the Cache every 4 hours. The next lowest setting is once and hours and I can't automatically have it do it more then that, though I can decrease the frequency 4, 8, 12 hours to (n)Days.

I also see your point of clearing the cache and data before uninstalling an app, though I have not done that. I hope I do not have fragmented cache and data files sitting around but even if I did, that should only effect the non-volatile storage memory I would hope as if it were in the RAM, rebooting should have cleared that up.

Ok, now having stated all this. If someone would be so kind as to suggest an app for identifying the hog apps that would be great as I would like to see what is using up the most resources. That is why I was hoping there was a TOP like app, but I searched around and could not find one.
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/members/168721.html

In summary, here are my action items:

1. I need to identify the RAM / CPU hogs (app needed).
2. Continue to remove unneeded / unwanted apps, clearing cache and data prior to app removal.
3. Boot into stock recovery and clear cache (need instructions on how to boot into stock recovery, cache can be cleared either by App Cache Cleaner or via Setting>Applications.
4. Keep widgets down to only those needed and those that are not RAM/CPU hogs.

I hope I have taken everyone's suggestions and look forward to reading some more suggestions based on the original problem and the requests I outlined above.

Thanks Guys!

EU

 

[macpro88]

I noticed that you are using a third party launcher, this can sometimes be the source of the sluggishness believe it or not. I would try clearing the cache of the launcher app and maybe even uninstall it for a while and see if that helps a little bit. Then reinstall it.

I would also not worry about file fragmentation on solid state storage, such as found in mobile devices. It's almost nonexistent. File fragmentation is usually a result from traditional platter discs with read/write heads writing the information to the disk.

Also look into what apps are continually looking to get data, such as email and social apps wanting to update. Continual updating, known as "push" may or may not slow things down, I don't know, but its worth looking at. I usually don't let my social apps sync data and I just refresh the app when I open it up. All my email accounts are set to fetch data every 15 minutes, and my weather is set to update every hour. Just some other things to look at.

 

[enduser2941]

Macpro88, you are a genius! Well, while that maybe true, because of you I have figured out my problem! I am such an IDIOT! The problem is the sync... Thinking back to when this problem started becoming an all out war between me and the device, I recall that I made some changes to the sync accounts in an effort to stream line it so that I would get my emails in somewhat realtime on my device, however it appears that I accidently turn up sync'ing on EVERYTHING not just the mail portion of the accounts. It would seem that I even turned on sync'ing for accounts that I don't even use anymore and thought I deleted!

WOW amazing! I am sorry for being such a tool! lol

As for the fagmenting, I figured it was no big deal with solid state devices since writing to the disk platters is really the on reason fragenting was even a problem. I suspect as I stated before that the only problem one would expect to even see would be left over data files that would just use space but not affect performance to any appreciable extent.

Well dumbass issue is resolved, though this should stand as a reminder for anyone with a similar problem to go back and review and recent changes you may have made on the device, and always check the sync accounts first.

The good news here is I did learn a few things from this thread such as how the memory / RAM ect is used on a smart device, as well, I was unaware that Launchers actually used the cache just like all other apps. While that should have been a no brainer, I just never associated the launcher with the performance of the device when that probably should have been one of the first things I looked at.

Well, thanks again to all for helping and thumbs up macpro88 for the edumacation!

 

[macpro88]

No problem! And yes, launchers are huge resource hogs! Its what does most the work!

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD

 

[LoudRam]

Macpro beat me to one suggestion. Turn off all auto updating and syncing. I do all that manually when I open the app. Also get rid of your task killer. As it was explained earlier Android does that automatically as needed. They can also slow you down. For cleaning the cache I use All-In-One Toolbox. It has a cache cleaner as well as an SD file cleaner and other tools to help monitor your system. It does have a task killer but I don't use it. Also I've found other caches in my phone that no cache cleaner has ever touched. I clear them manually. On my phone they can be found under the storage tab. I hope this helps some.

Edit: I see you figured it out as I was typing. Good to hear you found the issue.

Sent from my HTC Rezound using Droid Forums

 

[enduser2941]

Hey LoudRam, my fellow Jersian! While I do not use a third party task cleaner (only the App Cache Cleaner) I will check out your app suggestion because I would prefer an all-in-one solution vs having multiple single apps to keep tack of which each is probably using as much resources as one all-in-one app!

 

[LoudRam]

The All-in-one app is really nice. It's actually pretty light on resources and it replaced three or four apps for me. There is also a thread on it in the Android App section.

Sent from my HTC Rezound using Droid Forums

 

[enduser2941]

Cool deal, I will definitely take a look at the thread and try out the app. My suspicion is that it may too replace about 4 app's that I can immediately think of.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 (Galaxy Note) using Tapatalk 2 - jealous aren't you!

 

[enduser2941]

The All-in-one app is really nice.

Well, now I have sort of a different question. How do you actually evaluate one of these all-in-one toolbox apps. I currently see 2 that state they are all-in-ones. The one you were mentioning All-In-One Toolbox by IMOBLIFE and ZDbox by ZDWorks, which apparently was highly rated 5 starts in the XDA forums. They both seem to have all the tools I need which would allow me to remove all my efficiency tools.

So I guess the question would be, how would I compare these two to find out which would run better and run more efficiently. I suppose the easy thing would be to compare features, but I have no clue how to compare the efficiency of the two.

Any suggestions?

 

[LoudRam]

I never heard of the other one. I guess you'll just have to download them both and try them out. If app size is an issue go with that. Check out a few pages worth of reviews. When was the last time it was updated. That will tell you if the developer is still supporting the app. I know that with All-in-one the developer started a thread in here for it and just posted the other day about how there are some upcoming improvements. They actively support this app and respond to feedback. The other may too, I don't know. To actually compare the efficiency of each? I couldn't tell you other than try them both.

Sent from my HTC Rezound using Droid Forums