Latest firmware for Window N90 Dual-core

[tobyyoda]

Chuckles I have the exact same issue, as does my friend - we bought our units at the same time. We were hoping a firmware update might resolve but more and more thinking this is a faulty hardware issue. vendor doesn't want to take the units back - we're in China so not easy to get refunds! I will try processor speed tweaks as per yellowperil's comments...if this doesn't work it's an expensive paperweight!

[tobyyoda]

Try dropping your speed down to 1 or 1.2 and see ow that goes....

yellowperil, could you advise how to do this - assume I need to root the device first...

[yellowperil]

you need an app that allows you to do this, setcpu or something like that, last time I tried it I could actually turn the cpu speed back up but this was on my a10t.
Search the market you should find some in there. Sorry I cant be any more help I dont have a RK3066

Usually hardware issue (especially fuzzy screen, and freezes) are usually forms of over heating or chip is being uased outside its designed range, basically the chip cant keep up and the fuzzy screen shows corruption in the data flow (visual) and behind the scenes freezes as data is passed around that is corrupted.

I am guessing these are the first runs of the rk3066 units and they still have not stabilized on a cpu/gpu speed that is rock solid.
I would guess they are pushing the limits on these chips to make them more desirable to the resellers, short term use should be no issue, long term use your going to burn out the chips.
My guess is the stable clock speed is nearer 1Ghz-1.2Ghz as these are dual core, and most single core cannot go over 1.2Ghz without becoming really unstable.
I would say its a mixture of both the clock speed and the ICS build.

What does it say your clock speed is on the box and what is it actually set to on the tablet, you should see it in performance, or when you run a cpu apk.

[adinobro]

I live in China and over here the warrenty is fairly good. Contacted the supplier about the problem , shipped it back to them and my wifi was faulty(hardware). Should have a new device in a couple of days.

That being said I did find out a little bit of useful information they are now up to the 7th or 8th batch of these devices and the new batch is suppose to fix some of the hardware problems people have been talking about (or that's what they said). Don't know how you can tell which batch version you get but I assume within 6 months or so they should only be selling the newer versions. (for people that find this post later on ^_^)

[yellowperil]

This is the problem is that there are now a bunch of tablets out there with known issues, usually you need to keep an eye out for the 2nd gen of the chip, this is the only way you know your not going to get one of the tablets from the first batch.
the only way to tell this would be if some hardware change took place, e.g. in some tablets its moving from 512mb to 1g, in other 1gb to 2gb for system, other with an updated camera, back one becomes a 5mp camera instead of the 2mp one.

its never really advisable to expect everything will work perfect on first runs, usually sticking with the big name manufacturers you have a safer bet, but then again you never know with some resellers what your actually getting till its delivered to the door.

I believe some manufacturers actually started putting serial numbers on the tablets to show them (zenithink c91 I think, because people were selling the first gen ones as second gen ones, which had different hardware specs, and the only way to know was to actually switch on the device).

Hopefully we can get in touch with some of the manufacturers and get the info from the horses mouth.

[Chuckles]

you need an app that allows you to do this, setcpu or something like that...

Yes, that makes sense. Thanks!

Just to be safe I reflashed the firmware and restored from Titanium; then I downloaded AnTuTu CPU Master (free). It shows the frequency as ranging from 252 to 1608 MHZ, but it is now generally sitting at 252 and the tablet is currently quite stable.

I have cut the top speed to 1200 MHz and I'll have to find out if this makes any difference. There are also GPU settings and I'll try them if the CPU adjustment does not work.

[yellowperil]

will be interesting to see how stable it becomes dropping it down, I do know that the manufacturers are stating 1.4 up to 1.6, but if its anything like the a10t, that state 1.5, there is no way it is stable enough to run at those speeds at all, most people are at 1 or 1.2ghz only.

I did see one site stating they were selling a 3.2ghz rk3066 I think they got a little confused............

[Chuckles]

After working fine yesterday, it is completely dead today. It will not get past the boot logos. This is too early for the cpu app to make any difference.


EDITED TO ADD: I just found that it starts up fine when the charger is plugged in.

The battery was at 8%--it was not turned off overnight but in sleep mode. I'm surprised the battery went down so much, I guess it doesn't have good power-saving in sleep mode. Yesterday, when it worked ok, it was not plugged in but battery was at 90+.

I don't know if this poor handling of slightly lower voltages (at low charge) is something that can be fixed by firmware updates.

Meanwhile, I will power down the tablet when not in use---I hate to do that because it takes 55 sec to come back up. (My laptop cold-boots Win7 in 25 sec from SSD---I thought tablets would be an improvement.)

[yellowperil]

Stuck at the logo usually means a dead OS installation, you should be able to reflash by using the normal flash recovery provided by the manufactuere (e.g. livesuite)

As to the CPU speed, this will only resolve the issue if the issue was caused by instability when the tablet is running.
If the damage has been done by it being run at a speed thats bad, the damage may have been done already.

A good way of comparing this is to over clocking a video card, it usually shows artifacts if its over heating, and if it gets to hot it basically kills the chip and even if you try and run it at a slower speed its to late as the damage has already been done.

With it getting stuck at the logo on bootup, this looks more like the firmware needs to be reinstalled on the tablet. Possibly bad write to the memory and corruption.

[Chuckles]

(a) As previously noted (post #26) I reflashed it yesterday.

(b) It boots and runs fine with charger plugged in, or when the battery is fully charged, so it has nothing to do with cpu/gpu damage or firmware corruption.