Since the day before yesterday, after about 2 weeks since I've repaired the USB port of the SGS3, I got a weird UI thing being shown.
I see random, small, black rectangles appear and disappear. Sometimes also random colorful lines instead of rectangles.
They seem to appear more frequently when I open games, and not showing at all when using the recovery.
I've tried multiple roms (since I thought the rom was buggy), even a Kitkat rom, but I see this issue on all of them.
Not only that, but I see other issues that might be related (and they might be because of the rom) :
- sometimes the UI freeze or I have random reboots.
- Sometimes the UI doesn't respond to touches.
- Sometimes the OS goes to the lock screen for no reason.
Attached a video of the black rectangles. No idea why the video looks a bit red, as the color is ok on the device.
What can it be? And, how can I stop it from happening and fix it?
My guess is that it's a hardware issue, as it occurs on all roms I've tried (and I tried about 8 roms).
Could it be related to the USB port replacement? Maybe they did a sloppy job?
Definitely a hardware issue, and yes, it could be caused by the repair, but i think you could have a hard time proofing that.
tapatalked from lollipopped i9300
FadeFx said:
Definitely a hardware issue, and yes, it could be caused by the repair, but i think you could have a hard time proofing that.
tapatalked from lollipopped i9300
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Click to collapse
Is there even a slight chance it's a display issue?
I think it costs less than an SOC replacement.
Most likely not.
Display issues show different error patterns than you described. Like Black or false color lines (most likely display connector) , dead or (permanent) false color pixels. I have never seen triangles.
Your issue is related to your gpu. Normally you would check for: drivers (you already did by using different roms), heat issues (can be a cause for spontaneous appearance of your error pattern, might be the case if your gpu faces heat accumulation), permanent defect as a result of overheating (eg by OC and higher voltages than stock).
Typical error patterns for gpu issues:
"artifact are defects that result in graphical anomalies on the screen as dots, centellazos, deformed figures such as triangles
or rectangles"
source
if it is a non permanent issue (which is unlikely). Try to cool your phone and then test for a short time. (but keep in mind that batteries don't like it too cold).
hope this gives you more insights to your issue.
I've taken the device to 3 cellphone-labs, all failed to fix the issue. They thought it was a problem with the screen, but even after replacing it, it didn't help.
The last one told me that it's something in the CPU/GPU, and that fixing it will cost quite a lot, so I chose to have a trade-in for Galaxy S3 Neo in about the same cost.
Seems that a lot of people complain about this bug/glitch. It mostly happens with this device, specific to some carrier like s5 t mobile etc. Mostly what people face is flickering with a green/yellow nuance that covers at least half of the screen, and that happens when you set screen brightness on minimum. Some other ( like me ) also get the flickering while turning the screen on or off. So I started doing some searches over the web, and tried all the 'fixes' possible. Sadly to me nothing worked. Some of these 'fixes' are :
Turning off auto brightness.
Turning off adaptive display.
Turning off screen overlay ( found on developer settings )
Also other strange ones like removing your sd card etc. Few people say that these worked for them, but for me it didn't.
I tried booting on safe mode, and the problem was still there. I also flashed official 5.0 and the same. So the only thing left was to blame the hardware. But I was sceptical about this since the problem is not persistive, sometimes it happens, sometimes not. Sometimes it happens on small scale, sometimes it is worse. Also a lot of people say that their devices were working fine and the problem started after marshmallow update. A certain person on an online forum claims that he/ she spoke with samsung officials and they are aware about this problem and working on an update to fix this. Does this mean it is not physical problem but just a software glitch ? Hard to say, I sent my phone to different local repair shop and they say it is screen physical problem. But maybe they just want to scam me and take money ( new screen costs too much )
After going through all these, I just got the idea to try and flash an older firmware, like kitkat. And to my surprise, on official kitkat rom it still does the problem, but FAR less.
So TLDR if you have this glitch and gave up on all the 'fixes' you found online, try flashing kitkat, it might work for you even if it's not a permanent fix.
I'm sorry to bump this topic being that it seems dead. However after my own research and now my second S5 from T-Mobile. I'm at the same point as you. My research states that it's more of an AMOLED screen issue, which after a factory reset and flash of older ROM and such does make sense. However, at the same time it could be an actual issue with the screen.
It's definitely a hardware issue in my case-cold temperatures exacerbate it ie-I have no flicker issues in the summer, but get flicker issues in the winter if my phone cool's down to the 60s. The flicker goes away if I heat the screen.
It seems the lower the temp, the more wattage (brightness) is required for the display matrix to function; insufficient wattage/heat when the screen is activated, and the matrix collapses. This is why it autobrightness tends causes issues when it provides power below threshold for matrix stability.
Easiest legitimate econimical fix is ordering a replacement screen, if you have reaervations about yiur shop doing it, it's a very easy/cheap/simple process to do yourself and plenty of how to YouTube videos.
okay, I will solve this issue for yall. I have an s5 g900t that had the screen flicker issue and also when temps are cold, the screen would blank out till I warmed the screen. I fixed this issue after a year of having the issue. a temp fix which can damage the device was found by accident when I went to change out a broken rear cam. heating the screen with a heat gun during surgery fixed the issue for a while then the symptoms came back. after much much research and testing, I found the amoled screen was the culprit. I ordered a new screen and replaced it. no more issues. I took the old screen and replaced it to my other s5 which is for testing only and the screen flickered under low light and would not come on when cold. so, if you have a screen that is flickering in low light and/or wont come on during cold, its your screen. replace it and fixed. how long the new screen will last? well 2 years later no problems, yet.
FYI, AMOLED screens are notorious for this issue and the manufacture is well aware.
UPDATE 2: Sadly the situation has worsened during the period and the touchscreen loses responsiveness much more often that some games are virtually unplayable. I've moved the games back to my good old Pixel C. Although it's indeed ill-equipped to play some newer games (that they have very low framerate and could sometimes slow down to a near-frozen state, even on lowest detail settings), at least I've no issues with its touchscreen, just that games may get too low framerate to accurately register them on time.
Should point out that S-Pen is apparently not affected by this issue, even with GSI, because S-Pen is treated as a pointer device (with significantly higher sampling rate) and in most cases does not count as touchscreen taps but instead count as left-clicks (e.g. games that exclusively expects touchscreen taps rather than mouse clicks would not respond to S-Pen taps, which is intended). Because of this, whenever I have the issue in-game I always need to pull out the S-Pen to perform some actions, like opening up the ingame menu, or bring up the navbar and go back to home screen, as I usually would have difficulty doing it directly with fingers whenever that happens (usually needs 3-4 taps/swipes to actually get it register once, but with S-Pen it always worked on first try).
Maybe I indeed have a faulty hardware (it doesn't matter anymore now that I've voided my warranty), but the possibility that software issues are contributing to the problem remains high, so for now I have no other choice but to follow kernel and ROM development process for a while to see if there are possible fixes/mitigations. Given this experience, I'm considering looking for another Android tablet with similar features this year but I'm yet to see one (especially considering 120Hz), and of course, I most likely won't get another Samsung device for serious purposes from this point on.
EDIT: Guess this Reddit thread about Galaxy S20 FE is relevant as many issues mentioned there seem to match mine... so this might be an issue specific to Samsung in overall, not just this device.
UPDATE: I'm putting the original post inside a spoiler as the old stuffs were a bit messy and outdated. Most of the original post were written during Android 10 and things have changed quite a bit since then.
Simply put, the touchscreen of this tablet is a bit problematic which makes it not a good idea for serious gaming, though it doesn't seem to affect office/production use as much.
The cause is still unknown and I can't be sure if this is due to hardware or software, or a mix of both. Should point out that the issues persist after switching to a GSI, so the stock ROM is not entirely to blame.
Some ongoing issues:
1. Touches randomly fail to register, and with inconsistent response time (sometimes early or late than average).
2. Touchscreen occasionally stops responding, dropping or delaying a lot of taps. This has become worse since BUD2 as I started having longer periods, and now virtually no touches get registered when it happens. I wonder if this is a side effect of the ghost tap mitigations, as this becomes significantly worse since BUD2 while I hardly ever get any ghost taps since then.
3. Jittery scrolling. Apparently I'm having this issue for quite long. Bounces (a quick scroll in reverse direction) can happen in apps when releasing the finger after scrolling. In games, this bounce registers as an additional flick. Should note that this is actually an indicator of the problem. Whenever I start noticing additional flicks being registered, the actually problem (touchscreen losing nearly all responsiveness) will likely kick in after a while.
Some issues appeared to have been mitigated after FW upgrades:
1. Ghost taps during holds and swipes. This has become lessened since Android 11 and is mostly gone since BUD2.
2. Random auto taps at the edges of screen. Haven't gotten once since BUC1 but I can't be sure it's really gone away.
3. Touches may get registered prematurely (when finger is still a few millimeters away from the screen). This has become lessened since Android 11.
Spoiler: Original post (messy and may be outdated)
It seems the tablet's touchscreen has several issues that I cannot be sure whether the issue is hardware related, software related, or a mix of both. I've been following this thread, but it seems the issue I'm having is more than what the OP was having so I'm considering moving the questions here.
I'm currently experiencing a variety of issues with the touchscreen that, while not a major problem for normal use, can be a serious issue for some games where accurate taps matter. However, the issue is very hard to track as while the problem happened a bit too often inside games, I couldn't easily reproduce the issue outside those games on testing apps despite trying to mimic the original situation. Although the game itself might be having issues, I don't think it's likely as I've played some of them on my smartphone before migrating them to this tablet and I never had any significant issues back then.
The tablet currently has a a tempered glass screen protector installed, and I'm using the tablet with a Type-C audio cable to play its audio from my desktop speakers. (NOTE: S7/S7+ has limited accessories support, that for now, I can only either charge or connect the tablet to the speakers, but not both, as splitters aren't supported) The possibility of the audio cable can be mostly ruled out as I'm encountering those touch issues both with and without it.
The tablet underwent about 3-4 updates and is currently up-to-date. I don't think there were any difference in this among the versions.
Here's what I've found about my tablet's touchscreen:
(DISCLAIMER: I can't prove the reliability of the app used for testing, Multi Touch Test, so it's mostly a reference in case someone wants to try to reproduce. There are more apps that can be used for such testing.)
1. Touchscreen may sometimes not registering taps, or late. In some games this is observed as some taps missed, or registered late (a tap/hold being recognized by the game as much as ~1s later). However, I can't really reproduce this in the test app.
2. Touchscreen may register touches before the finger physically reaches the screen (about 1-2 mm). I'm not sure if static electricity can cause it and this might be considered a normal behavior, but personally I'm feeling the response range is still too long compared to other phones/tablets I have, that it's easier to accidentally tap something, or let something register too early.
3. A tap may be registered more than once. It appears to be easier to reproduce when doing multi touches, but it still happens in some games with fewer simultaneous taps. I managed to get 5 touch/hold events registered with the test app despite using only 4 fingers (4 real touches) sometimes. Although I know bad charger cables can cause this (as well as other erratic touch behaviors), in my case there were no chargers attached (since the port's already been used by the audio cable).
4. When holding and dragging, additional taps may be generated (it can be noticed in some games that have tap sounds for all taps, including invalid ones, as these additional "taps" can be heard). Again, this appears to be easier to reproduce when doing multi touches, as I'm able to occasionally get 5-6 touch events when dragging with only 4 fingers. The drag itself seems consistent, as I haven't observed any abrupt interruptions of valid dragging actions in-game and in other places.
UPDATE (2020.11.22): At one time I was able to reliably reproduce the problematic behavior at some specific regions with the Multi-Touch Test app. To be precise, with the tablet placed landscape (camera facing up), while holding the lower-right part of the screen with my right hand finger, holding and dragging the lower-left region with my left hand finger resulted in a ghosted, inconsistent 3rd tap near where my left hand finger was holding/dragging (matching the issue I'm currently having within some games). It seems for some reasons that particular region of the touchscreen is indeed oversensitive as I was also able to reliably reproduce issues 2/3 at that time. The issue mostly went away after powering the device off and cleaning the screen as I was not able to reproduce it afterwards. Not sure about my current protector's quality, but I might need to look for an option that's more sweat-resilent, as my hands tend to produce sweat over time and that used to cause some serious issues with touching.
5. While testing in the test app, The taps might be stuck if I also let finger pads touch the screen while holding it with fingertip, and it stayed there even after I released my hand and touched elsewhere. Make as many multi touch events might clear it. Not sure if this is a normal behavior (possibly related to palm-related interactions such as palm swipe to take screenshot), or is an error with the test app itself.
6. In rare cases, the touchscreen would stop responding to most of the taps which I suspect this might be hardware related as the issues occur at specific regions. I used to experience such issues with iPads before (4th gen and Pro 2015) which is why I decided to go on with Android-based ones. This issue is not consistent and would go away after a while so usually pausing and doing something else would work.
UPDATE(2020.12.13): I witnessed something interesting. When the tablet stops registering the taps, it might be due to it continuously generating ghost taps on some screen edges near the last few spots I previously touched, completely on its own (my hands weren't even near the tablet). The issue went away after reboot. I forgot to make a logcat as I was in a bit hurry... I'm currently on the November update, but the issue happened even before the updates. It doesn't frequently happen, though.
UPDATE: This is after using the tablet a bit more...
1. Having a screen protector may or may not affect touches, but usually should not be significant, unless the protector is of very poor quality. The market for such can be a bit messy, and quality varies even with the same product. A same protector might work very well for some, but not for others.
2. Under my current circumstances, my S7+ can at most reliably take 3 multi-touches, and sometimes 4 (despite the touchscren can register at most 10). Putting more multi-touches would gradually cause the touch sensor to err and become unable to register taps on time. (While I usually use at most my index and middle fingers, sometimes things can get too complicated that requires me to use my ring fingers as well, and that's when touch-related problems usually start to occur).
3. Although not that often, when the touchscreen started to err, touches might randomly get registered even with my finger hovering quite a few millimeters above the place I'm thinking about touching. I'm still looking for the reason why.
4. The effectiveness of Touchscreen Repair is still uncertain, but it seems to work to some extent to help mitigating issues. However, it doesn't appear to allow me to repeatedly calibrate the screen.
5. Forcing the tablet to run at 60Hz (Motion Smoothness: Standard) would mitigate touch issues with some games that can't really achieve 120fps with most effects turned on. Sadly, some games can be quite demanding even on this tablet's SoC. Some touch issues are more likely to reproduce when the system starts to stutter, so it may be a good idea to turn off some effects if feasible. Not sure if the overall performance can be improved with a custom kernel in the future.
I've had similar issues with mine, during game play - it starts off fine, then the screen starts to lag and many missed inputs... Had an update yesterday, but haven't tried it yet
cheetah2k said:
I've had similar issues with mine, during game play - it starts off fine, then the screen starts to lag and many missed inputs... Had an update yesterday, but haven't tried it yet
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Click to collapse
Not sure what might be causing the issues. While not really an issue for normal use, but in some games it can be really frustrating to find it so difficult to full combo even on lower difficulty levels such as Easy because at least one tap would fail to register correctly in almost every play.
In my cases, the tablet mainly lags/stutters when it throttles due to overheat (if played for a prolonged amount of time). There's really no easy fix for that issue as it's very normal for such beefy SoCs to reach high temperatures.
Honestly, the tablet is too bloated in terms of touchscreen-related features (like S-Pen and palm gestures). Not sure if the touchscreen sensitivity was adjusted to make sure these features work without major issues, which in turn can cause some side effects that only gamers would find them annoying. The touchscreen is indeed oversensitive as some other people have reported, that touches sometimes get registered too easily to the point that it sometimes results in undesired touches, such as being too early (registered before the finger actually landed), or ghosted (a touch appeared as two or more).
Back then I got myself a Pixel C that I flashed with custom ROMs since day one and I never had any issues like this. Although it started developing similar symptoms later on, it turned out to be caused by a swollen battery and the issues went away after replacing it.
Unlike that time, for S7+ I hardly ever had the charger plugged (only when I turned it off and when the battery is really getting low), and there are also no apparent signs of a potential battery issue developing as far as I can see.
EDIT: I'm yet to be able to get another update... but it seems with prolonged gameplay the tablet may become very hot and the touchscreen becomes completely erratic in-game despite the game itself might not be stuttering (and sometimes this would cost me dearly).
I suspect when the SoC overheats the throttle impaired the system's touchscreen recognition and the reason why I'm not able to reproduce every issue outside games is that the tablet would not be as hot as when in-game due to reduced load. Guess I need to look for a way to keep the tablet cool while playing... Once again, it the nature for such beefy SoC to overheat over time.
Bumping this myself as I discovered something.
It seems forcing the S7+ to 60fps (Display -> Motion Smoothness -> Standard) can significantly mitigate the repeated/ghosted taps issue, and varying improvements regarding other touchscreen issues. I cannot say the issue is completely gone this way as I still encounter it from time to time, but with the tablet running at 60fps these issues are significantly less frequent to happen.
Either some background services might be interfering, or that some games can't really handle 120fps with most effects turned on. Guess I might need to experiment on how to disable certain system apps/features that I don't use and can't be disabled normally from the App settings, to further reduce background resource consumption. Hope the pm shell commands can work even without root.
As for stuttering, if caused by the tablet being overheating badly, placing it on a laptop cooling pad (that has fans in it) might help reducing the device's temperature a little bit. Also, tablet covers may block the airflow and limit such method's effectiveness, but I'm worried that the tablet's body might be too slippery without an appropriate cover to maintain enough friction to prevent the tablet from moving while using it.
EDIT: It seems some apps could misbehave when tapping repeatedly somehow (for trying to quickly skip some result screens)... and taps would start registering late, as late as ~1s. It appears as when tapping on a button, at first nothing happens, about a second later the tap against the button gets registered and things would proceed. The problem usually goes away after restarting the app.
The tablet currently has a a tempered glass screen protector installed,
Sorry I did not read All you wrote, I have S7+5G with latest Nov Update.
Personally I would REMOVE the Screen protector, do not like them and they create UI problems, why do you think you need one?, are you rough with Tablet (or Phone), just clean class regularly, try it??
MyAndroids said:
The tablet currently has a a tempered glass screen protector installed,
Sorry I did not read All you wrote, I have S7+5G with latest Nov Update.
Personally I would REMOVE the Screen protector, do not like them and they create UI problems, why do you think you need one?, are you rough with Tablet (or Phone), just clean class regularly, try it??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I cannot rule out the screen protector might affect input, but personally the impact on input sensitivity/precision with tempered glass ones is not that significant. With this tablet I do regularly clean the screen. Nowadays I also use such protectors on my phone, and I hardly ever had any touch-related issues directly caused by screen protectors.
On the other hand, a long time ago I had an iPad Pro which started developing similar symptoms (missed taps, interrupted holds). Back then I had a PET screen protector installed on it, and because of that I removed the protector later on, thinking that might be the culprit, but the symptoms were still there, so the screen protector was NOT the real issue.
And honestly my fingers can indeed be a bit rough with tablet and phones that it's necessary to install a protector, or it'll leave some permanent marks after prolonged use (that when I clean the screen, the areas that I swiped most frequent during gaming would be visible).
EDIT: Not sure when did the November update come out. My device is still on October update and as of now no new updates are available.
EDIT 2: Will update the OP a bit.
EDIT 3: I think some Samsung stuffs is indeed interfering (or at least taking up precious resources) as I did a logcat and noticed something mentioning Game Manager (which I do not want to activate, but it doesn't appear to be disabled completely). Does anyone have a good list about what I can safely disable via adb?
LSS4181 said:
I cannot rule out the screen protector might affect input, but personally the impact on input sensitivity/precision with tempered glass ones is not that significant. With this tablet I do regularly clean the screen. Nowadays I also use such protectors on my phone, and I hardly ever had any touch-related issues directly caused by screen protectors.
On the other hand, a long time ago I had an iPad Pro which started developing similar symptoms (missed taps, interrupted holds). Back then I had a PET screen protector installed on it, and because of that I removed the protector later on, thinking that might be the culprit, but the symptoms were still there, so the screen protector was NOT the real issue.
And honestly my fingers can indeed be a bit rough with tablet and phones that it's necessary to install a protector, or it'll leave some permanent marks after prolonged use (that when I clean the screen, the areas that I swiped most frequent during gaming would be visible).
EDIT: Not sure when did the November update come out. My device is still on October update and as of now no new updates are available.
EDIT 2: Will update the OP a bit.
EDIT 3: I think some Samsung stuffs is indeed interfering (or at least taking up precious resources) as I did a logcat and noticed something mentioning Game Manager (which I do not want to activate, but it doesn't appear to be disabled completely). Does anyone have a good list about what I can safely disable via adb?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can send you the list of what I have disabled on my Tab S4 with android 10. After many trials and errors nothing crashes. Well rules of survival crashes from time to time but I think it might be normal. I left the game mode. Feel free to get rid of it. I based my list on some galaxy S10 debloat threads if I remember correctly. There were some pretty detailed lists. Note that I'm not rooted. I have tried to root but there was more hassle than positive effects.
Ok I got an S7 plus 8/256. The hardware is a beast but the touch screen shows the exact same problems of the non plus version I had tried some weeks ago.
While playing rules of survival, sometimes the left thumb that controls the movement loses the touch and the character gets stuck. Since I play with a pair of triggers, sometimes the left trigger gets irresponsive and my weapon cannot shoot steadily. The right portion of the screen seems to be less affected by this kind of problems. I should flip the tablet and test the opposite side. I am using a glass screen protector. It might be affecting the touch performance, but I'm not entirely sure, since it has been applied without any bubble.
The option to disable unwanted touches is obviously disabled. I did not touch any of the other options about the long press timing or the other one that I cannot remember now.
I have tried a screen testing app and I did not see any ghost touches or other issues.
This is getting annoying. I have 3 weeks before I cannot send it back to Amazon. I bought it on the German warehouse.
Hi All, I have the exact same problem... have you found any solution or Samsung helped you?
nyersike said:
Hi All, I have the exact same problem... have you found any solution or Samsung helped you?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've unlocked and rooted the device as I tried to look into the issue further so I can't really rely on Samsung anymore. I haven't really updated the thread since then as I've been busy and am trying to live on with the issue which I think it's just natural for touch screens to have issues and I really can't avoid such...
With Android 10 FW, the issue seems to be able to affect everywhere as I could witness them happening in home screen and in touch test apps. However, things become different with Android 11 that the issue seems to be constrained to the particular app/game and I could no longer reliably reproduce them outside, only in some rare cases.
Since the BUD2 upgrade, I noticed that the additional taps I used to have during swipe/flick actions mostly disappeared, indicating some form of mitigations. However, with BUD2 I had times where touchscreen stopped working almost completely. Nearly all taps were dropped during the period that I couldn't pause the game nor call out the navbar, until I held the power button that caused the game to lose focus (pausing it in the process), and then touchscreen works again. Either I have a faulty hardware, or at that particular moment there were no CPU cores handling the incoming touch inputs at all.
I'm still looking at what might be causing the issue, but the logcat is too bloated to read, and I still need time to understand the meaning of every line in the kernel dmesg I dumped while playing and experimenting.
In overall, the tablet's framerate is very unstable while playing. On games that limit themselves to 60fps regardless, the game feels janky despite the framerate shown on PerfMon stayed stable at 60. On the other hand, the same games looked very fluid on my SD845-powered Razer Phone 2. I'm starting to wonder, if SD845 is a perfect SOC1 example, and SD865+ being a perfect SOC2 example, for this testcase.
Although I have systemlessly removed GOS via Magisk, it doesn't seem to have it removed completely as there are some logcats coming from system_server mentioning about GOS (especially, a watchdog), just that it couldn't find the apk to reinstall/re-enable. Also, I noticed some kernel dmesg lines containing "Input Booster" talking about something like "Del Ib instance" and I wonder if it has anything to do with GOS (as GOS stuffs tend to call themselves Boosters, like Game Booster).
Still, I'm noticing something that might be affecting the system performance. One of the games I play on the tablet could normally manage to reach near 120fps in-game, but it falls to 30-40 fps ingame after the app loses focus (e.g. switching to home screen or to another app) for at least once. Setting Motion Smoothness to Standard (60Hz) in this case would only make matters worse as it further cut the framerate by half (that is, I have 30-40fps before setting to 60Hz, after that I only get about 10-20fps). It may be because of the game itself (that's based on Unity), but I'm not perfectly sure. For that particular game I need to force close it and run it again in order to make it able to reach 120fps in-game again.
I have used SmartPack to set the GPU on performance governor with power level set to 0, in order to actually keep it on 670MHz as otherwise it stayed on 305MHz most of the time which I suspected it might be the cause of the performance issues, but right now, I'm seeing little gain in video performance and I noticed that the GPU clock can still go down to 525MHz after a while, something which I don't think it should happen on performance governor.
LSS4181 said:
Not sure what might be causing the issues. While not really an issue for normal use, but in some games it can be really frustrating to find it so difficult to full combo even on lower difficulty levels such as Easy because at least one tap would fail to register correctly in almost every play.
In my cases, the tablet mainly lags/stutters when it throttles due to overheat (if played for a prolonged amount of time). There's really no easy fix for that issue as it's very normal for such beefy SoCs to reach high temperatures.
Honestly, the tablet is too bloated in terms of touchscreen-related features (like S-Pen and palm gestures). Not sure if the touchscreen sensitivity was adjusted to make sure these features work without major issues, which in turn can cause some side effects that only gamers would find them annoying. The touchscreen is indeed oversensitive as some other people have reported, that touches sometimes get registered too easily to the point that it sometimes results in undesired touches, such as being too early (registered before the finger actually landed), or ghosted (a touch appeared as two or more).
Back then I got myself a Pixel C that I flashed with custom ROMs since day one and I never had any issues like this. Although it started developing similar symptoms later on, it turned out to be caused by a swollen battery and the issues went away after replacing it.
Unlike that time, for S7+ I hardly ever had the charger plugged (only when I turned it off and when the battery is really getting low), and there are also no apparent signs of a potential battery issue developing as far as I can see.
EDIT: I'm yet to be able to get another update... but it seems with prolonged gameplay the tablet may become very hot and the touchscreen becomes completely erratic in-game despite the game itself might not be stuttering (and sometimes this would cost me dearly).
I suspect when the SoC overheats the throttle impaired the system's touchscreen recognition and the reason why I'm not able to reproduce every issue outside games is that the tablet would not be as hot as when in-game due to reduced load. Guess I need to look for a way to keep the tablet cool while playing... Once again, it the nature for such beefy SoC to overheat over time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The touchscreen went unresponsive today again and I noticed these in the kernel dmesg... Actually, similar dmesg entries happen all the time while the device is running, I just took something that looks relevant.
[ 708.540205] IRQ 5: no longer affine to CPU6
[ 708.561407] fts_touch 4-0049: [sec_input][P] tID:0.1680 z:23 major:16 minor:13 loc:C.C tc:1 type:0 p:0 nlvl:1 maxS:134 hid:0
[ 708.561538] set_freq_limit: id(1) freq(1401600)
[ 708.561548] cpufreq_limit_get: touch min same values(1401600,0) entered. just return.
[ 708.618420] fts_touch 4-0049: [sec_input][R] tID:0 loc:C.C dd:-7,1 mc:6 tc:0 p:0 nlvl:1 maxS:137 hid:0
[ 708.692113] set_freq_limit: id(1) freq(1401600)
[ 708.692130] cpufreq_limit_get: touch min same values(1401600,0) entered. just return.
[ 708.832303] [Input Booster] Release Timeout Func :::: 71's TV No Exist(1)
[ 708.832380] [Input Booster] Release Timeout Func :::: 71's TV No Exist(3)
[ 708.832399] set_freq_limit: id(1) freq(1401600)
[ 708.832412] cpufreq_limit_get: touch min same values(1401600,0) entered. just return.
[ 708.832479] [Input Booster] Del Ib Instance's Id : 71
[ 708.860192] IRQ 5: no longer affine to CPU7
I've set my CPU governors to ondemand and set a much higher minimum clock just because it tends to underclock, yet from the dmesg it's still trying to underclock to a value lower than that.
Also, I noticed several "Release Timeout Func" entries that seems to match the moments when touchscreen stopped responding to almost anything. Again, I don't know what this "Input Booster" really is. It's still hard to determine what exactly happened, though.
Tablet have some serious display problems.
I have sent mine already third time to repair and having same issue all the time.
First time they changed display on it, second time apparently couldn't find any issues. Now i send it third time and waiting to see what's going to happen.
ahaznada said:
Tablet have some serious display problems.
I have sent mine already third time to repair and having same issue all the time.
First time they changed display on it, second time apparently couldn't find any issues. Now i send it third time and waiting to see what's going to happen.
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Click to collapse
Just saw your video. It seems your issue is much worse and more consistent than the ones I'm having.
I don't know if the game engines can also be related, as one of my games uses Unity and the issues happened there most of the times. In other games the issues are less often but still present.
From the looks of it, despite its specs the tablet is not really meant to be used for serious gaming. The SOC might be good, but the touchscreen hardware certainly isn't.
I guess one is supposed to be using S-Pen most of the time for some office/production activities. From what I tested on GSI, S-Pen is considered a pointer device with significantly higher sampling rate. When testing using Touch Screen Benchmark app, with my finger I get 120 touch points per second, but with S-Pen I get about 360 touch points per second.
I'm not sure what Samsung might do to test/repair the touchscreen but I certainly can't ask them anymore, as my warranty is already void (0x1).
LSS4181 said:
Just saw your video. It seems your issue is much worse and more consistent than the ones I'm having.
I don't know if the game engines can also be related, as one of my games uses Unity and the issues happened there most of the times. In other games the issues are less often but still present.
From the looks of it, despite its specs the tablet is not really meant to be used for serious gaming. The SOC might be good, but the touchscreen hardware certainly isn't.
I guess one is supposed to be using S-Pen most of the time for some office/production activities. From what I tested on GSI, S-Pen is considered a pointer device with significantly higher sampling rate. When testing using Touch Screen Benchmark app, with my finger I get 120 touch points per second, but with S-Pen I get about 360 touch points per second.
I'm not sure what Samsung might do to test/repair the touchscreen but I certainly can't ask them anymore, as my warranty is already void (0x1).
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Click to collapse
I have same issues on all apps not just games like internet browsers, play store even on home screen
ahaznada said:
I have same issues on all apps not just games like internet browsers, play store even on home screen
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Click to collapse
On Android 10 I used to have similar situations that when it happens, I would still be affected by it even after switching out the game. On Android 11 it seems to mostly affect the particular game and would mostly go away when I switch back to home screen. I usually would test if the issue's still there in the Touchscreen Benchmark app, but in most cases I couldn't reproduce it there (mainly the Sensitivity test). Of at least 40 test attempts, I only managed to record actual interruptions once, plus a few actual delays (a few missed areas near the beginning).
On the other hand, actually Android does differentiate between touchscreen taps and "mouse" clicks. S-Pen taps are considered "left clicks" and would not work on games I play (just tested it and found out), although games usually do allow such "left clicks" to function in other places like menus. This is how it behaves in GSIs. Maybe it behaves differently in stock ROM but I didn't pay too much attention.
But in overall the tablet's touch response time is not stable. I get much more inconsistent numbers when calibrating touch timings in some games, compared to my phone and my old tablet, Pixel C.
Sadly the issues persist even after I switched to a GSI (it made no noticeable difference). I'm starting to wonder if there really is something wrong with the hardware, though I couldn't really find any really helpful info from logcats and kernel dmesgs that could point out the real cause. Again, RMA is not an option as my warranty has already been voided at this point.
Not sure that all S7+ have this issue or only a few people have this issue, but mine has that issue too.
I purchased the S7+ to use as a second monitor, so didn't notice earlier.
2 months later, I started playing a driving game. While playing the game, suddenly 3" whole left side touchscreen is not responding. After 1~2 seconds, it comes back to normal. And then suddenly it stops for 1~2 seconds and then comes back to normal, repeat.
I flipped the table and played the same game. Then, the right side is the problem. Yeah, as other people also have the issue on the left side, the S7+ really has an issue on the left side.
I installed a tempered glass screen protector and Poetic Revolution case. When I play 10 matches with the screen protector and case, the touch screen issue occurred 2~4 times. Without the screen protector and case, the touch screen issue occurred 0~2 times. Much better, but can't say it is normal.
When I play the same game using my Essential Phone[PH-1], it doesn't have the issue.
I purchased the S7+ three months ago, so claimed a warranty. Not sure Samsung can fix this issue or return without fixing it or fixed it but made more issues. Let's see.
I have same issues on all apps not just games like internet browsers, play store even on home screen
Yachoparis said:
I have same issues on all apps not just games like internet browsers, play store even on home screen
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Click to collapse
Yeah, it doesn't just affect games. It's just some games show symptoms easier than others, probably due to load or maybe optimization-related reasons. Also, in one of the games, I started to feel noticeable touch lags which I didn't notice before (not sure which side caused the issue).
With GSI, it seems touchscreen may not be responsive at startup, that sometimes I have difficulty drawing my lockscreen pattern correctly until the system stabilizes a bit.
I don't know if there are any prebuilt binaries for the `frameworks/base/tests/TouchLatency` test (mentioned here) available, so I can further examine if the issue I'm having is hardware or software related.
Maybe the issue is a mixture of both, as one time, when I had the issue in game I was able to pause the game just fine with my S-Pen (technically on GSI, S-Pen taps are considered left-clicks instead of touchscreen taps so it probably was not affected). I can't be 100% certain, though.
EDIT: Today I had a time when the touch screen stopped responding to anything. I tried bringing up the navbar but was not successful, then I pulled out the S-Pen and was able to bring up the navbar and switch back to home screen without any issue.
Looks like the touchscreen part of this Samsung hardware is really flawed. This doesn't necessarily affect S-Pen as it's being processed differently from normal touches.
Additionally, I noticed that if I hover the S-Pen on the screen (the mouse pointer visible), touchscreen taps may not function correctly in some circumstances (despite they are registered, as the buttons tapped did respond). This seems to be more app-specific and not necessarily an issue with the hardware.
I have the same. New tablet, updated to android 11.
Today I had a time when the touch screen stopped responding to anything.
Ja pierdole....