The Cheap Android CPU limiting conspiracy

Around 2014 or so I bought a cheap $100 Samsung android.  I was impressed by how fast and snappy it was.  I remember thinking, "why bother with an expensive phone when this $100 is so fast?".  Eventually the screen broke and the phone got replaced.

Since then I've had about 4 or 5 cheap androids and they felt much slower and laggy.  Most of them start off feeling fast at first, but over the months get slower and slower.  Simple thing like waiting for the top pull down menu, or waiting on the keyboard to pop up.  Stuff that was never a problem on my $100 phone from 2014.

"Why bother buying an expensive phone when the $100 is fast?"

I think the phone makers figured out this was a problem for them.  So they fixed it to make the CPU's run slow so you will buy a new expensive phone.

Some facts to go with the conspiracy

On your Android the CPU is not always running at full power.  The CPU will slow down to save power, then will speed up when you are doing stuff and need the extra CPU power.  This is a total normal thing.

Well on one of these cheap androids I installed a CPU monitor and it revealed that the CPU was almost always being kept at the much slower speeds - below 50% almost all the time.  So even when I'm using the phone and it's struggling to keep up the CPU is not using max power.

Basically the CPU speed was being reduced by 60% most of the time.

Please note during this time I was on my phone A LOT so it should have been spending much more time in the higher CPU speeds.

412hr stuck at 546 mhz but the phone max CPU power is 1.43 ghz

546 mhz is a very very slow speed.  No one would buy a phone like this on purpose.  These cheap phones advertise they have fast CPU speeds , but then the phone makers lock the CPU speed to be slow so you will want to upgrade later.

Win10 keyboard arrow keys move mouse cursor

When I press keyboard arrow keys the mouse cursor also moves.  This started happening after some recent updates / reboots.  Searched some and the problem is MS Paint is open.  After I close MS Paint the problem stops.  I find this odd because I use MS Paint often and have surely had it open before when I used the arrow keys.  Either way, now that I closed Paint, the arrow keys no longer move mouse pointer.

I checked Ease of Access > Mouse and nothing was enabled / on.

Block Bing "picture of the day" from Bing homepage

I like Bing and have been using it a lot recently.  However I don't like the "picture of the day" which is behind the search box.  I feel it clutters up the page.  I like a nice clear search interface.  Using uBlock I was able to add this to "My Filters" and remove that image

||bing.com/th?

Here is what bing looks like now:

Solved : New Android having trouble with wifi

Got a new Android and noticed it is having trouble staying on my wifi.  Also noticed my previous Android was now also having consistent problems staying on WiFi.

The problem here was my old Android didn't use DHCP for wifi but a static IP.

When I logged into my new phone Google copied over all the wifi information and configuration.  So now both Android's were constantly trying to get on WiFi using the same IP. After this was corrected both Android's are connecting normally now.

SOLVED : HP Laptop 15 wifi slow Realtek RTL8723DE

Had this laptop for many months and the wifi has been slow the whole time.  Sometimes it's just kinda slow and other times HP Laptop 15 Realtek wifi is very slow.  Many speed test show I get between 2 mbit/s and 20 mbit/s.  But if I test with my very cheap android I see very fast speeds.  Often what happens is this :

(a) Speed test starts around 15 to 20mbits then quickly drops to around 10mbits or so.

(b) Speed test starts around 5mbits then drop to 3mbits or 1.5mbits.

Today I tried to fix it and finally for the first time ever saw over 30mbits and even up to 50mbits.  The trouble is, I don't know how I did it.  Was messing with some wifi settings, then would test again.  I changed something wrong and the speed got very slow.  So from Device Manager I uninstalled the Realtek wifi adapter and check box to delete driver too.  After that and a reboot I saw my fastest speed test ever. 

Note : This was not the first time I did an uninstall / delete drivers today.  So I am unsure what happened differently.

Other steps I did today were getting new drivers from HP and having Windows Device manager search/find a newer driver.  But after these changes each time I'd test and there was no improvements.  So I am unsure why I am suddenly seeing a speed increase.  It's not just a one off glitch / speed boost because I have tested this many times over the months.  It was only after the last time I did a device manager -> uninstall / delete driver that I saw this speed boost. 

Tested a few more times and I'm still seeing much faster results than the normal 15 to 20mbits max I use to get.

Drive installed now :

Realtek Semiconductor Corp

4/6/2019

2024.0.8.104

Fix : "Windows Media Player cannot burn some of the files"

So tonight I am in Windows Media Player and trying to burn a CD of fresh MP3 files I just made in Audacity.  Keep getting the error that some files can't be burned but no reason why is given.  Went into "more burn options" after unchecking "Burn CD without gaps" things worked ok.

Also, sometimes I have noticed simply trying to burn the CD again without changing anything will work.

f.lux app flashes Win10

Recently flux started flashes on me.  Every 1s or so it shows full brightness then back to the flux filter.  The fix for me was to do this

- windows button
- type display and "change display settings" should come up
- inside there change Night light to off

After I changed Night light to off I was able to open Flux again without any flashing.

Audacity Windows 10 - "Error opening sound device"

There are several causes and fixed for this but this is what worked for me to get Audacity to record normally in Windows 10.

- settings
- privacy
- microphone
- enable "Allow apps to access microphone"

When that setting is off Audacity in Win10 always gives me "Error opening sound device". Soon as I change that setting to Enabled everything works fine.

My nightmare upgrading with Verizon

Unfortunately in December I upgraded to the Moto Z2 with Verizon.  It has a well known issue with wifi disconnecting.  Google shows a staggering 53,000 pages related to this issue.

I have contacted VZ many times about this and even had a replacement phone sent.  The issue still persist.  Just like everyone else with this issue nothing seems to fix it.  Mid February I tweeted to both VZ and Motorola about this.  Motorola replied and said they know about the issue and are working to fix it.  But everytime I speak with VZ they say "it's not a known issue, we've never heard of this, we don't know what's going on".

What's going on is VZ wants me to keep paying on this phone and doesn't want to eat the cost by taking the phone back and giving me a different model.  I have 2 wifi routers and 3 Androids.  Out of the Androids the Moto Z2 is by far the nicest and most expensive - it is also the only one which can't stay on EITHER wifi network.

The issue is intermittent and sporadic.  Some days it doesn't happen at all, some days it will disconnect 10+ times.  I've seen it disconnect / reconnect several times in less than 5min.  Also noted sometimes when it says it's on wifi it's actually not.  I can see the wifi icon but an app will start throwing errors because there is no data connection.  Please note : this only happens on the Moto Z2. Other devices on the same wifi continue to work normally.

I have given VZ many chances to "do the right thing" and swap out this phone but they refuse.  They want to play the blame game and pretend the problem is NOT the phone so they don't have to eat the cost of a bad phone.

Toshiba E55 Satellite - Charge and power indicator lights dont come on when plugged in

Issue : Toshiba E55 Satellite wont turn on, is plugged in but none of the charge lights are on.  Press power button and a white light flashes a few times.

My fix : Open the laptop and unplug the battery then plugin the charger.  Do not reconnect battery.

I searched the web on this issue and several people said to unplug the battery, wait some, then plug it back in then try to charge it again.  I did this several times but the charge and power lights never come on.  But with the battery disconnected the charge and power lights come on and the laptop boots.

Conclusion : Battery is probably fried and is causing a glitch in the laptop power systems