yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] Tempie007:
people are investigating a problem, whats wrong with that. so far everything in this thread contains facts , no flamewar against asus - apart from strange prime benchmarks - wich are facts .

Asus can only be happy that people spend their spare time on troubleshooting their device, it might even help them with finding a sollution , and if not we might find workarounds for our own for these io problems ( as happened with the cf scheduler and browser2ram)
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] Rytkonen:
Yeah this is one of the most interesting threads here. I think we are very close to the source of the terrible performance of the Prime.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] banderos101:
Agreed, dont close this thread plz
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] htcplussony:
The 7.0 Plus uses Exynos. I think only the original 10.1 and maybe the wi-fi version of the 8.9 uses Tegra 2.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] Tempie007:
What i don't understand is that a lot of old benchmarks i found on the Web are a lot more positive than the ones on my own device..... (unfortunally i didnt find sqllite performance tests )

My SDCard Write Speed in Antutu shows 5 MB\s ..

- Can it be that one of the software\firmware of last months has something to do with the IO problems?

- Or is this caused by the difference between the Hynix and Kingston chips?

- Or is there something else playing with it? Fragementation or other things that may decrease performance over-time?

http://tweakers.net/reviews/2454/3/transformer-prime-nu-met-ice-cream-sandwich-de-benchmarks-herzien.html

http://www.androidnz.net/2012/02/transformer-prime-real-user-review-part_19.html

http://img.tapatalk.com/60f8128c-4e4d-dddf.jpg

http://img.tapatalk.com/47382c10-231d-668e.jpg
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] leppie:
Found some more info.

My 64GB model is Hynix.

Here is the 'promotional' page for that memory.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] mmoran27:
Can someone bench the beta firmware?

i guess my answer is no since no one has done it.

What is ASUS afraid of?

Their poor engineering decisions? That has already been demonstrated many times by this flop of a tablet.

Quad core is a joke. My dual core Galaxy Note is way faster and my iPad blows this thing out of the water.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] pbelcomp:
You may want to look at post #15 of this thread before spouting off too much.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] htcplussony:
I saw this today http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/05/sandisk-inand-extreme-flash-storage-tegra-3/

The Tegra 3 or at least some revision of it would be able to accept and make use of such fast chips. Not that our Primes uses those chips but it would be nice if it can make full use out of the Kingston or Hynix.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] leppie:
It is also an eMMC chip. Besides a possible difference in hardware layout, it should be pretty much the same driver/interface the Prime (and pretty much every SDIO/MMC chip) uses.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] Emandroid99:
Look

http://i50.tinypic.com/2lt73k.jpg

http://i49.tinypic.com/2ex7vb7.jpg
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] fixyourtech:
Ya 110 seconds, that's terrible.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] Emandroid99:
Tf300t: 106

My tf201: 110
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] banderos101:
Throwing this out there in the hopes that others might experience this and post in case it might be meaningfull

But

"things that may decrease performance over-time?"

Ive had those exact same thoughts, it does feel to me that something gets clogged up after a while.......a reset usually helps a bit, not sure for how long though
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] Einride:
The Anandtech teardown of the Prime showed a Hynix chip, and he didn't report on any issues with I/O. It's hard to identify which chip you've got though, unless kmesgs are very verbose about drivers, firmware, controllers etc. But it could be that the Kingston OR the Hynix chip has some issues which would explain why some people have this problem while others don't.

If it's related to usage over time, I'm inclined to think it's a controller/firmware with wear levelling and/or garbage collection. Much like a lot of the issues earlier PC SSDs had.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] fixyourtech:
Some people may not notice, or haven't used a device with ICS over than the prime.

The Samsung Galaxy S2 gets under 25 seconds.

I also tested a ZTE Optik (A really cheap tablet) it got around a minute.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] Shinare:
Here are some results all just 1000 inserts ( I don't have patience for the prime to finish):

my tfp stock rooted .21: 115 sec

Wife's Samsung slider stock: 15 sec

My moto razr stock rooted .181: 38 sec

How can Asus ignore this??

Interestingly enough that was on performance mode. I just ran it on balanced mode and got 105 seconds. Strange.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] se1000:
It'd be nice to see some numbers from other Tegra 3 devices like the Acer Iconia Tab A510 or Toshiba Excite 10.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] ilostmypistons:
Yes it would...

So here's the results of my wifes cheap ass $249.00 GTab2 7"
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] sputnik767:
I can't be the only one who thinks all of the browser lockups and other strange issues are related to the horrendous NAND performance. I'm reading all of these threads on the next Asus update, and from what I can tell, Asus seems to be focusing more on a band-aid fix to placate the user base, rather than taking care of the root of the problem...assuming the root cause is actually fixable. Since I'm still a believer that this is a problem with drivers/controller rather than the NAND itself, I would think that rectifying this issue should the #1 priority for Asus. After all, this tablet was released months ago, and should never have been released in such a state. And if this problem is actually an issue with cheap/underperforming NAND, than shame on Asus. I may not be a huge fan of Apple gadgets (although my laptop is a Macbook Pro), but they sure as hell know how to keep their customers happy and how to keep them coming back time after time, even when their new product is nothing more than an insignificant upgrade over the old. I am truly at a loss as to why other companies don't get this simple concept that customer satisfaction = more sales, and screwing customers over tends to drive them away. Do they not realize that when we play with a friend's Ipad 2 or 3, we may get just a little disappointed that our quad-core "beast" gets it's rear end handed to it by a 1 year old device with a picture of a bitten apple running half the hardware? I really do hope that Asus comes through with a real fix and not a band-aid, because as of now, the Prime has failed all of my expectations.

As I posted earlier, my original Evo 4G gets 3x the NAND performance, so I am very confident that this is nothing more than a software issue. Surely Asus is not sourcing 5 year old chips for a $500 flagship tablet, right?

Just ran SQLite on my Samsung Galaxy S2 (Epic 4G Touch):

1000 Inserts - 0.645 seconds (about 110 times faster than the Prime)

Overall - 27.005 seconds (about 4.5 times faster than the Prime)

The E4GT is tweaked, but the Prime isn't exactly stock either. I always wondered why installing or deleting apps is so much faster on the E4GT, and now I know why.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] Rytkonen:
There are some One X results in the earlier posts.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] tf201:
To those who think we would need to delete all data to update firmware for nand controller can you explain why beyond my vertex requires it.

I've flashed many ssds and most don't require destructive flash. You could also perform the flash with some sort of PC if for some reason it did require it.

I really hope this gets sorted. Using (mark-tech.blogspot.com guide here) browser2ram has given me a taste of how fast this thing really is.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] valentinrascu:
But i use live cd for this.(vertex3)

Inviato dal mio GT-I9100 usando Tapatalk
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] se1000:
You're right, and they were from what looks like Tegra-3 One X's
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] hairdewx:
I think a lot of people are relying too much on benchmark numbers.

First of all, without some profiler or debugging info we don't actually know if the IO speed is actually the real issue. So getting angry at the brand of flash memory or benchmark numbers is being a bit premature.

I just ran the RL Benchmark on my overclocked Xperia Play, and it scored a terrible 164 seconds, but if not for the benchmark I would have never even noticed... The web browser and games run fast and there is little to no lag on the phone at all...
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] fixyourtech:
Whos to say the Xperia Play is a slow device also.

The Samsung Galaxy S2 with gingerbread is smoother than the Prime.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] tf201:
+1. Remember the processor and rest of the specs of prime are better than most laptops from a few years ago. There is a serious bottleneck I'm sure this is it. I am in the camp that it should be fixable. -- why would you want to argue that the current performance is acceptable? Its not compared to what the hw can do.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] sputnik767:
The benchmark number simply confirms what I've been experiencing. Serious slowdowns when an app is being installed, much longer installation/removal of an app when compared to inferior devices that I own, excessive amount of time to open a powerpoint presentation that's about 20 MB, etc. But I certainly don't need a benchmark score to know that this tablet is significantly underperforming.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] hkmystique:
that's true

I know clearly how my tf201underperform than my i9100 when opening apps, installing apps, titanium backup, etc

benchmarking just lets us know where does the problem come from
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] JamesRC:
I have the same issues on the TF300. I really hope that any update for the TF201 is applied to the TF300 too.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] Tempie007:
Just ran the SQLlite bench while on motley alpha kernel, score aprox 100, also antutu improved slightly.

Not what it should be, but better.

Real world it feels a bit snappier , no lockups thus far.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] hairdewx:
That's where the disconnect is... The benchmark really doesn't confirm anything but the benchmark numbers themselves. The benchmark numbers and slow downs during installation/removal, etc. is not a direct A to B connection. There are many other factors involved.

I'm not trying to say that the slow SQL benchmark performance is not an issue or that performance is acceptable, but there is still not enough information to conclude that IO speed is the biggest culprit in the lag or "jitteryness" people refer to in their descriptions.

For example, how many situations are there that will require the 1000 select statements in the benchmark?

Not only that, Android has been known to not allocate and handle memory as efficiently as it could. What if it's a combination of allocation overhead, core management overhead, and garbage collection that is causing the "jitteryness" and lag?

Right now it just seems like a witch hunt...
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] thenrz:
Best thread thats been here in a while... great read.

I just got my rma number from asus. Cant stand the mura any longer. I asked about nvflash and io performance, and the guy seemed pretty dumbfounded... so i tried :(

I just got my old mytouch 3g slide rooted, soff, etc and loaded cm7. Installing apps took less long on that than my prime. I thought for sure it was simply placebo, but i wiped my prime a bit ago, and it took longer to install sygic on prime than mt3gs. Weird! I am a firm believer that this is fixable ota/.3x. No way any group of engineers would bottleneck 4 cores like this...
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] dagrim1:
K, just been able to compile my own CM9 rom... The tutorial was for a nexus so not completely perfect yet but libsqlite was compiled and results in a ~36.6 sec RL bench...

Will compile for TF201 if I figure out how (this weekend I guess) and see if I notice any issues (semi patch caused a nr of FC in the end) but hey, at least was able to compile something ;)

And I'll also apply this one: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1670824

To make sure all is clean n dandy...
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] banderos101:
That is welcoming news, the fact you got that score potentially means all our primes are capable of doing better in the sql department, thanks dagrim1, for your time and effort in looking into this :)

Edit : Rereading your post. Was this tested on the prime, im a bit confused?

Edit : Ohhhh, "compiled", my bad, though im still a bit confused on the test scores, are we talking about the android emulator?

Still stands though, thanks for time and effort in looking into this:D
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] sputnik767:
That makes sense, and your point is well taken. I can tell you from my specific experiences, that the tablet performs very well under conditions where it's seemingly not accessing the disk. The UI is very fluid for example, and opening an app the second time is virtually instantaneous. But when you start to see significant disk access, things get a bit hairy. For example, the Prime takes about 3 times as long to install the same app as my Samsung Galaxy S 2, and takes about the same time to remove. And loading a large powerpoint (over a few megabytes), especially if it has many images will take a very long time. Sometimes the images take a long time to load, other times they take a long time to render. I bought this tablet to replace my macbook pro for everyday medical school use, but it's not really adequate when in fact it should be more than adequate. Now I am not suggesting that the issue rests solely with the SQL problem, but I am absolutely suggesting that disk access is a major problem. This is evident even without a benchmark. Whether the SQL benchmark tells the whole story or some part of it, at the very least it definitely points us in the right direction. In the end a benchmark is just that: a standard measure of performance across multiple devices. If one device outperforms another in a synthetic benchmark, that device is absolutely better optimized, even if the end user does not notice the difference.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] tf201:
+1 just try the browser with browser2ram and without it and its very obvious nand writing and caching is a major cause of the browser performance issues. With broweser2ram installed and disk caching bypassed the browser is in some as fast as a mobile i5 on windows with similar ram caching mods.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] Stefan662:
I too think this is not a problem of the build in NAND itself but a more general I/O problem.

Writing from or to internal disk to or from SD, microSD or USB is pretty slow.

But if you try to write from SD to USB or vice versa it takes forever.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] dagrim1:
Ok, I have been able to compile a patched libsqlite.so library... For those interested check this thread:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1691669
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] benefit14snake:
With the patch.....WALAA!!! I knew our devs would fix it before Asus LMAO!

EDIT: odd thing is.. apex launcher is FLYING now.. weird.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] banderos101:
Good news

Has this improved the playstore lag for you?
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] benefit14snake:
Seems to have fixed it.

Just downloaded 4 apps and updated two while sifting as quickly threw the UI as possible. Then I loaded Chrome and went to PCper.com (heavy with pictures and flash) and it all ran very smooth.

This is with Aokp build 38 and motleys new kernel.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] Tempie007:
for me it didnt improve the play store installation time of apps. the lockups while installing are mostly gone but thats because of motleys kernel (cfq io scheduler)

ive seen this sql patch improve some things, for instance google reader is way more responsive
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] smrsxn:
can someone share sqlite results after .28 firmware? any improvement?
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] dagrim1:
Nope, hardly any to none...

Interestingly enough I believe the Gummy linaro build improved scores for me, went from 120+ to 83 or something. Still waaay to much but at least a difference.

Back to androwook though.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] demandarin:
look at what I scored on my nexus 7 without a patch. I'm at the top of the list although your prime with patch a few secs. faster. they obviously got soEthing right, software wise. it'll be coming to prime soon enough ;)
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] Parastie:
I really think the key is getting the N7 kernal to work on the prime. I just wish i knew how. :D
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] shinzz:
Wow, I'm surprised you took the fsync off. That's a dangerous game to be playing around with...

I really can't recommend this band aid... well, if you even call it that...
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] mox123:
I'm thinking of trying this on my tf300 it should work I presume? Great progress I think, I've read the entire thread just now
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] Parastie:
For anyone wondering.

I'm running Androwook 2.1 with motley's 3.0.5 kernal. I have SIO scheduler (note! this doesn't always start at bootup, despite my choises in setting up Androwook. I have to use a 3rd party cpu manager (no-frills) to change from cfq to sio), and my results are just slightly better then stock.

Screen shot attached, running at 1.7ghz.

EDIT:

I've attached another screen shot with Motley's 3.0.7. Appears to be slower then 3.0.5, despite having same settings and newer mmc drivers. 3.0.7 is around 116 seconds to complete, 3.0.5 is 90 seconds to complete.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] Parastie:
Hey, demandarin, what are the IO scores on Antuntu on the N7? The screenshots I've seen show it SLOWER then the Prime. I'm tempted to just attempt flashing the N7 kernal on the prime to see if it'll even boot.

EDIT:

Well it looks like the N7 kernals won't flash to our devices. I tried flashing them in TWRP and while it says it was successful, it doesn't change anything.

EDIT2:

And now I know why! The N7 flashes .img while the Prime needs blob files. :(
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] demandarin:
Antutu is not very precise when it comes to I/o scores. Rl sqlite benchmark is dedicated to that. antutu wont show up in market for nexus 7. no jb support yet. ive seen some people sideloaded it. can you upload/attach it then ill sideload it. its a free app so its not a ware.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] Tempie007:
some people are whining about this app but i like it anyways: androbench is the perfect I/O benchmark.

however the same as all benchmarks: no consistent results!

run the bench 5 times in same conditions (fresh boot, wifi disabled) and calculate the average scores.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] demandarin:
Maybe this can shed some light.....if not then this is a f.y.i.

I'm not sure if this will help but here is some info. Nexus 7 I/O performance seems to be far superior to Prime. running RL SQ lite benchmark, I scored 33 secs. overall. placing me at the top of the list. I can't remwber if I posted the screenshot in this thread or another one, in prime forum. I think I posted it in the sqlite patch thread. Others have scored this well or even better in Nexus 7 forum. even people running Antutu on it scores dramatically higher in I/O performance vs. prime scores in that area.

here is the memory used in 8gb version of Nexus 7: Kingston KE44B- 26BN/8GB .source is IfizIt teardown. its a 32nm MLC in the Speed Class of 104MB/s. now Performance wise, this memory Multi-Block Read Sequential is 40MB/s. Its Multi-Block Write Sequential is 20MB/s.

now there hasn't been an official teardown of 16gb version(which I have) but based on Kingston spec sheet and the model 8gb used, the 16gb version of Nexus 7 more than likely is using the Kingston KE4BT4B6A. its specs are exactly the same as 8gb version. same everything other than storage size difference.

attached to this post is the Kingston PDF spec sheet on those models listed. not sure if this can help but maybe comparisons can be made to memory inside of prime. although Some prime models use Kingston and some models the Hynix all in one.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] demandarin:
wifi being disabled will make a difference? or is that to make sure nothing syncs in the background to throw off scores. ill look and see if androbench supports jellybean/nexus 7. what about that smartbench or even the legendary chainfire benchmark(which is said to be one of the best)?
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] kokopuphz:
Interesting to note that Motley had posted in the below post that the Kingston version of TFP uses KE4BT5D6A, which is the same spec wise as the one you have quoted for the Nexus 7, and is included in the PDF you had attached.

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=27938190&postcount=199
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] demandarin:
more evidence likely to support prime I/O issue being software/driver issue then. AS THE NEXUS 7 is using all the latest drivers and software on it. PRIME has been found to still be using 2yr. Old drivers. Which isnt really optimized for its newer hardware.

Also it seems prime memory spec is actually 40MB/s for read & 20MB/s for write(just like nexus) We can clearly see that in the official Kingston spec sheet. But we know prime is seriously nerfed in that department. I'm seriously starting to believe its not the hardware but the software. If the nexus 7 I/o can be dramatically faster running same brand/class of memory, then something is seriously done wrong on prime, software/driver wise. I guessing once JB releases for prime, there will be Major improvement in that department. The new beta. 29 will address I/O issues but, IMO, won't have as much of an impact as JB. Reason being on JB, everything will be updated. Including kernel and memory drivers.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] Parastie:
Everything I've seen says we have Hynix memory, not Kingston. However, I think it's quite obvious by the disabling of the fsync that it is a software issue. I wonder, is it an issue specifically with the way sqlite3 was implemented on the prime? My HTC Desire has better sql right speeds, and it's a very old product. Maybe there's a way to have fsync run half the time, instead of full time? That would give us some level protection, and would still give us performance between all off and all on.
[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] Peter Galbavy:
I'll take issue with this, again. Sorry - not wanting to sound pedantic but it's important to understand the level of the issue.

The disabling of fsync(2) does no more than allows the OS the schedule the writing of dirty blocks to disk, it doesn't improve performance per se, but defers the delays. Normally when you are writing to a database that confirms to the ACID model you will call the equivalent of fsync(2) which will then block your process until the data is confirmed as being written to permanent storage. Removing the fsync just allows the process to continue but the data may not be written out to long term storage in any specific timescale - there is no "contract" to guarantee the permanence of the data.

The problem, purely based on visual inspection of the code, is that the mmc/sdio driver is ancient and doesn't support multi-block writes and/or the correct selection of clock for the IO bus etc. I am not an expert in SDIO but I can tell when a driver has had a radical overhaul which is usually for a good reason.