General Pandora Quirks

[Hooka]

Hey, after about 30 some hours with my pandora I figured I'd leave a note here on GP32X for anyone interested about the little quirks in the system I have found or problems I have run into...

1) Bluetooth can be enabled, but only shutting down will disable it!
2) Unit stays powered on while plugged in to charge, ok not a big concern, but still will take longer to charge and is annoying sometimes
3) stylus tip is very rough and feels like it'll scratch the screen, probably fixable with a little sanding and some kind of coating (anybody with suggestions for this please let me know!)
4) Coming out of suspend mode (closing lid or pushing power switch) tends to bog down the system to an unbearably slow speed.
5) Wifi dropping... this is just a PITA most of the time
6) Pandora boot (holding down pandora button while switching power) causes gfx mess up on start logo
7) Lack of snd-usb-audio kernel modules!


Don't get me wrong guys, I'm still entirely happy with my pandora, but these issues are annoying at the least (and in the case of the wifi problems, might make making online games a bit harder )

Edited to add snd-usb-audio kernel module

 

[juniorm33]

Thanks, that's actually a nice list, only number 3 (and possibly 2) seem like hardware problems.
Hopefully everything else wont take to long to get software fixes for.
Guess for me the WIFI will be slightly annoying.

 

[Kramy]

I remember them commenting on #1 several weeks ago. I'm sure it's on a Todo list somewhere - but since it's a driver issue, don't expect a fix in the near future.

#4 - Could you suspend it several times different ways, and document the exact procedures that cause it?

#5 - What kind of wireless network do you have? Wireless G? What protection settings? Do you have a netbook/laptop? How is the signal strength for it?

Just trying to think of questions that'd make your list more helpful/solvable.

 

[cosam]

2) Unit stays powered on while plugged in to charge, ok not a big concern, but still will take longer to charge and is annoying sometimes

AFAIK that is just the nature of the beast. It'll also charge in sleep mode, though.

3) stylus tip is very rough and feels like it'll scratch the screen, probably fixable with a little sanding and some kind of coating (anybody with suggestions for this please let me know!)

I had that too. Used a bit of fine sandpaper to even the stylus out. The screen has a slightly rough texture to it though, so it still feels a little scratchy when compared to a smooth, glossy one.

4) Coming out of suspend mode (closing lid or pushing power switch) tends to bog down the system to an unbearably slow speed.
5) Wifi dropping... this is just a PITA most of the time

Yup, I have both of those two. Logging out before sleeping seems to help.

6) Pandora boot (holding down pandora button while switching power) causes gfx mess up on start logo

You mean the white "flood"? I always get that at power up, regardless of whether any buttons are pressed in.

 

[torpor]

7) Lack of snd-usb-audio kernel modules!

This part sucks! Not possible to plug in a USB-MIDI cable out of the box and run sequencing software .. grr, I thought this was in the base OS, DJWillis!!!

 

[Hooka]

Kramy:

I'll give the suspend stuff more testing in a little bit (watching some Metalocalypse on it atm )

The wireless network is a wireless N router using WPA2 and there are various other wifi devices around the apartment atm, but the signal strength is always full.

 

[Mqark]

Yep - agree with point 4 - it's a PITA and doesn't make for nice demonstrations to friends as you feel you need to reboot it all the time for it to behave optimaly. Also the feeling of helplessness while you twiddle your thumbs waiting for it to just do something when it comes out of suspend is annoying.

I'd also like to see the charging LED go out when the charge is complete, and for it not to boot the unit when the power cable is introduced to charge it.

I forsee the OS getting tweeked and smoothed in the next few months though once the initial build process settles a bit and more Linux gurus start getting their Pandoras.

I do feel the OS is a little un-responsive on the whole - but it's *very* early days yet and we're early adoptors on the worlds first community designed and built open source, self funded gaming palmtop - It'll be a bumpy road for a while!

 

[Bosbeetle]

maybe you can bug report them

http://bugs.openpandora.org/

 

[Pleng]

Are you just lifting the lid to come out of suspend? I've found that I need to slide the power button to the right, then wait around 10 seconds for the CPU speed to be restored. Lifting the lid seems to only turn the screen back on.

 

[cosam]

Are you just lifting the lid to come out of suspend? I've found that I need to slide the power button to the right, then wait around 10 seconds for the CPU speed to be restored. Lifting the lid seems to only turn the screen back on.

When sliding the switch without even closing the lid I've waited a lot more than 10 seconds for it to come back. In the end I just pulled the battery (couldn't get to the menu to shut down properly).

 

[Hooka]

SteveM: Hold the pandora button and move the power switch right instead of pulling the battery

It's worked every time for me...

 

[laurens]

Are you just lifting the lid to come out of suspend? I've found that I need to slide the power button to the right, then wait around 10 seconds for the CPU speed to be restored. Lifting the lid seems to only turn the screen back on.

When sliding the switch without even closing the lid I've waited a lot more than 10 seconds for it to come back. In the end I just pulled the battery (couldn't get to the menu to shut down properly).

You can also reboot by holding the pandora key and sliding the power switch to on. Found that little tip somewhere in the manual.

 

[cosam]

Heh, I really should read that thing some time ;-P

 

[Hooka]

Ok, just to elaborate on the suspend problems, as far as I can tell, if you suspend and leave the top open, you can resume with no problems. The real problem lies in the fact that once you close the screen and open it it does as people suggested above and thinks you're just waking it up from the closed screen state (or so it seems)

Another thing that screws with me is the fact that when you're charging it and it's at a low power level, the power/low battery light still flickers instead of staying solid showing that it's charging.

 

[PokeParadox]

Hopefully all these niggles can be smoothed out!

 

[Dead1nside]

The software issues I suggest you report as bugs http://bugs.openpandora.org/ so we are all working off the same hymn sheet.

 

[skeezix]

hey Hooka, glad you got the bomb already

1) BT; I think you can suspend it; I hate BT so never fiddled with it
2) The OMAP generalyl wants to be on (ie: like for phones.) When plugged in, it will be on (catches you off guard first time doesn't it?) -- try going into low power mode if you want.
3) stylus tip -- craig mentioned that this batch, has some like that, others fine. (mine is nice and round, no burrs.) Try asking the forum, lots of plastic experts here; a high grain sandpaper ought to do it?
4) lid close is not suspend; lid close is just turning screen off (leabves cpu high, wifi on, etc -- in case you're steamning audio or playing mp3s.) "suspend" (low power mode) is the instant push of the power switch. (With long power switch hold being a real off.) -- coming out of low power does take a few seconds, since the cpu is clocked so slow. We may fiddle with things to bring it up faster, need to test and experiment.

As to lid close .. I can close/open the lid over and over till 'm blkue in the face -- it doesn't slow anthing down, since its just turning off the screen.

(When in very low battery, the system does start to crawl as it tries to start shutting things down)

5) yeah :/
6) pandora-button + power-switch is a 'clumsy reboot if things crashed'; shouldnm't generally be needed/used. But will have to check and see what you mean

Now let me go read the thread

jeff

 

[lulzfish]

I'm confused about #2.
You mean when you're using the Pandora on battery, then plug it in to charge, it stays on?
Like a laptop?
Isn't that exactly what it's supposed to do? All my cell phones have done that, too.

Unless you mean it turns itself on when it's plugged in, which is very strange.

 

[cosam]

Unless you mean it turns itself on when it's plugged in, which is very strange.

Yes, that's exactly what it does.

 

[elwing]

Unless you mean it turns itself on when it's plugged in, which is very strange.

it's not strange, lot of phones does this, but they often boot in a kind of "minimalist mode" and shut down by themself when you unplug it...