Nexus 7 running like crap

**roblox84** · 11-05-2012, 04:01 PM

So I just loaded a bunch of movies on my device and my nexus is running very slow now while gaming and most apps are crashing. I still have 511mb of space left so I don't see why this is happening. I thought Google fixed this issue with the last update?

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**beck79** · 11-05-2012, 04:34 PM

I read in another thread about using an app like 'Foreover Gone (SD Card Cleaner)' which would fill up the free space and free them which helped.

I would also try rebooting the device, if you did not try it already.

**roblox84** · 11-05-2012, 05:24 PM

Well I just finished watching a show so I deleted it and now i have 1.6gb left and games work fine again with no lag. So basically this tablet has more like 14gb usable space which is pretty annoying since I paid for 16gb. I hope they fix this is 4.2

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**plumberdv** · 11-05-2012, 05:50 PM

Originally Posted by roblox84

Well I just finished watching a show so I deleted it and now i have 1.6gb left and games work fine again with no lag. So basically this tablet has more like 14gb usable space which is pretty annoying since I paid for 16gb. I hope they fix this is 4.2
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

Isn't that true of any and all "hard drives" on just about any type of computer? A certain amount of drive/storage space is used up by the operating system and the pre-installed apps, etc. I have a 1TB external hard drive that actually has only 931 GB of space for my use. The rest is used for formatting I suppose.

**B. Diddy** · 11-05-2012, 06:06 PM

Originally Posted by roblox84

Well I just finished watching a show so I deleted it and now i have 1.6gb left and games work fine again with no lag. So basically this tablet has more like 14gb usable space which is pretty annoying since I paid for 16gb. I hope they fix this is 4.2

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

Of the total memory that any Android device has, about 2 GB is taken up by the OS. Manufacturers will always report the total memory, not the usable memory--it's pretty standard. If you have a device that has significant bloatware (i.e., anything besides a Nexus), you lose additional memory.

**roblox84** · 11-05-2012, 06:09 PM

Originally Posted by plumberdv

Isn't that true of any and all "hard drives" on just about any type of computer? A certain amount of drive/storage space is used up by the operating system and the pre-installed apps, etc. I have a 1TB external hard drive that actually has only 931 GB of space for my use. The rest is used for formatting I suppose.

Definitely but the operating system takes up say 2 gig or so and you can see this when you first turn on a brand new unit. You would except that you would be able to fill up the all of the remaining space. What they didn't say is that you need to leave 2 gigs free not including the operating system stuff to have the tablet run properly. So then in total there's like 4 gigs that you really can't use.

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**rootbrain** · 11-05-2012, 06:41 PM

This has been hashed over many times. It's not just Android, it's pretty much all flavors of unix and windows as well. Even iOS has limitations on how much free space you need to operate efficiently. In the old mainframe world (yes, I lived it, lol) it was the same, but do you know how much memory IBM mainframes had in the mid 80's? 64K. Yes, K. Just like the original IBM PC. But they had such fast I/O and were swapping things in and out so quickly it seemed like much more. You could up the memory from 64K to 640K, but the price of a mainframe went from $2mil to triple that.

All OS's will always be limited by the need for space to work, unless you give them so much real memory it wouldn't matter. But the cost would skyrocket. Faster disks help, for example SSD drives with windows make it fly. If we had those instead of SD, then this issue would be greatly lessened.

Perhaps Google, and others, should count that requirement into the OS requirement and state out right 2.5GB for OS, or 3GB for OS. But it's a marketing thing, to make your storage seem like more that it is. Techies will know this, the common man won't. And most devices are aimed at the common man.

Now that you know, for the future, keep it in mind. Whether Android, Windows, Mac. Doesn't matter. The space you start with, the open space you see, the "usuable space" is not necessarily how much you can use.

**roblox84** · 11-05-2012, 06:53 PM

Originally Posted by rootbrain

This has been hashed over many times. It's not just Android, it's pretty much all flavors of unix and windows as well. Even iOS has limitations on how much free space you need to operate efficiently. In the old mainframe world (yes, I lived it, lol) it was the same, but do you know how much memory IBM mainframes had in the mid 80's? 64K. Yes, K. Just like the original IBM PC. But they had such fast I/O and were swapping things in and out so quickly it seemed like much more. You could up the memory from 64K to 640K, but the price of a mainframe went from $2mil to triple that.

All OS's will always be limited by the need for space to work, unless you give them so much real memory it wouldn't matter. But the cost would skyrocket. Faster disks help, for example SSD drives with windows make it fly. If we had those instead of SD, then this issue would be greatly lessened.

Perhaps Google, and others, should count that requirement into the OS requirement and state out right 2.5GB for OS, or 3GB for OS. But it's a marketing thing, to make your storage seem like more that it is. Techies will know this, the common man won't. And most devices are aimed at the common man.

Now that you know, for the future, keep it in mind. Whether Android, Windows, Mac. Doesn't matter. The space you start with, the open space you see, the "usuable space" is not necessarily how much you can use.

OK thanks I didn't know this was an issue with all of them. I've actually never experienced this on PC and I frequently have sometimes 100mb or less remaining out of 350gb and all is well so I thought it was only an android issue.

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**rootbrain** · 11-05-2012, 08:07 PM

Originally Posted by roblox84

OK thanks I didn't know this was an issue with all of them. I've actually never experienced this on PC and I frequently have sometimes 100mb or less remaining out of 350gb and all is well so I thought it was only an android issue.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

Windows allocates swap up front usually 1-2 times as much as it has RAM. So your 100mb would be 1+ GB on a 1GB RAM Windows machine. But not usable for you unless you want a slow windows machine.

Rootbrain

**Zapflashgone** · 11-05-2012, 08:38 PM

I just glanced at the C: rootdrive on my WDWS7 machine... hiberfil.sys and pagefile.sys alone grab nearly 11gigs back. Any OS has to have some elbow room to "O" with.

**roblox84** · 11-05-2012, 09:35 PM

Well as long as its normal then and I'm not the only one with this issue. I tend to hoard files a lot so I should probably just buy more external drives instead

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**JustinMueller8810** · 11-06-2012, 08:08 AM

stop watching porn on your Nexus 7 OP

**dougltc** · 11-06-2012, 10:04 AM

I never found how to fix this on mine - had to wipe it:

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**VoltaicShock** · 11-06-2012, 10:24 AM

Originally Posted by Zapflashgone

I just glanced at the C: rootdrive on my WDWS7 machine... hiberfil.sys and pagefile.sys alone grab nearly 11gigs back. Any OS has to have some elbow room to "O" with.

I have an SSD and turned of the pagefile (some don't agree with this) and I don't use hibernation. I have always had issues with Windows and hibernation.

**EnlightenedSoul** · 11-06-2012, 10:36 AM

I am having the same issues as well, hopefully there will be some sort of update to address the lag.

**junglejunkie** · 11-06-2012, 10:45 AM

If you haven't tried forever gone, then try it. Its' free and it can't hurt. It worked for mine and my wife's 16GB N7s.

**dougltc** · 11-06-2012, 12:42 PM

Originally Posted by tsaunders

I have an SSD and turned of the pagefile (some don't agree with this) and I don't use hibernation. I have always had issues with Windows and hibernation.

Some bios and motherboard combos never got fixed for sure... and it could be a marginal batch of mobos that causes the problem...

It's official.. this thread has jumped the shark ...

**dougltc** · 11-06-2012, 12:45 PM

Originally Posted by junglejunkie

If you haven't tried forever gone, then try it. Its' free and it can't hurt. It worked for mine and my wife's 16GB N7s.

I am glad that this developer's programming skills are more complete than his English accumen... lol...

**plumberdv** · 11-06-2012, 02:17 PM

Just one quick observation. I just checked out a new 32GB thumbdrive that is completely empty, just formatted and the formatting alone used up 2.1GB.

**mr_nobody** · 11-06-2012, 02:48 PM

Originally Posted by plumberdv

Just one quick observation. I just checked out a new 32GB thumbdrive that is completely empty, just formatted and the formatting alone used up 2.1GB.

The other issue is the whole multiples of 1024 vs multiples of 1000 when measuring drive space. A drive's advertised capacity will be based on multiples of 1000 while other tools measuring usage may actually do things properly and use multiples of 1024 when calculating.

**gmen78** · 11-06-2012, 02:54 PM

Just wait till people buy surface tablets to see later that the os takes up between 8 and 18 gigs of memory... Wowza!. Which begs to question, when are these OEMS gonna start putting a few extra gigs of space... Like 1 or 2 gigs.

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**jpash549** · 11-06-2012, 03:34 PM

The apps probably require varying amounts of "free memory“ to store stuff in. If there is not enough no wonder your big games struggle. My 16GB Nexus has 13.24 GB left for storage.

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**1812dave** · 11-06-2012, 04:01 PM

FOREVER gone works

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**dougltc** · 11-06-2012, 05:03 PM

I just had a scary experience with the app recommended earlier in the thread... Forever Gone...

I have about half of my 16 gigs free... 7.33 gigs...

I ran the program and it seemed to be running fine...

When it got down to less than 600 mb available (meaning that it had written to/filled up all but 600 mb), it slowed down and stopped... meaning the countdown of free space stopped decreasing...

Then the free space went up a little and then back down.. at about 500 mb free the N7 seemed to freeze...

After a short while I hit the power button to turn off the screen and after it went off, it wouldn't come back on...

After a few tense minutes of tapping the power button with no result, I held the power button down for a good 15 seconds...

Still nothing... I had a very bad feeling but after about a minute the tablet rebooted and the notifications that popped up were about 1/2 a day old... meaning that it notified me about a text message I received and read this morning...

But nothing seems to be missing/awry... and I manually deleted the files Forever Gone created and I have made the app Forever Gone...

Did I do anything wrong? Was I supposed to turn off Wifi before running it or something?

Thanks...

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