N7 unresonsiveness: Preventing and fixing

[tabletnovice]

I've had several freezes the last few days, specifically when I was in Settings and clearing out the cache for certain apps. I have some related questions.

1-What are the main causes of the N7 freezing, and is there anything to do regularly to help prevent it from happening?

2- When you tap the power button without holding down, the tablet sleeps. When you and tap it again, it turns back on. Is this the equivalent of a Refresh and is it something you should do regularly?

3- I know Restarting helps when a tablet becomes unresponsive, but I've had a few times recently where it was so frozen that it wouldn't restart by simply holding the power button down for 10 seconds. I finally held both keys down for who knows how long, and the tablet finally restarted. I think this is called a Hard Reset . I accomplished this out of beginners luck, not knowledge. What are the proper steps for doing a Hard Reset?

Thank you.

 

[grobe]

I have the 16gb model. I have had horrible slowing and unresponsiveness. It turns out that when you get close to filling the storage capacity, the tablet freak out, runs slow.

Here is what I did:

1) Do a factory reset... you lose all data and installed apps, etc on the device.

2) Reinstall all your apps

3) Never fill the device up. I am leaving minimum 4 gb free.

4) Get pissed at Asus/Google that you spent the extra $50 for the 16 gb model. I should have saved my money and got the 8gb.

Other than this, I love my Nexus 7. It has been running buttery smooth for three weeks now since the reset

 

[grobe]

FYI -

Factory reset is under Settings> Backup & Reset>Factory Data reset.

Also, I hadn't spent my free $10 in Google wallet before resetting. I lost that. I have been shuffled through enough phone calls with Google and the bank provider that I am giving up now.

SO.... bring the total to $60 that I threw away to get a 16gb rather than 8gb

 

[tabletnovice]

I have the 16gb model. I have had horrible slowing and unresponsiveness. It turns out that when you get close to filling the storage capacity, the tablet freak out, runs slow.

Thanks for the info!

My tablet is not slow, it just freezes occasionally. I downloaded and used some Space and NASA apps, which are very graphic intensive. I wonder if they are pulling too much resources, or are just poorly implemented apps.

My N7 is 8 gb. I've only used 1.9 GB and have 4.1 GB free. I have more apps than I know what to do with (about half of the apps I downloaded are games for my Grandchildren). So the problem can't be for a lack of space. RAM usage fluctuates but it's currently just under 600 MB being used.

I'm still interested if someone can tell me the correct way to do a hard reset. Think I'd try that before a complete restore.

 

[grobe]

I posted hard reset instructions above
Factory reset is under Settings> Backup & Reset>Factory Data reset.
Edit: sorry thought you meant factory reset.

 

[natehoy]

I'm still interested if someone can tell me the correct way to do a hard reset. Think I'd try that before a complete restore.

I am aware of three "resets", and the term "hard reset" could be used to refer to two of them.

- Sleep: Tap the power button to turn the screen off, wait a second, tap it again to turn screen on. This is an immediate if temporary fix for the "lack of touch response" issues that some of us seem to get. It does absolutely nothing to memory, just turns the screen off for a second or two. This would actually never be (properly) referred to as a "reset" of any kind, but it does power down the screen and touch sensor, so it is technically resetting those bits of hardware.

- Power Cycle: Press the power button until you get the prompt, select "Power Down", wait for things to go dark, press and hold power button for a few seconds, then watch the pretty swirly X do its pretty swirly thing for a minute or so. This is the Nexus equivalent of rebooting your PC. It clears RAM, but not permanent storage where apps and app data are stored.

- Factory Reset: This is generally what would be called a "hard reset". Instructions are already all over the thread. It's really the only way to completely clean application and user memory so you can "start fresh".

 

[tabletnovice]

- Factory Reset: This is generally what would be called a "hard reset". Instructions are already all over the thread. It's really the only way to completely clean application and user memory so you can "start fresh".

Thanks for the explanations. Yes, I've searched and found instructions all over the N7 forums, but here's where I'm having a problem:

I understand how to do a factory reset: Settings> Backup & Reset>Factory Data reset.

I'm talking about when the tablet gets so locked up that you can't even shut it off, no less access the settings menu. I thought there was something called a Hard Reset for this type of situation....where it gets you out of a totally locked situation without resetting all the data. I think,it involves some sort of sequence holding down both the Power and Volume buttons.

I think I read this somewhere but can't find it now. I'm such a novice, I could be totally wrong about this. Am I?

 

[mmaestro]

So you should bear in mind there's an issue - although I've only seen it reported thusfar on the 16GB N7 - where free space isn't being properly managed by the device and causes slowdown. It was fixed in 4.1.2, so you might want to wait for the update and see if that fixes your problem.

 

[6tr6tr]

Issue 35663 - android - Nexus 7 sometimes doesn't respond to touch - Android - An Open Handset Alliance Project - Google Project Hosting