Hello Everyone,

I recently bought a brand new N900 and have been trying to tweek it to run faster. It has been pretty slow since I bought it and it's not even the speed as much as the lagging and errors that bother me.

Some examples of problems I have had include:

1. When going into Applications Manager it takes forever to load the menu. Then when I hit download it takes forever to load that next menu. Usually it does not load it and becomes stuck in a loading mode. If I exit and try again maybe 10 minutes later it starts to work and I can download and install a new program but after that it's extremely difficult as it gets stuck again loading. Sometimes it even says "No Application Catalogues."

2. Some applications will not install. So far it has been the two Contact Merger programs that are available. Other applications just freeze up when loading or when launching the internet or facebook it takes forever.

3. It takes forever to load pretty much anything, but especially the contacts, SMS, etc...

4. I tried using Cutetube, myTube, and Zoutube and unfortunately they will not play any video when I hit play. Cutetube takes a while to load but doesn't actually load it. The only program that seemed to work is MediaBox but it lags and sometimes freezes the frames when playing and youtube videos.

So far I have installed the Extras-devel catalogue, Conky (which doesn't show much CPU being used at all so no problems there), SPB TV (Which works great and smooth unlike all the other youtube apps I have tried), ForecaWeather (which doesn't lag and works well), and Hermes.

I have installed the Speed Patch which seems to have improved things very slightly. I also installed the Optimizer and when I double click on the icon it seems to refresh everything but it starts to lag after I start another program and use it for a few minutes...

I had horrible lagging problems on my previous phone (Nokia E90) but it eventually loaded things, this phone I thought would be faster and often it just gives me an error that the application is stuck and whether I want to exit out of it.

I was thinking about overclocking? Are there other ways to increase performance and speed? Is it normal for it to lag this much?

Also if anyone has any suggestions for "Must Have" programs for the phone please let me know.

Thank you all and I look forward to your replies!

1. Use FAPman (http://maemo.org/downloads/product/Maemo5/fapman/)

2. Never happened to mine so I don't know how to help on this one.

3. Is it fully brand new? Or was it used before? Because if it's been used before, you might want to reflash the N900 to start fresh (http://wiki.maemo.org/Updating_the_tablet_firmware)

4. Again, this shouldn't be happening (I would suggest Flashing the N900 before doing all this again).

Try using CSSU and see if that makes things better for you and your N900.. (Use the Stable version if you don't want to experience any headaches)..

http://wiki.maemo.org/CSSU

EDIT: Also CSSU's default application manager seems to be slightly faster than non CSSU application manager.. But that's only from my own observations

One thing I would ask too, is what is the PR version installed on your n900? (check settings, then About)

Also, speed patch created a very heated discussion on the forums. It's benefits have never been unanimously confirmed. Also, you'll need to Redland the device to fully remove it.

I would recommend using the CSSU stable release too (as bandora suggested above)

Considering how late you got your hands on an N900, and how your problems doesn't seem to be regular resource problems, I'd take some time to consider why this particular device was for sale this late. You may have bought something with worn threads, if you catch my drift.

Not sure if this is still a problem but the, check for new updates, used to kick in everytime the device connected to the internet, slowing it down a lot.

I changed the time between auto checks to 7 days and it made a huge difference to the usage.

Can't remember where the setting was now but it's mentioned in the forums somwhere.

rgds

ps. oh and swappolube seemed to make things much better too.

FAPman seems to work a lot better, although it did take a long time to update the repository catalogues, etc... on Initial startup. It still however cannot install the "Merge Contacts" package... Don't know why that is.

It is fully brand new. It came in a the original box which was in Mint Condition and was sealed with a Nokia sticker. It says 23/2010 on the box which might mean it was manufacutred then?

With CSSU this is just a firmware and OS update pretty much? Should I just use the backupmenu to backup everything? Will it delete everything or this backup is just in case? I ussually just use OviSuite for backups, is this better?

It says Version: 21.2011.38-1.002

I had upgraded the firmware using Nokia OV Suite... Do I need to update this software?

No, you are all good. That is PR1.3.1, which is the latest version released.

As you said you were having issues with certain apps, I thought there may be a firmware issue? However you should be ok with that, not sure what's causing your problems

I think the autocheck only checks once a day from my understanding and not everytime it connects to the internet? Either way this drains the battery.

That is yet another huge problem is battery power. It drains the battery like crazy. Was a bit worried about using the battery patch... What about those Gold batteries which are Made in Japan and have 2680MAH?

Swappolube definately helped A LOT! Probably more than anything. It runs sooooooo much smoother and faster. At least for the time being.

Although the youtube programs load faster now they still have a lot of trouble actually playing some of the media. The only one that seems to work well is Cutetube. But it works really a lot smoother now than before!

The best batteries are the scud blue dream. Best value for money for me are the japods from dealextreme. Buy an external charger, and try to reduce the usage of the usb to a minimum, it has the bad habit of falling off.

I'd still reflash though, I don't trust ovi suite's update firmware function, and all the problems you describe seem software related. Make sure you flash both rootfs and emmc. You can use backupmenu for backups, it saves the device state completely.

It could also be a corrupted fat partition, it gets easily corrupted and might slow things down. Plug your phone to your pc in mass storage mode and do a disk error checking on it.

And welcome to maemo.org