[ROM - 1.2] BETA ICS 4.0.X - Team DRH (Update 07/02/12)

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junooni

Senior Member
Jul 2, 2007
312
6
Dubai
Hey all. After many many failed attempts of flashing ICS on my gtab, I gave up and flashed stock TapnTap so I could get the skype video and be able to watch HD movies as viewsonic rightly advertises.

Hoewever, to my utter disappointment, the gtablet does none of the two. the skype video comes sideways and flashing kernel fixes haven't worked to correct it.

I've tried 3 different HD movies but all play very jerky and at half speed so even that's of no use

I read somewhere that problem in flashing ICS may be due to bad blocks so I decided to read about them. running 'dmesg' in terminal DO NOT show any bad blocks on my tablet so once again I'm confused as to why I'm unable to flash ICS.

I figure if my gtab is only good enough for internet browsing and checking mails, I could at least get a good UI.

Sad that chinese tablets at 1/3rd the price do a much better job at this, even playing HD movies
 

nobe1976

Senior Member
Sep 11, 2011
1,508
1,359
The Darkside
Hey all. After many many failed attempts of flashing ICS on my gtab, I gave up and flashed stock TapnTap so I could get the skype video and be able to watch HD movies as viewsonic rightly advertises.

Hoewever, to my utter disappointment, the gtablet does none of the two. the skype video comes sideways and flashing kernel fixes haven't worked to correct it.

I've tried 3 different HD movies but all play very jerky and at half speed so even that's of no use

I read somewhere that problem in flashing ICS may be due to bad blocks so I decided to read about them. running 'dmesg' in terminal DO NOT show any bad blocks on my tablet so once again I'm confused as to why I'm unable to flash ICS.

I figure if my gtab is only good enough for internet browsing and checking mails, I could at least get a good UI.

Sad that chinese tablets at 1/3rd the price do a much better job at this, even playing HD movies

Skype will install on this ROM but its useless without a camera. They are working on getting that fixed, hopefully on the nexted release.


What recovery and bootloader are you running? I have followed the OP to the "T" everytime I decided to try out the latest update and without any hitches the update loads without issues. I have ran that "dmesg" in terminal also and it will at lease show you the factory marked bad blocks. My tablet only has a few so I just don't worry about them as long as the thing boots up.

Now comming to DRH ICS for the first time you must make sure there are no trace of previous build on your tablet. You must have to NVflash TNT with CWM5504 that is posted in the OP. The latest update is a neat UI in CWM, but I found out that if you do not allow the CWM UI to reboot the tablet when done seems to work better since that gives you a chance to select Wipe Data Faactory reset a 2nd time.
 
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qwsdert4

Senior Member
May 23, 2012
67
75
Qingdao
Dear team DRH I'm using a Malata T2 and all well with the installation of this ROM since it shares the specs with gtab except RAM. However when I finish booting into the system half of the screen begins to blink which keeps me from normal use, while other feature remains perfect. is it the problem from the kernel or refresh rate or something else? can u please tell me how to fix it? If it could be fixed, I would appreciate it very much. thanks

20120523_131810.jpg

IMG_20120523_094427.jpg
 
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fosser2

Senior Member
Apr 14, 2011
833
463
Wisconsin
Dear team DRH I'm using a Malata T2 and all well with the installation of this ROM since it shares the specs with gtab except RAM. However when I finish booting into the system half of the screen begins to blink which keeps me from normal use, while other feature remains perfect. is it the problem from the kernel or refresh rate or something else? can u please tell me how to fix it? If it could be fixed, I would appreciate it very much. thanks

View attachment 1078249

View attachment 1078250

This looks like a physical hardware issue. If you don't mind, try opening it up and reseating the display connectors.
 

xyzforum

Member
Dec 29, 2010
18
1
I am using win7 64bit, there is no "Standard MTP Device" in the "all device list", there is any device name having "MTP", how to install MTP driver? Thanks.
 
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ZephyrsDream

Member
Dec 21, 2010
15
1
37
Chicago, IL
www.twitter.com
SOD on Ice Cream Sandwich??

After much frustration, I was able to install this ROM on my G Tablet yesterday. Today, I turned it on, was in the GMail app, turned the screen off, and now cannot turn the tablet back on at all. It is currently charging on my desk.

Have I hit the SOD on ICS 4.0x?

I have also been having a problem with the battery indicator always staying at 100%.

I took my tablet to a Starbucks yesterday after installing and ran into a problem trying to connect to the internet there. I cannot connect to it because there's supposed to be a check box image that you must select before being able to connect to the internet there. My main browser is Dolphin HD, but I also tried it in Mini and the stock Browser. I would have tried to download a new browser to see if it was a browser problem, but I didn't have access to the Market.

If anyone has a solution to these problems, I would greatly appreciate it. I have looked through many threads here on XDA as well as SlateDroid, and Google searching but haven't found a great solution. So far ICS has been awesome, but I guess all ROM's are not perfect, especially for only having used it for such a short amount of time.
 

Tomsgt

Senior Member
After much frustration, I was able to install this ROM on my G Tablet yesterday. Today, I turned it on, was in the GMail app, turned the screen off, and now cannot turn the tablet back on at all. It is currently charging on my desk.

Have I hit the SOD on ICS 4.0x?

I have also been having a problem with the battery indicator always staying at 100%.

I took my tablet to a Starbucks yesterday after installing and ran into a problem trying to connect to the internet there. I cannot connect to it because there's supposed to be a check box image that you must select before being able to connect to the internet there. My main browser is Dolphin HD, but I also tried it in Mini and the stock Browser. I would have tried to download a new browser to see if it was a browser problem, but I didn't have access to the Market.

If anyone has a solution to these problems, I would greatly appreciate it. I have looked through many threads here on XDA as well as SlateDroid, and Google searching but haven't found a great solution. So far ICS has been awesome, but I guess all ROM's are not perfect, especially for only having used it for such a short amount of time.

Yes this is probably a sod. You need to open the g tablet and push the reset button. While the back is off I would drill a little hole were the button is on the back so that you can reset it any time you need to with a paper clip.

Sent from my hacked DROID
 

Kameo

Senior Member
Jul 17, 2010
932
692
Moto G
Redmi Note 2
Apart from the SOD, missing or vanishing checkboxes is a Dolphin Browser known issue... don't know for Opera and stock.

Sent from my HTC Sensation with Tapatalk.
 

hushpup131

Senior Member
Dec 18, 2010
53
6
MEA CULPA

I ran the NVFlash_gTablet.bat, watched the new command window open and close. The restart while pressing Volume + gives a audible tablet has turned on but the screen is blank. The cover is off and retried after pressing the reset button; have removed USB and retried power with volume +, have removed external SD card and retried button combo, all have not resulted in the CWM display. The battery is fully charged. The NVIDIA USB Boot is listed in the Device Manager.

I changed the USB port and the computer sees the tablet as APX. What is puzzling me is each time I press the reset or power button, I get the audible but the external SD card is not listed in Explorer.

I’ve read all the posts and have great expectations for ICS. Most have flashed successfully. I confess I must have missed a step and would be grateful for any recommendations about what to try next.
 

raywaldo

Senior Member
Jul 8, 2007
805
106
Southeast Louisiana
raywaldo.com
I ran the NVFlash_gTablet.bat, watched the new command window open and close. The restart while pressing Volume + gives a audible tablet has turned on but the screen is blank. The cover is off and retried after pressing the reset button; have removed USB and retried power with volume +, have removed external SD card and retried button combo, all have not resulted in the CWM display. The battery is fully charged. The NVIDIA USB Boot is listed in the Device Manager.

I changed the USB port and the computer sees the tablet as APX. What is puzzling me is each time I press the reset or power button, I get the audible but the external SD card is not listed in Explorer.

I’ve read all the posts and have great expectations for ICS. Most have flashed successfully. I confess I must have missed a step and would be grateful for any recommendations about what to try next.

Sounds like you are in apx mode (NVFlash mode). Hold the power button for as long as it takes to get the display back. If it doesn't show anything on the screen after a couple of minutes, release the button for a couple of seconds then just tap it once. It should boot normally.

Sent from my Nook Tablet using XDA
 

rajeevvp

Senior Member
Aug 20, 2010
1,315
406
Bangalore
Dear team DRH I'm using a Malata T2 and all well with the installation of this ROM since it shares the specs with gtab except RAM. However when I finish booting into the system half of the screen begins to blink which keeps me from normal use, while other feature remains perfect.
That looks like a framebuffer corruption problem.

Did you use the EBT, BCT and other images files from the original firmware when you used nvflash to enlarge the system partition?
 

hushpup131

Senior Member
Dec 18, 2010
53
6
Thank you for the reply.

My tab is a 1.1 BL, may I assume I need to move up to the 1.2 BL before I begin the process to flash to ICS again??
 

lartomar2002

Senior Member
Mar 24, 2011
1,786
176
Near Kennedy Space Center, Florida
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hushpup131

Senior Member
Dec 18, 2010
53
6
I sense I'm real close..... the cover is still off so access to the reset button is not an issue. Holding the power button gives the audible up tone followed shortly by the audible down tone. Ignoring the tones for the moment, holding the power button down, both with the volume + combo and without, for several minutes still leaves me with a blank screen. I'd agree that I'm probably in the APX mode.

Following posting 4, the first time I did step 1 was the only time i saw the CWM menu, I did partition 2048/0. All subsequent running of the different batch files, BL 1.1, BL 1.2, gtab.nvflash.1.2.branch.20110508 with cwm, Full_Stock_NVFlash_CWM_5504_Touch, and others, did run successfully but none ever gave me the CWM menu after rebooting.

I'm sensing all this work is for naught while stuck in the APX mode; am I missing an image file??
 

the3dman

Senior Member
Sep 5, 2007
657
99
Chicago :(
www.the3dman.com
I sense I'm real close..... the cover is still off so access to the reset button is not an issue. Holding the power button gives the audible up tone followed shortly by the audible down tone. Ignoring the tones for the moment, holding the power button down, both with the volume + combo and without, for several minutes still leaves me with a blank screen. I'd agree that I'm probably in the APX mode.

Following posting 4, the first time I did step 1 was the only time i saw the CWM menu, I did partition 2048/0. All subsequent running of the different batch files, BL 1.1, BL 1.2, gtab.nvflash.1.2.branch.20110508 with cwm, Full_Stock_NVFlash_CWM_5504_Touch, and others, did run successfully but none ever gave me the CWM menu after rebooting.

I'm sensing all this work is for naught while stuck in the APX mode; am I missing an image file??

Are you on a VS Gtablet? I have never heard any audible tones in APX mode, or any other mode for that matter. That is very strange. What OS are you running NVflash on (Windows or Linux)?
 
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hushpup131

Senior Member
Dec 18, 2010
53
6
“Are you on a VS Gtablet?”
Yes, using post #4, moved from BL 1.1 to BL 1.2
“I have never heard any audible tones in APX mode, or any other mode for that matter. That is very strange. What OS are you running NVflash on (Windows or Linux)?”
As per instructions from the CWM 5504 touch, “Windows” Readme First, I verified the NVIDIA USB presence in the Device Mgr. Of course; it’s only listed when the Gtab is on…. I left the USB cable attached to the computer which enabled me to hear the audio tones. Out of curiosity, I held the power button, power button with Vol +, power button with Vol-, each for a couple of minutes “without” the USB cable attached to see if I could get a CWM display… no joy
After reading all 400 + posts for the ICS, I can see I got ahead of myself…. There is no SOD because I haven’t loaded ICS yet. Incidentally, would one way to prevent the SOD be immediately changing the display property to “Never sleep”??
In searching for a solution for get unlocked from the APX mode, it was mentioned that CWM is BL 1.1 and BL 1.2 sensitive.
If there is a known link to direct me to a solution for being stuck in this APX mode, I “and” my family would be grateful to see it so I can share a piece of this holiday with them…
 

the3dman

Senior Member
Sep 5, 2007
657
99
Chicago :(
www.the3dman.com
“Are you on a VS Gtablet?”
Yes, using post #4, moved from BL 1.1 to BL 1.2
“I have never heard any audible tones in APX mode, or any other mode for that matter. That is very strange. What OS are you running NVflash on (Windows or Linux)?”
As per instructions from the CWM 5504 touch, “Windows” Readme First, I verified the NVIDIA USB presence in the Device Mgr. Of course; it’s only listed when the Gtab is on…. I left the USB cable attached to the computer which enabled me to hear the audio tones. Out of curiosity, I held the power button, power button with Vol +, power button with Vol-, each for a couple of minutes “without” the USB cable attached to see if I could get a CWM display… no joy
After reading all 400 + posts for the ICS, I can see I got ahead of myself…. There is no SOD because I haven’t loaded ICS yet. Incidentally, would one way to prevent the SOD be immediately changing the display property to “Never sleep”??
In searching for a solution for get unlocked from the APX mode, it was mentioned that CWM is BL 1.1 and BL 1.2 sensitive.
If there is a known link to direct me to a solution for being stuck in this APX mode, I “and” my family would be grateful to see it so I can share a piece of this holiday with them…

Aaah, I was tired sorry, I thought you were saying the gtab was making the sound, I dont use windows and forgot that it makes a sound when plugging in usb. That was my mistake. As far as a SOD goes as long as your tablet is not sleeping when you plug in a usb cable you should not have that issue. It sounds like for some reason the NVflash attempts are not working for you, because using the NVflash from our OP should bring you out of APX mode and allow you into CWM. You could try using Linux instead of windows to NVflash as linux does not require drivers to use NVflash. If you wish to try this from a virtual box, download my gtab tools virtualbox image (which already has NVflash) here, and install virtualbox in windows once up and running there is a readme on the desktop that tells you how to connect and NVflash the tablet.
 
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hushpup131

Senior Member
Dec 18, 2010
53
6
as I continue to search for this APX issue...

as I continue to load different TNT builds, watching youtube videos, etc., I just realized i haven't seen the Viewsonic Birds in a very long time....

Again, is this an missing or corrupted image issue??
 

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  • 46

    CLICK PIC FOR TEAM HOMEPAGE​

    Now for the moment you all have been waiting for...

    Team DRH (Dirty Reset Hole) is proud to announce the public beta for Ice Cream Sandwich. The name "DRH" came from the hole that all of the developers had to drill into the back of their tablet to access the on-board reset button. As you all probably know, development for this project started back in August and has finally developed into a mostly stable release. Ice Cream Sandwich is a huge jump for the G-Tablet community because along with the building of ICS specifically for SMBA1002 (G-Tablet), the Linux kernel backbone had to be reworked from the ground up.

    DISCLAIMER
    Attention commuters of the intertubes! The group of individuals known as Team DRH take absolutely NO RESPONSIBILITY for any DAMAGE that YOU cause to YOUR device! This "labor of love" we call and Android ROM comes AS IS and is not an official release by any means. If you have not already SOILED your device by flashing a custom ROM then to do so will VOID any WARRANTY you may have left. Team DRH and its affiliates are not responsible if your G-Tablet does any of the following: Explodes, Flies off to space to battle the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Is generally awesome, solves world hunger or explodes... again. (OK We take responsibility for you Tablet becoming Awesomesauce.) So in essence... Flash this totally rad ROM at your own RISK and prepare to Spontaneously Combust with AWESOMENESS!

    WHAT WORKS
    • WIFI
    • Hardware Acceleration
    • Sleep!
    • WiFi
    • Bluetooth
    • Sensors
    • Sound
    • USB/MTP (If you plug in USB while your tablet is asleep you will have a SOD)
    • Capacitive Buttons
    • Hardware Buttons
    • USB Flash Drives
    • Proper SD Card Mounts
    • HD Videos
    • More to come...

    WHAT'S NOT WORKING
    • Camera
    • Microphone (Works but drops after 6-8secs)
    • Possible ROM Slowdowns
    • HDMI Audio
    • More to come...

    List of Common ICS Problems
    http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=23146434

    HOW TO INSTALL
    • Boot into current version of CWM and "Wipe data/factory reset"
    • Partition Internal SD Card (2048M/0)
    • Turn tablet off
    • Download the following file <--- Seriously don't skip this step unless you are 100% positive that you have a 250M system partition
    • NVFLASH the file following the instructions that are included for Windows/Linux users
    • Upon reboot of tablet let T&T fully boot and then shut it down
    • Reboot into recovery
    • Flash the Rom/Gapps
    • Enjoy

    HOW TO INSTALL VIA DRH NEWS APP
    1. Open DRH News App (You Will be notified that you have an update)
    2. Download Update
    3: Reboot into CWM
    4: Wipe Data and Cache
    5: Flash Update.zip
    6: Flash Your Gapps
    7: Reboot
    8: Enjoy

    FINAL THOUGHTS
    This build has been tested but not to the extreme. It is called a "beta" test for a reason. Sleep is properly working and I have not had to use my reset button in weeks. I'm not trying to scare anyone but the possibility of a kernel panic is still there. This build is very stable and deserves the beta tag but if you find yourself in a snag you might have to press the internal reset button. Here is a picture of where to find the button if you are really in a bind. PICTURE If you have the balls to open your tablet, just drill the reset hole while you're in there. You already voided your warranty ;)

    DOWNLOAD LINK
    ROM/GAPPZ Package: TeamDRH ROM
    ROM (Includes GPS Mod): TeamDRH GPS ROM <-- Only use if you physically installed the internal GPS mod as documented here. This rom is not updated to 1.3 yet.
    Remember this is a beta build. It will run nicely for the most part but I'm sure that there will be glitches a quarks that we have not seen. I will keep the what works/doesn't work section updated so we don't have tons of posts cluttering the thread. Also these links will be updated pretty regularly when we have new builds to release.

    CHANGE-LOG

    The ROM's system folder was very close to the max size our system partition could handle on the G-Tablet and with any bad blocks, it was more than the G-Tablet could handle and installing GApps made it even worse. So on initial boot everything was fine, because all the apps that make temporary files don't make them until after initial boot, but in the process of making those temp files it corrupts system files that are already loaded and running, so on a reboot the system fails because the files are now corrupted. This also effected the overall speed of the ROM. This should be fixed with the increased system partition from 200M to 250M.

    TeamDRH-ICS-Beta-1.3.zip 07/02/12
    • Kernel changes to help stability
    • Wifi Updates (latest bcmdhd android code)
    • Changes to sound (should reduce audio lag)
    • Mic Partially Working (Will record for roughly 6 - 8 seconds)
    • Dock Support with HDMI and Ethernet (No Sound over HDMI yet) This includes a dock clock mode :)
    • "Blinkies" Have been fixed
    • Updates to CM9 code. Now includes lots of the CM9 features
    • Overall stability improvement
    • New Boot Animation
    • Added Sound to Boot Animation (Optional)
    • New Default Wallpaper (created by annel)
    • Installer Updated
    • Gappz Changes
    • Updated Google Plus
    • Updated Google Books
    • Updated Google Chrome Browser
    • YouTube Updated
    • Google Drive Updated
    • Google Play Updated
    • Google Currents Updated
    • Added Google Magazines (From JellyBean)
    • Added Google Ears (From JellyBean)
    • Probably more changes too this is just all I could remember ;)

    HOW TO INSTALL MTP DRIVERS
    Open Device Manager and find the offending TeamDRH MTP device.
    Right-Click and choose Update Driver Software
    Then choose Browse My Computer for Driver Software
    Then click Let Me Pick From a List of Device Drivers on My Computer
    Then choose All Devices
    When that list populates choose Standard MTP Device followed by MTP USB Device
    Click Yes to the warning and VIOLA!

    Hope you all enjoy the TeamDRH gTablet ICS preview!!

    POSSIBLE MARKET ERROR
    Upon start up Android Market may give you an error when you try to download an app. The fix for this is to go into settings/applications and force close market. Upon doing that clear app data and you should be good to go.

    IF ALL ELSE FAILS (Only do this If I tell you too)
    Try doing what is posted here


    If you like this project and appreciate the extreme amount of time that the devs put into this please donate:

    Donate to TeamDRH: LINK

    If you would like to donate to single people:
    Ch3vr0n5: LINK
    Treznorx: LINK
    Fosser2: LINK
    The3dman: LINK
    Plastikman: LINK
    Mayday_jay: LINK
    Dwagner:
    Tlb1961: LINK
    Busa_blade:
    Jaybob413:
    Clemsyn: LINK

    (This is not a complete list yet changes are still being made)

    Information on G-Tablet Camera!!!
    http://www.slatedroid.com/topic/290...update-040112/page__view__findpost__p__346429

    Video (courtesy of pagantek):

    Pictures:
    7
    TeamDRH Change-log:

    TeamDRH-AOSP-Preview-1e-LDPI.zip 02/08/12
    • USB/MTP
    • Vold.fstab
    • USB Flash Drives work if plugged in when tablet is off, then booted
    • SystemUI notification toggle bug
    • TeamDRH Welcome in Trebuchet
    • 3g Icon
    • Few other little adjustments...
    YAGP_GummyBear_Jay_GAppZ_v2.zip 02/08/12
    • Few extra added apps
    • Google Maps
    • Google Chrome Beta

    TeamDRH-AOSP-Preview-1F-LDPI.zip 02/16/12
    • USB/MTP Now works even if plugged in on boot. If your tablet is asleep and you plug in USB your tablet will get SOD!!!
    • USB Flash Drives work should work if plugged whenever
    • New Touchscreen driver (should be more responsive)
    • New Battery Driver (should perform better. Has a charging icon issue.)
    • Capacitive keys should now fully work
    • Bluetooth now works
    • Few other little adjustments...
    3DGtaB_GAppZ_v6b.zip 02/16/12
    • Few apps added/deleted
    • Tweaked Permissions
    • Should perform faster

    TeamDRH-ICS-Preview-2A.zip 02/29/12
    • Added ROM control in settings.
    • Adjusted Dalvik Cache sizes for better performance (thanks community)
    • Much faster Read/write speeds (probably better than Froyo)
    • Many i2c/clock changes to the kernel to improve stability
    • Amount of system ram increased from 295M to 359M!
    • Other various tweaks and speedups built into the ROM
    • Games should play better in this release
    3DGtaB_GAppZ_v6c.zip 02/29/12
    • Few apps added/deleted
    • Tweaked Permissions
    • Should perform faster

    TeamDRH-ICS-Preview-2B.zip 03/01/12
    • Moved some apps to the /data folder to reduce the size of the /system folder
    • New Boot Img - Fixes cache size
    • Added FakeIMEI to the framework so some apps that request one don't crash (ex. XDA App)
    3DGtaB_GAppZ_v7A.zip 03/01/12
    • Moved some apps to the /data folder to reduce the size of the /system folder
    3DGtaB_GAppZ_v7A_LiteEdition.zip 03/01/12
    • Added a new version of GAPPS
    • Very minimal app install (includes: Calender, Music, Youtube, Gmail, Gallery, Market)

    3DGtaB_GAppZ_v7B.zip 03/17/12
    • Added new market/music Google play apps
    3DGtaB_GAppZ_v7B_LiteEdition.zip 03/17/12
    • Updated Google applications

    TeamDRH-ICS-Beta-1.0.zip 03/17/12
    • Changed ROM naming convention for future use
    • Overclocking (max 1.2GHz for now)
    • ROM is reworked and running on CM9 as a base
    • Noticeable speed improvements
    • 250M system partition is a MUST now
    • Stability is improved
    • In-ROM battery stats should now be fixed for almost everyone
    3DGtaB_GAppZ_v7B.zip 03/17/12
    • Added new market/music Google play apps
    3DGtaB_GAppZ_v7B_LiteEdition.zip 03/17/12
    • Updated Google applications
    3DGtaB-GAppZ-LiteEdition-8.0.zip 03/18/12
    • New DRH-News App
    • Added Play Store (Google Market)
    3DGtaB_GAppZ_8.1.zip 04/01/12
    • Added Play Store (Google Market)
    • All Google applications are now updated and latest

    TeamDRH-ICS-Beta-1.1.zip 04/01/12
    • Performance enhancements (based on some SuperCharger settings)
    • Kernel updated with new governors
    • Kernel updated with new i/o schedulers
    • Android updated to 4.0.4
    • Rom control has additional performance settings
    3DGtaB-GAppZ-8.2.zip 04/07/12
    • Updated Gmail to 4.0.4
    • Update to Google Books
    • Fixed calender sync issues some people were having
    • Added the new installer that TeamDRH will now be using! (it's awesome!!!)
    • GAppZ full and lite will now be an all inclusive package. Just flash and follow the instructions.

    TeamDRH-ICS-Beta-1.2.zip 04/21/12
    • ROM has been updated to include various performance tweaks
    • Kernel has added touchscreen fix (hopefully fixes most games)
    • Most i/o schedulers removed for now due to incorrect throttling
    • Rom control has additional performance settings and is reorganized
    • WIFI modules updated
    • Incorporated TeamDRH Aroma installer (now includes ROM and GAppz)
    • ROM does have issue where at times, will not go to sleep (screen will turn off then flash back on) aka "blinkies"
    6
    regarding what you say below...
    That's unrelated to whatever slowdowns you're experiencing. But, to clean up /cache, just boot into CWM and "format /cache".

    it seems very slow now running 1.3, prior to this I was running CM7 and the tablet was much faster.
    Yeah. The performance is pretty bad and I'm not sure exactly where the problem lies. Most people point to the paucity of memory being the culprit, and while it may contribute quite a bit, I don't think that's all there is to it: For one thing, there are phones with just 512 MB of RAM comfortably running ICS on them. For another, I see a lot of ANRs and processes being sent SIGQUITs (SIG 3 in the logs) to generate those ANRs. For yet another, the CPU load looks very high when there's lag.

    I also see that the ro.build.type is set to "userdebug" in /system/build.prop instead of the commonly seen build.type of "user". Changing the build.type to "user" stops most of the ANRs. I don't know how Android is built, but, in the Linux world, we usually have 2 kinds of builds for a product: release (what gets shipped) and internal (AKA engineering). The difference is mainly in what compiler flags are used when building the product. For engineering builds, compiler optimizations are turned off and the debugging flags are turned on. These builds are pretty slow and use a lot more memory and CPU than the release builds. Going by what I said about the build.type and ANRs above, this is one thing for the devs to check.

    Try these things to reduce lag:

    In Settings > ROM Control (set on boot if you're happy with)
    1. Reduce dalvik VM heap size for apps to 64M.
    2. Reduce the free memory setting to 50MB.

    In Settings > Developer options (need to set on each boot)
    3. Reduce the no. of Background Processes to 1 or 2.
    4. Check the Destroy Activities ... option.

    Those last 2 really make a noticeable difference, but, you can, if you wish, skip 1) and 4) and still not impact performance all that much.

    the other issue I have on my Gtab... not sure if this is related to the ROM or not.. is that my battery indicator ALWAYS shows 100%. I tried wiping battery stats multiple times in Clockwork but not luck. I also let the tablet's battery drain down to power off. Then plugged it in, booted into clockwork and did another battery stats wipe. Still not luck.
    It's the battery. Don't know what triggers it, though, or how to fix it. I'm trying to look into it.

    One final thing before I hit the sack:
    Most things that people do to detect bad blocks on the NAND (only looking at the dmesg output, for instance) is not very effective. Here's a simple way to be absolutely certain that the ROM has been installed correctly and fully onto the gTab. The idea is an old one, going back to Dan Farmer and his COPS package (early 1990s). Basically, it is to:

    1. have the ROM packager calculate on his dev box the SHA1 checksum of every file that will be installed.
    2. Install this SHA1 checksum file along with the ROM--as, let's say, /system/etc/ROM-files.sha1. (Remove entries for files not installed during installation--not very hard)
    3. User can check using a shell script (or the command below) that the ROM is OK any time he/she wants. If the checksums compute OK, then you too, like me, can sleep blissfully, untroubled by thoughts of any bad blocks doing naughty things to your nice ROM.

    Sample creation of ROM-files.sha1 on packager's dev box. Assuming that all files that go into the ROM are in the system/ and data/ directories in their correct locations:
    Code:
    $ [B]sha1sum `find system data -type f` | tee ROM-files.sha1[/B]
    To check ROM state (on gTab):
    Code:
    gTablet$ [B]su[/B]
    gTablet# [B]cd /[/B]
    gTablet# [B]sha1sum -c system/etc/ROM-files.sha1 2>&1 | fgrep -v OK[/B]
    gTablet#                            [I]No news is good news[/I]
    5
    I think the main reason to format 4g first then 2g is to make sure the sd card part is cleared out byond the 2g region.
    Nope. No such "clearing out" happens with that kind of double/triple/... partitioning. It's simply a waste of time and a distraction from real troubleshooting. An explanation of what happens when you repartition an SD card might help:

    A repartition step on an SD card using CWM on the gTablet involves 2 operations.

    1. The actual partitioning.
    Here, only the MBR--the first sector--on the SD card is written because all SD cards (and also things like USB sticks) are NAND- or NOR-based flash (MTD) devices, but they all look like regular HDDs which means that they all have interface-matching, sector-translation and wear-levelling circuitry (and, on the expensive ones, firmware) built into them. This is also why you can put the standard HDD filesystems like extn, FAT32, etc on them. Raw (untranslated) MTD devices need specialized filesystems like yaffs2 and jffs2 which are coded specifically for them (and, incidentally, you can't put these filesystems on SD card partitions).

    2. The filesystem creation.
    During a filesystem creation operation, only a few scattered bits of data are actually written to the device. If we run through the creation of an ext3 filesystem on an SD card (relevant bits in bold):
    Code:
    ~ # [B]fdisk -l /dev/block/mmcblk2[/B]
    
    Disk /dev/block/mmcblk2: 15.9 GB, 15931539456 bytes
    255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1936 cylinders
    Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
    
                  Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks  Id System
    /dev/block/mmcblk2p1               1        1581    12699351   c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
    /dev/block/mmcblk2p2            1582        1825     1959930  83 Linux
    /dev/block/mmcblk2p3            1826        1862      297202+ 83 Linux
    /dev/block/mmcblk2p4            1863        1936      [B]594405[/B]  83 Linux
    ~ # [B]/root/mke2fs -j -m0 /dev/block/mmcblk2p4[/B]
    mke2fs 1.42.4 (12-June-2012)
    Filesystem label=
    OS type: Linux
    Block size=[B]4096[/B] (log=2)
    Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
    Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
    37200 inodes, [B]148601[/B] blocks
    0 blocks (0.00%) reserved for the super user
    First data block=0
    Maximum filesystem blocks=155189248
    5 block groups
    32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
    7440 inodes per group
    Superblock backups stored on blocks: 
            32768, 98304
    
    Allocating group tables: done                            
    Writing inode tables: done                            
    Creating journal (4096 blocks): done
    Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
    
    ~ # [B]mount /dev/block/mmcblk2p4 /root/[/B]
    ~ # [B]df[/B]
    Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
    tmpfs                   224188        32    224156   0% /dev
    /dev/block/mtdblock4    222208      1296    220912   1% /cache
    /dev/block/mmcblk2p4    [B]585040[/B]     16860    568180   3% /root
    ~ #
    you'll see that the size of the partition is 594405 1K blocks, but, only 9365 1K blocks (594405 - 585040), ~ 9.4 MB, scattered all over the place, are written to initialize the filesystem--which involves, mainly, writing a new bootblock, new superblocks and group descriptor blocks, and bitmap and inode-related blocks; plus odds and ends like the bits needed to create the /lost+found directory and the journal (16MB in our example run above, and even here the journal is not "written" fully--only the space needed for it is marked as "allocated").

    The creation of a VFAT filesystem is roughly similar. So, in both cases, not a lot of actual data is written, and in each case the writes are generally scattered all over the device.

    Thus far, this discussion has been at the level of logical filesystem blocks. When it comes to which physical blocks on the SD card are actually written during filesystem creation, things look even worse for people who think some sort of clearing out happens because of the intervening wear-leveling circuitry: Only the HW knows which MTD blocks correspond to which logical filesystem blocks, and the physical MTD blocks standing in for the logical filesystem blocks keep getting rotated as needed by the SD card itself.

    What I think people imagine happens during a repartition is something like this:
    Code:
    ~ # [B]time dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/block/mmcblk3[/B]
    That command writes zeros to every sector of the internal SD card. Run the command while in CWM (repartition afterwards, please) and see how long it takes to complete. If a repartition step really cleaned out the internal SD card as people imagine, then you would have to wait 45 mins or so for that operation to complete instead of the minute or so that you have to now.

    This is to ensure no data is left over from the previous ROM.
    See the description above. I can guarantee you that unless there are ghastly bugs in CWM, the parted/e2fsprogs code or in the HW, a single repartition operation will get rid of all (user-visible) data on the SD cards.

    ---------- Post added at 02:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:56 PM ----------

    Sadly I tried everything I could think of, still no luck. Hopefully now that someone has sent their "stuck at the birds" device in for analysis there will be a fix. I have the CWM install log if that would be helpful. [Update: log attached]
    Looking at the logs, I see that the ROM installation script is still cheerfully corrupting the /cache filesystem for no good reason. It also seems to be trying to remove the dalvik-cache from non-existent devices. Somebody should really scrutinize that install script.

    ---------- Post added at 02:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:06 PM ----------

    I was just wondering if you were sure you had the 250mb partition would it be necessary to nvflash.
    Nope.

    If you could just do a wipe/factory reset, wipe cache, wipe davilk cache and the flash the 1.3 rom.
    Only a "wipe data/factory reset" is needed. You'll see that it does the other 2 (wiping cache and dalvik-cache) if you look at the messages the operation prints.
    5
    CWM 5504 B15+Touch and ICS

    Process I followed to actually get the latest ClockWorkMod w/touch working AND be able to install ICS (I had a TON of issues with boot-into-recovery-only, not booting at all and only showing the birds, booting into stock rom but not being able to get into recovery anymore... this is how I got it working.)

    Following this exact process I get success everytime now.

    1) Turn your tablet OFF and REMOVE THE microSD CARD!! I repeat, remove the microSD card!!

    2) Download THIS "nvflash_gtablet_2010110500.zip" from HERE (delete the other zip if you downloaded elsewhere):
    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/66090731/nvflash_gtablet_2010110500.zip

    3) Download THIS "nvflash1.2_5504b15.zip" from HERE:
    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/66090731/nvflash1.2_5504b15.zip

    4) Unzip "nvflash_gtablet_2010110500.zip" to "nvflash_gtablet_2010110500"
    5) Unzip "nvflash1.2_5504b15.zip" to "nvflash1.2_5504b15"

    6) Press and hold Volume - (VOL. DOWN) and the power button at the same time, release the power button once the screen turns on, keep holding VOL - until screen turns off; you're now in whats called APX mode.
    7) Plug your USB cord into your computer, and into your G-Tablet

    If you have NEVER installed the USB drivers before, do step 8, otherwise skip to step 9:
    8) Go to Start/Control Panel/Device Manager and hit the Update Driver button for APX. In the popup, choose to specify manually and browse to the "nvflash_gtablet_2010110500" directory and choose the "USB" directory. Let the drivers install and proceed to step 9.

    9) Go inside the "nvflash_gtablet_2010110500" directory
    10) Double click nvflash_gtablet.bat , a CMD prompt window will open and start doing stuff - let it run until it says press any key to exit - that means its done.
    11) Let your G-Tablet do a full boot up into the TnT ROM, then shutdown (Power Off)

    12) Put your G-Tablet back into APX Mode. (Press and hold VOL. DOWN and the power button at the same time, release the power button once the screen turns on, keep holding VOL - until screen turns off).

    13) Go inside the "nvflash1.2_5504b15" directory
    14) Double click nvflash_gtablet.bat , a CMD prompt window will open and start doing stuff - again let it run until it says press any key to exit - that means its done.
    15) Let your G-Tablet do a full boot up into the TnT ROM, then shutdown (Power Off)

    16) Put your G-Tablet into Recovery Mode. To do this, press and hold VOLUME + (VOL UP) and the power button at the same time, release the power button once the screen turns on, keep holding VOL + for a few seconds; now you should be in the ClockWorkMod recovery with touch capability. At the top it should say 5.5.0.4 Beta 15.

    Now its time to follow the "How to install" steps from the first post. DO ALL OF THESE!
    1)
    a. Wipe Data/Factory Reset
    b. Wipe Cache
    c. Wipe Dalvik Cache
    2)
    a. Format boot
    b. Mount then Format data
    c. Mount then format system
    d. Format cache
    3) Re-partition internal sd with 2048/0
    4) Mount USB and copy your ICS ROM and Gapps zip files over
    5) Flash the ICS ROM (this may take a while to complete, do not mess with it until it's DONE)
    6) Flash Gapps (this may take a while to complete, do not mess with it until it's DONE)
    7) SHUT DOWN / POWER OFF
    8) Insert your microSD card back into your G-Tablet
    9) Start up normal and let it boot into the ICS ROM.
    10) Complete first setup and then let sit and sync for half an hour to an hour.


    Special Thanks to:
    butchconner http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=989320
    fosser2 http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1525424
    roebeet http://www.slatedroid.com/topic/171...-using-either-11-or-12-based-images-g-tablet/
    ViewSonic G-Tablet for Dummies http://viewsonic-gtablet-for-dummies.webs.com/