Some issues with Hi10

[pmhn]

Hi. I’ve received Hi10 from VC Mall on Aliexpress yesterday, but I have just got a chance to play with it today, so I just want to provide some feedbacks, and also see if others are having the same issues.

Positives:
– I received one from the newer batch with 64-bit windows and one blue USB3 port.
– Good screen, sharp and no flickers.
– The eMMC is decent.
– Fast USB3 port – My flash drive managed to do 220MB/s read and 170 MB/s write on CrystalDiskMark.
– The installed Win10 seems clean. I don’t see any extra pre-installed software.

Negatives:
– CPU temp went up to 84C when I stressed it for a bit. The tablet feels very hot. It is normally around 50C when I am not doing much, though.
– Some issues below.

I seem to have a few issues with the tablet. I’d really appreciate if someone can help me find solutions for them:

1) My micro SD card seems to be working at first. I was able to browse the files that are on it. However, after a while, it no longer mounts correctly. I tried restarting the tablet, removing and re-inserting the card, disabling, re-enabling, reinstalling the SD storage driver, but nothing works. Using the same micro SD card on an external USB card reader works fine on the Hi10.

2) I find that the screen turns off on its own once in a while, even though I am actively using the tablet. A mouse click or typing on keyboard switches it back to normal (to the lock screen). It is not too bad, only sometimes annoying. I still cannot find a certain trigger for it, but it seems that it will do this on the first key stroke on my BT keyboard (and randomly afterward).

3) There were a couple times that the tablet switches off on its own like this is a sudden power cut, and I was unable to switch it back on. Only after I connected it to the charger for a while that I was able to switch it back on again. One time it happened right when I connected a portable USB3 harddisk (2.5″) while on battery. The harddisk works fine when the tablet is connected to the charger, though. I hope it does not mean that it has insufficient power for USB3 devices. Even so, I would expect the harddisk not to mount, rather than the whole tablet going down.

 

[Evil E.]

(1) Can you please tell us what filesystem was used on the microSD card ? (NTFS, (ex)FAT32, … ?)

(2) Strange… If you were not actively using the tablet then I would say that it was Windows screen saver / power saving mode that was activated, but since you were using the tablet this is not applicable. Maybe this issue is related to (3) ?

(3)(a) Sounds like a power problem to me. Maybe Chuwi has integrated sub-standard (i.e. what we call “Chinese quality”) power regulator circuitry. It wouldn’t be the first time that a Chinese manufacturer decides to cut corners and implement bad designs that lead to problems. I was thinking… Maybe your tablet was charging the battery at the moment, and there wasn’t enough power to keep the tablet fully functional ?

(3)(b) Regarding the external 2.5″ HDD : keep in mind that USB ports are limited to deliver max. (if I’m not mistaken) 500 mA of power in total to the connected devices, unless a powered USB hub is used. A HDD requires the most power at the moment it is connected to a USB port as the HDD motor requires the most energy to spin up the HDD platters up to the required operating RPM’s.
Most people tend to forget this, and this is why is it always best to use a USB cable with an additional USB port to provide extra power. This could explain the shutting down of the tablet as also described in point (3)(a)…
If you happen to have a USB cable with an extra USB connector to deliver extra power to the connected USB device then please try this cable and see if the problem persists or not. If not then this might be the cause of the tablet losing power and cutting off.

[pmhn]

1) I tried both exFAT and NTFS, but neither works. I think it may be because Hi10 may not support my 128GB Samsung EVO+ card. Because it works fine now without any problem with a 64GB Sandisk card. But I swear the 128GB card was working for a little while before. I wonder if anyone has tried using other 128GB cards.
2) Yes, the effect is exactly like power saving turning off the screen, but it happens while I’m typing on BT keyboard, almost always on first key stroke (BT keyboard waking up, I assume), but sometimes after that as well (not too often that it is not usable, though).
3) USB3 should be able to provide 900mA. Bus-powered USB hard drives are quite power hungry, but I have been able to use this 1TB Hitachi Touro on every USB3 I came across. Unfortunately, I don’t have a Y-cable to try it out at the moment.

[pmhn]

Just to update for (2), everytime I try to connect a BT keyboard, my screen flickers a bit and switches off , and now I can no longer switch the screen back on. I had to hold power button to force shutdown and reboot the tablet. This is similar to what happened in (3).

I also found another strange issue after installing BatteryBar. It reports battery capacity of 6,709mWh, which is lower than what it should be (right?). However, the charge rate is also low at ~1W (using the supplied 5V 2A charger). I still have not had a chance to test how long to fully charge the battery (seem to be roughly 6 hours) and how long I can use the battery for, so perhaps there is no issue, and BatteryBar may be mis-reading the voltage, and thus shows lower Wh (just my speculations). Does anyone else see the same result in BatteryBar? Or is this related to my other power issues?

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[Hualalai]

@ pmhn.  I suggest exchanging the unit if you can.  You’ve got a lemon.

[pmhn]

Thanks. I’m also asking VC Mall about the issues, and they say they will ask the factory given my serial number. Not sure if they will come up with any useful reply, though. If it is not resolved, I will probably need to ask for an exchange like you suggested.

@Hualalai, if you have a Hi10, would you be able to help check what BatteryBar reports on yours?

[kurai]

The battery capacity figure of 8,000 mAH only appeared in early speculative blurbs from Chuwi about the Hi10 back in August/September-ish … when they actually released official specs it was amended to (approximated translation wording)  “8000 mAh cell, 6600 mAh rated”.

i.e. Of the random grab-bag of battery components we managed to source all are guaranteed to deliver at least 6,600 mAh.

Some of the sellers are still using the old pre-release numbers.

 

It’s worth noting that all the battery info is delivered to the OS via the bog-standard Intel chipset battery driver (which BatteryBar hooks into) – the actual raw info available is very basic and limited.  (i.e. no battery temperatures, charge cycle enumeration, health monitoring etc).  Either the simple Intel driver doesn’t read that info or the controller IC in the battery just doesn’t have it.

[Oren]

I had my unit screen switch off from time to time, sometimes without the ability to switch it back on.

Later I realized that the folding case is causing the unit to switch off the screen even when the case is open.

(probably a strong manetic field)

try getting the tablet away from the case. See if it makes a different

 

[Diego Cayuela]

Oren wrote:

I had my unit screen switch off from time to time, sometimes without the ability to switch it back on. Later I realized that the folding case is causing the unit to switch off the screen even when the case is open. (probably a strong manetic field) try getting the tablet away from the case. See if it makes a different

Are you talking about the Hi10 keyboard or just a cover case ?

[Hualalai]

@ pmhn. Both my Shenzen tablets are Teclast.  I cancelled my order for an Hi10 from Gearworst.

[pmhn]

@kurai, this is 6,709 mWh, not mAh. I don’t know what voltage the battery is using here, but I noticed in one of TechTablets youtube review for Vi10 that the capacity is reported to be 26,821 mWh. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgTuIZul-8E @ 2:45) Then again, it is possible that BatteryBar could not get the right information. If someone could help report what they see in BatteryBar on Hi10, it would be great. In any case, I have just tried to use the tablet for a full hour, and it used around 20% battery. If the percentage is accurate, 5-hour battery life is not too bad.

@Oren, I am indeed using the keyboard case. You make very good point about the magnet. I’m trying to use it far away from the case now. However, connecting BT keyboard still seems to switch off the screen everytime. I am able to switch it back on today, though.

[kurai]

Yeah – I used mAh deliberately since that’s the figure that gets used in all the specs online.

mWh would just be that number * voltage (c. 4000mV).  It’s the voltage supplied that will drop throughout a discharge cycle, so there’s an argument that using mWh isn’t a terribly useful metric since it only ever gets quoted by manufacturers for a fully charged battery at initial peak voltage output.

It makes life harder when trying to judge the remaining battery life since 50% of the initial mWh does *not* mean that you have 50% battery charge remaining, since the voltage is dropping all the way through the cycle.

 

Edit: While I remember – I tried BatteryBar and got the same 6,709mWh capacity value as you, but it wasn’t able to read a value for ongoing charge/discharge rate at all.

In summary: The whole mWh versus mAh thing in specs is a bit of a mess, and I just assumed the BatteryBar app was using the wrong unit since mAh is much more commonly used and it was wrong by a factor of approx 4, assuming the batteries are anything close to stated spec 😉

[Norg]

Here’s a screenshot of my BatteryBar at the moment. (I have the 32bit windows chuwi hi10)

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[pmhn]

Thank you, @kurai @Norg. It does look like BatteryBar does not convert the unit correctly. At least, I’m relieved that the battery works as expected.

Now I will need to test the stability some more.

[Pascal Christen]

Is it normal that my tablet looses about 60% when I don’t use it for about 24h?

[Author]

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