Crackling Sounds from LG Home Cinema Speakers

Crackling Sounds from LG Home Cinema Speakers


If you're experiencing cracking noises coming from your LG Surround speakers, and didn't return the whole thing to shop yet, this solution might work for you... 






I recently installed a LG SR906SB Home Cinema Receiver to complete fit nicely with my all-HDMI installation. Soon, and suddenly, I noticed some crackling sounds from the speakers, very close to what you would hear when listening to an old LP on a turntable, except that, here all the sources used are digital!

The causes
I found out that the problem it started as soon as I had completed the Auto Sound Calibration test.
Furthermore, this seemed to be mainly caused by the changes made during the test on the Distance values.
Later on, I found that changing the AV/Sync value could lead to the same issue.


The solutions
- The quick and easy solution is to reset your receiver. On the SR906SB, this is done by pressing the Setup button, then using the Preset +/- button until the display shows 8 RESET, then confirm with the ENTER key.

- If you prefer not to reset the whole unit, you can proceed as above but until you see the line "3 DISTANCE", and then bring your values to something like 2.1M.

- If the noise appeared after messing with the sync function, just press the AV.SYNC. button and reduce the value until the noise is gone.

Is it "by design" ?
Most certainly not. I've seen this problem discussed many times on various forum, in particular for the model SR906B.
I'm currently checking this with LG support and will report back if they give any meaningful explanation to this.





Update: LG support follow up ...
"...we are not aware of this being a common fault with this model. However we do advise to keep the speaker levels at 0 and position the speakers further apart if you are experiencing problems with sound distortion or crackling."


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While waiting for Jelly Bean...

While waiting for Jelly Bean...
Onda is announcing the arrival of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean for VI40 Elite tablets.  


Things are generally improving for the Vi40 Elite since my initial review.


Patience being not my greatest quality, I started to have doubts on the Onda roadmap and took the plunge for the CyanogenMod 9.

Even after several hours of use (any freshly installed ROM looks fast when the cache is still empty), this mod seems to offers a much better overall experience, with greater stability, much less lags (still some though). 
On the minus side, the battery life seems significantly reduced (could be just because I spend much more time on my tablet since it runs on CM9!!), and it can be difficult/impossible to wake the tablet at times (in such cases, the easier it to take a very long press on the power button to turn off the tablet, and then re-start it). 

As more people managed to install the latest official Onda 1.4rc3/Android 4.0.4 (using LiveSuit upgrade method rather than the dodgy OTA utility), reports are generally praising the performance gain and Play Store improvements.

Furthermore, Jelly Bean is now announced for the Vi range soon.

...keep hope!


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Firmware update for Dericam M801W

Firmware update for Dericam M801W
I had lost hope to see any firmware updates for the Dericam range but there's one now available for M801W (and also M202/203/204/205/206). Very little change but still good to take...


The files can be found in the Download Center of the Dericam web site.

System: 0.37.2.46 (this system file is also valid for M202/203/204/205/206)
Web UI: 8.1.1.5 (this Web UI file is only for M801W, each model use a specific Web UI file)

The only change documented in the release note is the addition of the No-IP DDNS support.

Usual recommendations:
Do not update through WiFi, use the RJ45 connection.
Update the System firmware first, and then the Web UI file.
Do not power off before completion
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ICS Google Talk for Onda Vi40

ICS Google Talk for Onda Vi40
Finding a fully working Google Talk for your Onda tablet might be a little more difficult than other apps, so here is a simple way to have it fully working...

This method installs a fully working Google Talk with Video and Audio chat on your ICS tablet.

Procedure:  
  1. Download the Onda_Vi40_Talk.zip 
  2. Unzip the file on a PC with working android drivers installed. If you upgraded the firmware of your tablet in the past, these should be in place already.
  3. Execute the RunMe.bat
  4. At the end of the process, the tablet will reboot

What it does exactly:

It copies the following into /system/lib
libvideochat_jni.so (for Google Talk)
libvideochat_stabilize.so (for Google Talk)
libvoicesearch.so (for Voice Search)
...and Talk.apk and VoiceSearch.apk into /system/app

It also chmod's the files to 644(*). 

(*) Chmod reminder:
400 read by owner
200 write by owner
040 read by group
004 read by anybody

...the included VoiceSearch is entirely optional.


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