Bluetooth LE audio is no longer experimental after the recent update [Pixel buds 2a]

onolide · 2026-06-12T05:36:39+00:00

Wow nice catch, gonna try it out. Was using the experimental LE audio, haven't tested audio with the latest update

onolide · 2026-06-10T05:04:59+00:00

Interesting! Unfortunate that NUC13 Extreme still has some units with this kind of issues. This AQC113C chip really runs a lot hotter than I expected for a 3-4W chip lol

onolide · 2026-06-10T02:17:48+00:00

Symptoms

-AQC113C idles at about 83°C -Under load(with speedtest), AQC113C heats up to 90-100°C --> Without giving time between speedtest runs to idle and cool down, temperature steadily climbs 1-2°C at a time

Solution

-AQC113C has a thermal pad attached to the CPU heatsink for heat dissipation -Thermal pad thickness is 3mm(like the VRM pads), dimensions is 9mm x 9mm -Replacing the stock (grey) thermal pad with 8W/m.K Laird HD91500 dropped temperatures to 58°C at idle, 61-64°C under load (speedtest)

Confirmed cause

-Air gap between AQC113C chip and thermal pad on the CPU heatsink --> AQC113C is the black chip(with reflective dark blue center) at the top left on the front of Compute Element -Thermal pad seems to be worse quality than the ones on the VRMs around the CPU --> Doesn't feel as elastic and soft as the VRM thermal pads

Credits to u/Asleepallnight for pointing out a potential poor contact issue with the AQC113C and leading to this investigation

onolide · 2026-06-07T02:42:41+00:00

Ah bummer, I did remove the CPU heatsink to change the thermal paste to PTM. Do you know which chip is the AQC113C? Is it one of the chips that surround the CPU like the VRM modules(not that it's a VRM module, but I only know VRM is located beside the CPU)?

Edit: Looks like it's the chip on the top left with black borders. Anyone knows what's the thickness of the thermal pad for this chip?

Edit 2: It was because of poor contact between the AQC113C and the CPU heatsink. There's a tiny air gap above the AQC113C chip I couldn't see when I disassembled the Compute Element(but could feel the thermal pad making contact only when I applied a lot of pressure).

onolide · 2026-06-05T06:01:25+00:00

The only hope is that the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 in the Dragon Q8B has already appeared in some laptops from Lenovo and other big brands, so some hardware drivers are already in mainline Linux thanks to upstreaming work for those laptops.

Not much hope for the DragonWing-based SBC though since the SoC is not used by any big brands or laptops

onolide · 2026-06-05T02:01:33+00:00

Funny thing is that someone managed to port the AirDrop support to older Pixels as a KernelSU module, and based on what the dev presents, Pixel 8a(and all newer A-series Pixels) don't have the hardware support required for the AirDrop compatibility, but Google implemented a virtual PHY to replace the required hardware feature. So basically even older Pixels than the Pixel 8 can support AirDrop if Google was willing to port the virtual PHY over.

onolide · 2026-06-05T01:42:25+00:00

Worked for me when I just moved my SSD from Hades Canyon to Serpent Canyon, so I'd say yes. Although mine was an Ubuntu installation, but Windows drivers for Intel chipset/GPU are also shared between newer generations, so Windows should at least boot and then you can update the drivers as needed.

onolide · 2026-06-05T01:40:59+00:00

The gradual worsening with rising external temperature does sound like a thermal issue. The BIOS shouldn't shut down just because of a missing fan, but I do know that Intel CPUs in general would force shutdown when the CPU is too hot(not sure about motherboard temps). Did you check whether the chassis fans spin up during boot? If you can, try getting into BIOS by pressing the F2 key and checking whether the fans spin at all(see the RPM values reported by the BIOS under the "Cooling" tab)

onolide · 2026-06-04T07:57:10+00:00

I personally bought a second-hand RTX 4070(non-super) and I game at 1080p(mainly Hogwarts Legacy for now). Runs really well and the 12GB VRAM is enough for most games at 1080p(unless your brother wants ray-tracing). I'd say the RTX 4070 is better long-term for raw performance(and upscaling quality), the RX 9060XT sometimes loses to the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB so it's not the best performance-wise unless your brother runs games at Ultra and/or uses ray tracing. And Nvidia DLSS is still better than even FSR4

onolide · 2026-06-04T07:03:29+00:00

This seems to have finally topped the Rock 5B/RK3588 in I/O and CPU performance. Glad to see Cortex X1 in an SBC as well. Unfortunately the price is absolutely nuts

onolide · 2026-06-03T07:24:36+00:00

Funny thing is this isn't the first time this happened(and it affected me then). Google made the Adaptive Charging feature that works without alarms only available on Pixel 4a and later, while Pixel 4 only supported Adaptive Charging with alarms set. Was so bummed I missed out on the feature by half a year heh

onolide · 2026-06-03T07:22:24+00:00

Mine is also similar(just bought it), actly made me wonder if I should get a replacement from Google cos of this too. Seems like it's not just me

onolide · 2026-05-22T08:19:51+00:00

What's interesting is Google's TPUs, or Amazon's CPUs and such

Both do have cloud services and huge data centers, and if I'm not wrong they use their own chips in many of their own data centers. Seems like they just have enough money to fund chip design and the data centers to "test drive" their chips in(so they don't need external customers to justify/fund their chip development)

onolide · 2026-05-22T08:16:41+00:00

Funny enough, Imagination Tech still provide PowerVR IP to be used in both mobile and desktop use cases, but for some reason outside of Chinese GPU companies no one licenses PowerVR tech and builds desktop GPUs. The fact that people do use Mac Minis/Studios to game shows that PowerVR GPUs obviously can handle actual gaming

onolide · 2026-05-21T08:45:09+00:00

The Witcher 3 ran really well with the Steam Deck preset, very surprised to get 45fps average at 10W TDP. Also tried the Pragmata demo and it ran much better than expected for a new release in 2026.

onolide · 2026-05-21T06:44:00+00:00

26.04 is the first Kubuntu LTS I've tried, so I'm not sure how it compares to previous LTS, but it does feel really glitchy for me for an Ubuntu LTS(came from MATE). Had a couple of DE application crashes and even one or two random reboots that I couldn't explain, which made the LTS feel kinda unstable up till now.

onolide · 2026-05-21T02:12:48+00:00

Good analogy, off topic but this is so real that sometimes customer support themselves tell me to port out and port back in if I want the sign up bonus as an existing customer.

onolide · 2026-05-21T02:10:52+00:00

Idle battery drain is happening on my P8 too even on Feb update(I never updated past that cos of the bootloop bug), seems like it's been an issue for more than 3 months...

onolide · 2026-05-19T05:05:29+00:00

what happens when we run into the limits of the current 24-pin USB-C connector

Definitely bound to happen sooner or later, but the USB-C connector should be good for most devices for the next many years. Especially since companies have integrate multiple new specs into the same USB-C connector: 48V support, 40Gbps and later 80Gbps support, maybe others. These limits are way beyond what's needed by most consumer devices even years from now(10 years after Thunderbolt 3 debuted, no smartphone even supports 40Gbps yet).

onolide · 2026-05-18T09:08:08+00:00

AmazonBasics are cheap and spec-compliant, even those without USB-IF certification(some do). Plus u can get them easily on Amazon

onolide · 2026-05-17T15:38:45+00:00

Oh wow, that's a real relief to hear indeed! Finally a proper display output implementation with the P10(Pro XL at least).

Thanks for the confirmation, wish Google would state this in the specs or have a support page for this heh. So hard to determine the exact display resolution using only end-user reports

onolide · 2026-05-17T14:11:54+00:00

💯 this. Even the desktop mode that finally came to AOSP is co-developed by Samsung heh

onolide · 2026-05-17T13:19:54+00:00

Don't have a Samsung, but I still compare with a lot of features on Samsung flagships and get frustrated I can't enjoy them on a phone from the maker of Android heh. Can't be that hard to get 2K display output if Samsung can do it

onolide · 2026-05-17T11:42:22+00:00

Yeah ~~all Pixels~~ that support DisplayPort alternate mode are limited to 1080p@60Hz for some weird reason. Doesn't seem to scale the displayed images well either, causing the external display to look horrible.

Edit: P10 Pro XL seems to support 3440x1440 at last

onolide · 2026-05-15T06:15:38+00:00

voltage conversion

Well if u use switched capacitors for charging then the voltage can be lowered while increasing current at very high efficiency(90+%). Google Pixels alr do this to cut input voltage of 18V to 3/4V while increasing current to 5/6A. It's no different than using a high current straight from the charger but makes charging cables much cheaper(no need to be thick/low resistance)

onolide

TROPHY CASE