Guides to the Numbers Behind the Tests on Devicedial

Why Is My Microphone So Quiet?

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

How quiet is actually too quiet?

Below −20 dBFS. That is the line the mic test draws, and it is drawn there because of what happens next rather than because the number sounds bad. A signal peaking at −20 dBFS is a tenth of full-scale amplitude, so anything downstream — a call app, a recorder, the other person’s headphones — has to add roughly 14 dB to bring you up to a comfortable level, and it adds that to your keyboard, your chair and your neighbour’s lawnmower at the same time.

Monitor Stuck at 60 Hz

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Has anything actually asked for 144 Hz yet?

This is the first check because it is the most common answer. Plugging in a high-refresh monitor does not switch it to its highest mode: the display advertises what it can do, and the operating system picks a mode, which is very often the safe one. On Windows the setting lives in Settings → System → Display → Advanced display, on macOS under Displays. Set it explicitly, then re-run the refresh rate test to confirm the change reached the screen.

Dead Pixel or Stuck Pixel?

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What is the difference, physically?

Each pixel on an LCD is three subpixels — red, green and blue — with a transistor behind each one deciding how much light gets through. Two things can go wrong with that arrangement, and they look opposite.

A dead pixel receives no drive at all. Its subpixels stay shut whatever the picture asks for, so against a white field it is a black dot, and against every colour it stays black. It is a hardware failure with no software remedy.

Mouse Double Clicking on One Press

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What is actually happening inside the button?

A mouse button is a small mechanical switch: pressing it drives a sprung metal leaf against a contact and closes a circuit. New, that contact settles in well under a millisecond. Worn, the leaf has lost tension and the contact surface is no longer smooth, so it touches, separates, and touches again several times in the space of a few milliseconds. That is contact bounce, and in mice it is called chatter.

How Bad Is My Stick Drift?

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What is the drift score measuring?

One thing only: how far a stick says it has moved when nobody is moving it.

The Gamepad API gives a web page each axis as a number between −1 and 1, where 0 is centre. Put the controller down, take your hands off it, and a healthy stick sits within a few hundredths of zero while a worn one parks somewhere out along an axis. The stick drift test samples both sticks for a few seconds, takes the largest absolute deflection it sees, and multiplies by 100. A stick resting at 0.15 scores 15.

Input Lag Chart

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Refresh rate and polling rate are argued about as if they compete. They do not: they are two queues in a row, and the delay you feel is one of each. The table below is generated at build time from that arithmetic, for the nine refresh rates people actually own and the three polling rates mice actually ship with.

Frame time, mouse reports per frame and the worst-case press-to-pixel delay for nine refresh rates against the three common polling rates. Worst case is one whole polling interval plus one whole frame; it covers the input and display path only, not the game, the cable or the panel’s own response time.
Refresh rate	Frame time	Mouse reports per frame			Worst case press to pixel
Refresh rate	Frame time	125 Hz	500 Hz	1000 Hz	125 Hz	500 Hz	1000 Hz
30 Hz	33.3 ms	4.2	16.7	33.3	41.3 ms	35.3 ms	34.3 ms
60 Hz	16.7 ms	2.1	8.3	16.7	24.7 ms	18.7 ms	17.7 ms
75 Hz	13.3 ms	1.7	6.7	13.3	21.3 ms	15.3 ms	14.3 ms
90 Hz	11.1 ms	1.4	5.6	11.1	19.1 ms	13.1 ms	12.1 ms
120 Hz	8.3 ms	1.0	4.2	8.3	16.3 ms	10.3 ms	9.3 ms
144 Hz	6.9 ms	0.9	3.5	6.9	14.9 ms	8.9 ms	7.9 ms
165 Hz	6.1 ms	0.8	3.0	6.1	14.1 ms	8.1 ms	7.1 ms
240 Hz	4.2 ms	0.5	2.1	4.2	12.2 ms	6.2 ms	5.2 ms
360 Hz	2.8 ms	0.3	1.4	2.8	10.8 ms	4.8 ms	3.8 ms

What does the worst case actually mean?

It means both queues went against you at once. A press that lands one microsecond after the mouse has sent its report waits a full polling interval — 8 ms on a 125 Hz mouse, 1 ms on a 1000 Hz one. The frame built from that report can then be finished one microsecond after the display has started drawing, so it waits a full frame as well.