OverClocking 101

[blazednova]

Ur gonna have to purchase a new battery bud. It most likely fried alot of the cells in your battery. Heat is a battery's worst enemy. And bad for other hardware as well.

Thanks. I just did a factory reset and plugged it in to charge. There is aleast a one second lag on the keyboard. And the web browsing is soo touchy. Nothing is normal on it. I think I'm gonna have to get a new phone altogether. :'(

I am actually shocked your battery even works. Since Lithium-Ion batteries can reach thermal runaway at temps as low as 140F. I am also very concerned that the phone didn't auto reboot at that temp. I will have to investigate how/why that didn't happen.

I'm honestly amazed to. the phone was underclocked at 400mhz. and yet it still reached 167. there must be a defect in the system somewhere. i just unrooted it and its still running super hot and lagy. with no reboots or nothing. i think im just gonna leave it on and wait for it to fail then go get a warranty replacement. hopefully a Droid X or Droid 2.

 

[drpaul07]

I tried both before, but finally figured out that since the battery and the CPU are so close to each other in a little tiny space anyway, that it doesn't even matter to have or use both forms of monitoring. The few times I tried CPU monitoring anyway, sometimes I would get SetCPU crashes, although rare, I decided to just use battery temp profiles since it would never crash SetCPU. The crashes were likely caused by some wierd thing in the kernel I was running but nevertheless, I find it doesn't really matter because if your phone's battery is running at 108°F say, your CPU is not going to be far from that.

Also note that kernel plays a big role in temp overall. I found that Chevy kernels tend to run kinda hot for me, and P3droid kernels tend to run a bit cooler, but most recently discovered my coolest operation when using a jdlfg kernel. Now I did briefly try a Slayher kernel that seemed a bit cooler (running on interactive governer) it would actually get hotter when you loaded it down a bunch. So as of now, I rate jdlfg the best performing kernel that runs coolest, and it was optimized for the Lithium Mod ROM, which I run.

Cool. Yeah i've briefly used a couple p3droid kernels and they worked fine until i pushed them using an emulator and then my phone would reboot after about 10 minutes (temp wouldn't even be that hot yet, but it would reboot nonetheless). My main kernel was always Chevy kernels, and those worked well. Never rebooted or anything. I'd push those hard too at times when i use the psx4droid emulator. After about 30 min, my battery temp would be 41-42 C (105.8-107.6 F) which sounds pretty good considering the cpu is probably running at the highest speed that i allow constantly (usually 1.1GHz). However, I noticed that my cpu temp would be much higher. The highest i've ever seen it is 59 C (138.2 F). When i check the 'info' section of setcpu, the cpu temp starts dropping incredibly fast when the phone is not in use (for example, the 59 was there for 2 seconds, then dropped to 55, then 52, then upper 40s and just continued dropping very fast after i had stopped using the emulator). Likewise, it seems to rise incredibly fast by just scrolling the screen up and down for a bit (temp will ramp up by 3-5 degrees C, then right back down when not in use again). So now i'm more wary when i use the emulators since they're cpu intensive and i have a profile to drop cpu speed when cpu temp reaches 55C.

Otherwise, if i'm just doing normal activities on my phone, i notice the battery temp and cpu temp are pretty near each other. I honestly haven't noticed huge differences in temp between kernels. When i'm checking stuff on my phone and the screen is on for a while, the temps rise up to about 32-36 C. Then back to upper 20s when idle. It never goes above 40 C unless i'm using an emulator or something. I usually change kernels to see if batterly life changes, and so far the Slayher kernel seems to be doing a good job with the interactive governor. I may at some point try those jdlfg kernels too.

 

[nickelocene]

Cool. Yeah i've briefly used a couple p3droid kernels and they worked fine until i pushed them using an emulator and then my phone would reboot after about 10 minutes (temp wouldn't even be that hot yet, but it would reboot nonetheless). My main kernel was always Chevy kernels, and those worked well. Never rebooted or anything. I'd push those hard too at times when i use the psx4droid emulator. After about 30 min, my battery temp would be 41-42 C (105.8-107.6 F) which sounds pretty good considering the cpu is probably running at the highest speed that i allow constantly (usually 1.1GHz). However, I noticed that my cpu temp would be much higher. The highest i've ever seen it is 59 C (138.2 F). When i check the 'info' section of setcpu, the cpu temp starts dropping incredibly fast when the phone is not in use (for example, the 59 was there for 2 seconds, then dropped to 55, then 52, then upper 40s and just continued dropping very fast after i had stopped using the emulator). Likewise, it seems to rise incredibly fast by just scrolling the screen up and down for a bit (temp will ramp up by 3-5 degrees C, then right back down when not in use again). So now i'm more wary when i use the emulators since they're cpu intensive and i have a profile to drop cpu speed when cpu temp reaches 55C.

Otherwise, if i'm just doing normal activities on my phone, i notice the battery temp and cpu temp are pretty near each other. I honestly haven't noticed huge differences in temp between kernels. When i'm checking stuff on my phone and the screen is on for a while, the temps rise up to about 32-36 C. Then back to upper 20s when idle. It never goes above 40 C unless i'm using an emulator or something. I usually change kernels to see if batterly life changes, and so far the Slayher kernel seems to be doing a good job with the interactive governor. I may at some point try those jdlfg kernels too.

My experience was totally different. I've used P3 LV1000 and my battery and CPU got hot easily. No chance to use PSX4Droid at all. But after I switch to Chevy's ULV1000, everything works out fine now. I can use PSX4Droid and play FF IX for more than 2 hours without any problem. Battery has always been around 38-40°C and CPU goes as high as 48°C. I have setCPU to warn me when CPU reaches 50°C, but it never happened. I guess every Droid is different, and we have to choose the best one individually.

The only thing odd to me is that for both kernel, my battery gets hotter when I'm surfing with Dolphin HD or even stock browser. But Chevy still stays cooler than P3. Wonder why.

 

[samsonite801]

I'm honestly amazed to. the phone was underclocked at 400mhz. and yet it still reached 167. there must be a defect in the system somewhere. i just unrooted it and its still running super hot and lagy. with no reboots or nothing. i think im just gonna leave it on and wait for it to fail then go get a warranty replacement. hopefully a Droid X or Droid 2.

Yeah, isn't that funny that a cheapskate such as yourself thinks he's entitled to a warrantee replacement phone after he roots it then puts God only knows what combination of ROM, kernel, and every other app in the world on it . Then he decides we should all pay for him to have a new phone when he melts it down (his own informal R&D).

I recently blew some compressed air into my phone's speaker to clean the dust out, and it totally screwed up the speaker really bad, so it was very quiet, almost silent, and I realized I needed it fixed or something, and I could've just called Verizon and made them give me a Droid X but then I realized that it was me who hosed it and so I sucked up my cheapskateness and bought a new Droid on eBay for $360. I hope you don't somehow think you're exempt from the rules but when you decide to root your phone you must take it on your shoulders that the warrantee is now VOID. So if you commit fraud and have them warrantee it, you are essentially making us pay for you to have the luxury of owning a new Droid X, since Verizon has to honor all the fraud patients like you.

Please don't do this. Suck it up and go buy your replacement since you caused your own phone's death. Don't make us all pay for it. This is part of why our country is going down the drain because so many Americans raised in this new generation are constantly trying to figure out how to cheat the system any way they can, and without even an ounce of guilt. It's like they have this sense of entitlement.

Sorry, that kid just hit a sore spot is all.
.
.

 

[samsonite801]

Cool. Yeah i've briefly used a couple p3droid kernels and they worked fine until i pushed them using an emulator and then my phone would reboot after about 10 minutes (temp wouldn't even be that hot yet, but it would reboot nonetheless). My main kernel was always Chevy kernels, and those worked well. Never rebooted or anything. I'd push those hard too at times when i use the psx4droid emulator. After about 30 min, my battery temp would be 41-42 C (105.8-107.6 F) which sounds pretty good considering the cpu is probably running at the highest speed that i allow constantly (usually 1.1GHz). However, I noticed that my cpu temp would be much higher. The highest i've ever seen it is 59 C (138.2 F). When i check the 'info' section of setcpu, the cpu temp starts dropping incredibly fast when the phone is not in use (for example, the 59 was there for 2 seconds, then dropped to 55, then 52, then upper 40s and just continued dropping very fast after i had stopped using the emulator). Likewise, it seems to rise incredibly fast by just scrolling the screen up and down for a bit (temp will ramp up by 3-5 degrees C, then right back down when not in use again). So now i'm more wary when i use the emulators since they're cpu intensive and i have a profile to drop cpu speed when cpu temp reaches 55C.

Otherwise, if i'm just doing normal activities on my phone, i notice the battery temp and cpu temp are pretty near each other. I honestly haven't noticed huge differences in temp between kernels. When i'm checking stuff on my phone and the screen is on for a while, the temps rise up to about 32-36 C. Then back to upper 20s when idle. It never goes above 40 C unless i'm using an emulator or something. I usually change kernels to see if batterly life changes, and so far the Slayher kernel seems to be doing a good job with the interactive governor. I may at some point try those jdlfg kernels too.

My experience was totally different. I've used P3 LV1000 and my battery and CPU got hot easily. No chance to use PSX4Droid at all. But after I switch to Chevy's ULV1000, everything works out fine now. I can use PSX4Droid and play FF IX for more than 2 hours without any problem. Battery has always been around 38-40°C and CPU goes as high as 48°C. I have setCPU to warn me when CPU reaches 50°C, but it never happened. I guess every Droid is different, and we have to choose the best one individually.

The only thing odd to me is that for both kernel, my battery gets hotter when I'm surfing with Dolphin HD or even stock browser. But Chevy still stays cooler than P3. Wonder why.

Also, let's not forget, and as Skull One has reminded us several times, that many times when on 3G with a weak signal, your radio will actually be a primary cause of phone baking. So if you switch to WiFi in your house say, it may cool down a lot since you now are very close to the AP / repeater so your radio doesn't have to strain and use a lot of power to talk to the AP. So I'm just reminding us not to forget to factor that into our temp equations as well.

 

[Skull One]

I tried both before, but finally figured out that since the battery and the CPU are so close to each other in a little tiny space anyway, that it doesn't even matter to have or use both forms of monitoring. The few times I tried CPU monitoring anyway, sometimes I would get SetCPU crashes, although rare, I decided to just use battery temp profiles since it would never crash SetCPU. The crashes were likely caused by some wierd thing in the kernel I was running but nevertheless, I find it doesn't really matter because if your phone's battery is running at 108°F say, your CPU is not going to be far from that.

Also note that kernel plays a big role in temp overall. I found that Chevy kernels tend to run kinda hot for me, and P3droid kernels tend to run a bit cooler, but most recently discovered my coolest operation when using a jdlfg kernel. Now I did briefly try a Slayher kernel that seemed a bit cooler (running on interactive governer) it would actually get hotter when you loaded it down a bunch. So as of now, I rate jdlfg the best performing kernel that runs coolest, and it was optimized for the Lithium Mod ROM, which I run.

I wish it was that easy to say you only need either CPU or battery temp to protect your phone, but alas it isn't.

I can think of several ways where you can overheat the CPU to 140F+ before the battery ever sees 100F. Most notably games with no FPS limiter.



Now I do agree with your "try every kernel" for best temps. Every droid is different as well as every kernel is different. Finding the best combo can take days, even weeks. But the end results can be very surprising and worth the effort.

 

[drpaul07]

Skull,

I have a question for you that has always bugged me since i started using overclocking kernels and setcpu. I have asked this before on other threads but never got an answer that i was comfortable with. Maybe you can shed some light on this because i think this happens to a lot of other people, whether they know it or not.

Whenever I charge my phone through the ac (either directly through an outlet on the wall, or using my dock charger), the cpu speed will be STUCK on whatever the 3rd slot of my kernel is. The speed will never go down. It does NOT matter what my profiles are, whether the profiles are enabled or disabled, whether my charging profile is of highest priority or not, whether i have a max and min of 250. The cpu speed will just constantly be at the speed designated by the 3rd slot. Also, none of this occurs if the phone is being charged through a usb cable (in that case, whatever profile you set it to will work just fine). This only happens when charging through the ac.

This has happened with every kernel and rom i've used. And i've searched enough to know that I don't think it is a bug or problem with any rom or kernel, but just how the android os works. When the phone is charging, the cpu speed clocks to whatever the 3rd slot is, and stays there. I think others know of this, but i honestly think that many don't, and they think their phone is underclocked when charging, when it really isn't.

I was just curious to hear your thoughts on this Skull. Is there a reason for this? Does it help charge the battery faster if the cpu speed is faster? Could there be some kind of override in a rom perhaps that would fix this? Does this occur on all Droids, or just a few? And also, i like to charge my phone overnight, but wonder if the having the cpu at a constant speed of 600MHz (which is the 3rd slot of my kernel) all night long could cause any damage. I know the stock cpu speed can go up to 600, but is it ok to constantly stay at that speed for 7-8 hours while i sleep?

I think this is a legitimate thing to discuss and understand because since many of us overclock, the 3rd slot of any kernel will obviously be a lot higher than the stock kernels. Plus, since i think that many of us don't realize this happens, it would be nice to have people be more aware of this and to understand why this occurs. Unless everyone knows about it already, and it just doesn't bother them. In that case, i guess i just worry too much lol.

Anybody else can chime in as well of course.

 

[baditup]

so Skull, just got thru reading/skimming this whole thread and I had a quick question. What are YOUR personal settings for setcpu? Or is it a constantly evolving thing? hehe

 

[Skull One]

Skull,

I have a question for you that has always bugged me since i started using overclocking kernels and setcpu. I have asked this before on other threads but never got an answer that i was comfortable with. Maybe you can shed some light on this because i think this happens to a lot of other people, whether they know it or not.

Whenever I charge my phone through the ac (either directly through an outlet on the wall, or using my dock charger), the cpu speed will be STUCK on whatever the 3rd slot of my kernel is. The speed will never go down. It does NOT matter what my profiles are, whether the profiles are enabled or disabled, whether my charging profile is of highest priority or not, whether i have a max and min of 250. The cpu speed will just constantly be at the speed designated by the 3rd slot. Also, none of this occurs if the phone is being charged through a usb cable (in that case, whatever profile you set it to will work just fine). This only happens when charging through the ac.

This has happened with every kernel and rom i've used. And i've searched enough to know that I don't think it is a bug or problem with any rom or kernel, but just how the android os works. When the phone is charging, the cpu speed clocks to whatever the 3rd slot is, and stays there. I think others know of this, but i honestly think that many don't, and they think their phone is underclocked when charging, when it really isn't.

I was just curious to hear your thoughts on this Skull. Is there a reason for this? Does it help charge the battery faster if the cpu speed is faster? Could there be some kind of override in a rom perhaps that would fix this? Does this occur on all Droids, or just a few? And also, i like to charge my phone overnight, but wonder if the having the cpu at a constant speed of 600MHz (which is the 3rd slot of my kernel) all night long could cause any damage. I know the stock cpu speed can go up to 600, but is it ok to constantly stay at that speed for 7-8 hours while i sleep?

I think this is a legitimate thing to discuss and understand because since many of us overclock, the 3rd slot of any kernel will obviously be a lot higher than the stock kernels. Plus, since i think that many of us don't realize this happens, it would be nice to have people be more aware of this and to understand why this occurs. Unless everyone knows about it already, and it just doesn't bother them. In that case, i guess i just worry too much lol.

Anybody else can chime in as well of course.

I can only speak on the Motorola Droid A855. It is a built in feature of the phone. I have not found the reason why, mainly because I haven't read the source code.

Now I do have a theory. It is VERY weak, but I can't "disprove" it yet.

I believe it is for faster booting on stock Droids.

No clue if I am right. But I can say when I am testing, being plugged in during booting makes all the difference in the world.

 

[Skull One]

so Skull, just got thru reading/skimming this whole thread and I had a quick question. What are YOUR personal settings for setcpu? Or is it a constantly evolving thing? hehe

Moving target doesn't begin to describe it.

Lets see what I have right now:
Main 800/125 OnDemand 30000, 50, 0, 0
CPU Temp > 54C 400/125 OnDemand
Temp > 49.8C 400/125 OnDemand
Charging/Full 600/125 OnDemand

If am not testing Post #2 has my "Base Line" configuration.

Now a few of you may notice something about my "current" setup. It mimics some early leaks of Froyo 2.2 save for the battery/cpu temp overrides. I wanted to see how well this load out would have worked if Motorola had stuck with it. Personally, I wish they would have. It would have stopped the whole panic thread about "Droid/Milestone not getting Flash".

 

[dwoid]

This sounds familiar.

There was some discussion months ago about a Eclair 2.1 Droid1 bug that only occurred while using the stock Motorola wall charger, it would automatically set CPU speed up to 800MHz and freeze it there. It would not allow CPU speed to go up or down. It didn't seem to be tied to the middle slot. I have to wonder if this is what is happening here.

I've been testing this under Froyo 2.2 (FRG22D) and it now appears that using the stock Motorola wall charger sets CPU speed at 550MHz and freezes it there. It does not allow CPU speed to go up or down. So this may have been adjusted in Froyo.

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-hacks/63865-cpu-stuck-certain-speed-when-charging.html

... and etc...

Skull,

I have a question ...
Whenever I charge my phone through the ac (either directly through an outlet on the wall, or using my dock charger), the cpu speed will be STUCK on whatever the 3rd slot of my kernel is. The speed will never go down.
...
Anybody else can chime in as well of course.

I can only speak on the Motorola Droid A855. It is a built in feature of the phone. I have not found the reason why, mainly because I haven't read the source code.

Now I do have a theory. It is VERY weak, but I can't "disprove" it yet.

I believe it is for faster booting on stock Droids.

No clue if I am right. But I can say when I am testing, being plugged in during booting makes all the difference in the world.

 

[dwoid]

I'll bring up my SetCPU/kernel philosophy here, but take it with a grain of salt...

I find CPU temperature interesting to study in SetCPU, but because it vacilates so quickly and unpredictably I have stopped using it for a temperature related failsafe...

CPU temp was handy in Eclair where system battery temp was not reliable, CPU temp, combined with the timer, provided a tenuous but reliable way to keep the Droid from running too hot. But that system battery temp issue has been corrected in Froyo; system battery temp is now reliable again, and, given the battery's ability to act as a temperature buffer and provide much more predictable temperature curves, it's much more stable to use in SetCPU. Plus we don't need to have an extra timer process for system battery temp as is required with CPU temp.

That, and the fact that the battery is more likely to fail at relatively low temperatures than the CPU (although that admittedly doesn't address the CPU's neighboring components) is enough for me to use system battery temp only for SetCPU's temperature related failsafe.

Related to kernel choices, I sort of look at things there a little differently too...

If you're running too low of a voltage kernel, your phone will work harder and you'll actually use more battery and create more heat and instability than if you use standard or medium voltage kernels. I've seen this over and over again on multiple Droid1s. These devices were tested in the factory at a specified standard voltage, so it seems reasonable that the kernels that provide standard or medium voltage are coming as close to that specification as is available in an overclocking environment.

So when I'm testing kernels I always start with standard or medium voltage first. There, I find out how fast the Droid1 I'm testing is capable of running. If I get boot loops or spurious FCs in higher overclocked speeds at standard or medium voltage, I know I'm just plain running too fast -- there's no need to even try these high speeds under lower voltage kernels. Why test multiple variables when you can test just one variable?

For the most part, with SetCPU and different kernels, I vote for stability first, then battery life/low heat, then speed. In my experience, the standard or medium voltage kernels always pay off better in these areas.

Just my $.02...

 

[furbearingmammal]

If the phone's not overheating then I wouldn't worry about it. A quick test would be to run Quadrant before plugging it in and ten after it gets plugged in to see if the scores vary enough to say it's frozen at 550.

 

[jville95]

*chime in*

I just wanted to say that I just found this thread and it has great stuff in here!! THX to you all bc my eyes have now been opened to more options, little did I know. Trying different stuff now with kernels and setCPU.

Thx Skull One and everyone else for sharing this great info!

*chime out*

 

[xmguy]

I noticed last night that my D1 has this issue. Running a custom 2.2 rom and a 1.0 Ghz low voltage kernel from Chevy.