OverClocking 101

[jhom]

I'm curious what is actually changed when a kernel is designed as low voltage as opposed to standard voltage?

 

[Skull One]

I'm curious what is actually changed when a kernel is designed as low voltage as opposed to standard voltage?

The voltage multiplier is set lower than the Stock numbers provided by Motorola.

For instance, cvpcs has his 125Mhz Standard Voltage set to 0x27 and his Low Voltage set to 0x20. While that may look like Greek, it is very easy to convert it to a Voltage. 0x27 is Hex for 39 Decimal. We then take the 39 and put into the current formula I have for determining voltage of X * 12.5 + 600mV. So 39 * 12.5 + 600mv = 1087mV or 1.087 Volts. That meas the Low Voltage is 32 * 12.5 + 600mv = 1000mV or 1 Volt. A savings of roughly 9%. That adds up if your phone spends a lot of time in sleep/standby mode.

 

[jhom]

I'm curious what is actually changed when a kernel is designed as low voltage as opposed to standard voltage?

The voltage multiplier is set lower than the Stock numbers provided by Motorola.

For instance, cvpcs has his 125Mhz Standard Voltage set to 0x27 and his Low Voltage set to 0x20. While that may look like Greek, it is very easy to convert it to a Voltage. 0x27 is Hex for 39 Decimal. We then take the 39 and put into the current formula I have for determining voltage of X * 12.5 + 600mV. So 39 * 12.5 + 600mv = 1087mV or 1.087 Volts. That meas the Low Voltage is 32 * 12.5 + 600mv = 1000mV or 1 Volt. A savings of roughly 9%. That adds up if your phone spends a lot of time in sleep/standby mode.

Thank you for the information. In fact, this thread has been very helpful and educational.

 

[Crylon41]

Wow. I just read all 38 pages. First off, Skull, your attention to this thread and the people posting is incredible and commendable. I learned a lot, and confirmed a few more things. Second, there was only one "slightly irritated" post. No flame wars, no jackassery of any other sort. Very impressive everyone! That's part of why I finally joined this forum. The other part is to learn and share. So now I'll share, and hopefully from everyone's comments and recommendations, I'll learn:

SetCPU 2.0.3

Profiles (priority in this order)
125-1000 - Main - ondemand
400-500 - Screen Off - ondemand (read about lag when "waking up")
125-400 - Temp > 40.2C - powersave
125-500 - Battery < 40 - ondemand
125-800 - Battery < 60 - ondemand
125-900 - Battery < 80 - ondemand
125-800 - Charging/Full - ondemand (don't want to fry it while charging)

Advanced
30000
50
0
0

Full charge, just erased battery stats, Juice Plotter says 18 hours, but we shall see. Also have Autokiller, set to Aggressive.

I only rooted 2 days ago, and as you can see from the sig, I jumped in feet first. Everyone lemme know what you think about my settings in SetCPU, and also if you have any experience, good or bad with Autokiller. Thanks, Preston

 

[o29]

Is there any new data or information available regarding the interactive governor? I've seen some discussion about its affect on performance and battery life, but nothing with concrete data. I tried switching to it for a few days and didn't notice a change in battery life with performance seemingly slightly faster.

But with interactive there are no advanced settings to adjust in SetCPU, so is it better to trust interactive or to use ondemand with custom values? (was using 30000 sampling rate and 50% upper threshold).

 

[Skull One]

Wow. I just read all 38 pages. First off, Skull, your attention to this thread and the people posting is incredible and commendable. I learned a lot, and confirmed a few more things. Second, there was only one "slightly irritated" post. No flame wars, no jackassery of any other sort. Very impressive everyone! That's part of why I finally joined this forum. The other part is to learn and share. So now I'll share, and hopefully from everyone's comments and recommendations, I'll learn:

SetCPU 2.0.3

Profiles (priority in this order)
125-1000 - Main - ondemand
400-500 - Screen Off - ondemand (read about lag when "waking up")
125-400 - Temp > 40.2C - powersave
125-500 - Battery < 40 - ondemand
125-800 - Battery < 60 - ondemand
125-900 - Battery < 80 - ondemand
125-800 - Charging/Full - ondemand (don't want to fry it while charging)

Advanced
30000
50
0
0

Full charge, just erased battery stats, Juice Plotter says 18 hours, but we shall see. Also have Autokiller, set to Aggressive.

I only rooted 2 days ago, and as you can see from the sig, I jumped in feet first. Everyone lemme know what you think about my settings in SetCPU, and also if you have any experience, good or bad with Autokiller. Thanks, Preston

400-500 - Screen Off - ondemand (read about lag when "waking up")

The lag was during 2.1 and earlier. Under 2.2 if you see that issue, you have one of two conditions going on. Either too low of a voltage or a misbehaving application.

By having your charging profile last, you will actually be underclocked while charging if you battery is below 60%. So you might want to move it to just below the Temp line.

I have yet to see a good reason to use autokiller under 2.2 unless you have a "must have app" that doesn't play properly when it is no longer the active application.

 

[Skull One]

Is there any new data or information available regarding the interactive governor? I've seen some discussion about its affect on performance and battery life, but nothing with concrete data. I tried switching to it for a few days and didn't notice a change in battery life with performance seemingly slightly faster.

But with interactive there are no advanced settings to adjust in SetCPU, so is it better to trust interactive or to use ondemand with custom values? (was using 30000 sampling rate and 50% upper threshold).

After I ran the very first test and the read the actual source code for the Interactive Governor, I saw no point in testing further. My original test shows the true issue with the governor. It spends more time in the upper slots than on demand. Which of course leads to faster battery drain. Now I will say that interactive is MUCH better than the Performance Governor. Because Interactive at least has the potential to underclock about 1/5 to 1/6 of the time. Which gives your CPU a time frame to cool off. So in that respect, if you are a a die hard "must get every ounce out of my phone", then Interactive is a better alternative than Performance.

 

[o29]

Is there any new data or information available regarding the interactive governor? I've seen some discussion about its affect on performance and battery life, but nothing with concrete data. I tried switching to it for a few days and didn't notice a change in battery life with performance seemingly slightly faster.

But with interactive there are no advanced settings to adjust in SetCPU, so is it better to trust interactive or to use ondemand with custom values? (was using 30000 sampling rate and 50% upper threshold).

After I ran the very first test and the read the actual source code for the Interactive Governor, I saw no point in testing further. My original test shows the true issue with the governor. It spends more time in the upper slots than on demand. Which of course leads to faster battery drain. Now I will say that interactive is MUCH better than the Performance Governor. Because Interactive at least has the potential to underclock about 1/5 to 1/6 of the time. Which gives your CPU a time frame to cool off. So in that respect, if you are a a die hard "must get every ounce out of my phone", then Interactive is a better alternative than Performance.

The weird thing is it should be draining my battery faster, but I haven't noticed a change in battery life at all. I'll have to continue testing it over a longer period to confirm this, but based on what I've seen so far, it's running faster with at worst similar battery life.

Note though that 8 or so of those 12 hours were spent sleeping, so my phone was idle most of that 12hrs of unplugged time.

 

[Skull One]

Is there any new data or information available regarding the interactive governor? I've seen some discussion about its affect on performance and battery life, but nothing with concrete data. I tried switching to it for a few days and didn't notice a change in battery life with performance seemingly slightly faster.

But with interactive there are no advanced settings to adjust in SetCPU, so is it better to trust interactive or to use ondemand with custom values? (was using 30000 sampling rate and 50% upper threshold).

After I ran the very first test and the read the actual source code for the Interactive Governor, I saw no point in testing further. My original test shows the true issue with the governor. It spends more time in the upper slots than on demand. Which of course leads to faster battery drain. Now I will say that interactive is MUCH better than the Performance Governor. Because Interactive at least has the potential to underclock about 1/5 to 1/6 of the time. Which gives your CPU a time frame to cool off. So in that respect, if you are a a die hard "must get every ounce out of my phone", then Interactive is a better alternative than Performance.

The weird thing is it should be draining my battery faster, but I haven't noticed a change in battery life at all. I'll have to continue testing it over a longer period to confirm this, but based on what I've seen so far, it's running faster with at worst similar battery life.



Note though that 8 or so of those 12 hours were spent sleeping, so my phone was idle most of that 12hrs of unplugged time.

Any chance the Sleep/Standby Profile is still set to ondemand, powersave or conservative? If not, then you don't have any apps that are preventing the phone from truly going into sleep mode.

I would have to uninstall at least 6 apps, of the top of my head, before my phone could actually go 100% into sleep mode.

 

[o29]

After I ran the very first test and the read the actual source code for the Interactive Governor, I saw no point in testing further. My original test shows the true issue with the governor. It spends more time in the upper slots than on demand. Which of course leads to faster battery drain. Now I will say that interactive is MUCH better than the Performance Governor. Because Interactive at least has the potential to underclock about 1/5 to 1/6 of the time. Which gives your CPU a time frame to cool off. So in that respect, if you are a a die hard "must get every ounce out of my phone", then Interactive is a better alternative than Performance.

The weird thing is it should be draining my battery faster, but I haven't noticed a change in battery life at all. I'll have to continue testing it over a longer period to confirm this, but based on what I've seen so far, it's running faster with at worst similar battery life.



Note though that 8 or so of those 12 hours were spent sleeping, so my phone was idle most of that 12hrs of unplugged time.

Any chance the Sleep/Standby Profile is still set to ondemand, powersave or conservative? If not, then you don't have any apps that are preventing the phone from truly going into sleep mode.

I would have to uninstall at least 6 apps, of the top of my head, before my phone could actually go 100% into sleep mode.

I actually have all of my profiles set to interactive right now. I thought I remembered reading that SetCPU had problems when switching governors between profiles so I've been leaving all mine the same. Is this actually necessary?

 

[drpaul07]

Curious to know this too.

Sent from my Droid

 

[Skull One]

The weird thing is it should be draining my battery faster, but I haven't noticed a change in battery life at all. I'll have to continue testing it over a longer period to confirm this, but based on what I've seen so far, it's running faster with at worst similar battery life.



Note though that 8 or so of those 12 hours were spent sleeping, so my phone was idle most of that 12hrs of unplugged time.

Any chance the Sleep/Standby Profile is still set to ondemand, powersave or conservative? If not, then you don't have any apps that are preventing the phone from truly going into sleep mode.

I would have to uninstall at least 6 apps, of the top of my head, before my phone could actually go 100% into sleep mode.

I actually have all of my profiles set to interactive right now. I thought I remembered reading that SetCPU had problems when switching governors between profiles so I've been leaving all mine the same. Is this actually necessary?

You remembered correctly. To say there is a bug is an understatement. Try the following:

Set the primary screen to ondemand.
Set advanced to 30000, 50, 0, 0.
Now change the primary screen to interactive and them back to ondemand.
Check advanced.
With my kernel the first number now read 300000.

That changes how things work pretty radically in my opinion.

 

[jville95]

So I have two questions about setCPU:

Question 1) I have a kernel that is an LV 125-800 but I set the main profile to Min:125 Max:600. Is this okay?

Question 2) Now even with that same kernel, I were to set the main profile to let's say 250-600 but I have my <CPU Temp set to 125-125, will my phone clock to that speed EVEN though the main profile reads Min:250 Max:600??

 

[jerroedr]

Skull!

You are the man sir! this thread helped so much. I read it when it was just a baby before all 39 pages and it convinced me it was safe to overclock. I can run the 1.25ulv kernels (im a lucky duck) but they heated up just a little too quick for me, and the 1.2 ulv is by far the most stable i have found. Thanks!

While im here, let me ask, are the recommended advanced settings still

30,000
50
0
0

and i might as well toss my profiles in here

screen off 250-400
cpu temp over 55 250-550
temp over 55 250-550
charging/full 250-1200
battery under 20 250-400
battery under 30 250-550
battery under 40 250-800

hows all this look?

 

[Skull One]

So I have two questions about setCPU:

Question 1) I have a kernel that is an LV 125-800 but I set the main profile to Min:125 Max:600. Is this okay?

Question 2) Now even with that same kernel, I were to set the main profile to let's say 250-600 but I have my <CPU Temp set to 125-125, will my phone clock to that speed EVEN though the main profile reads Min:250 Max:600??

1) Yes! In fact that is the beauty of it all. You get to decide how you want to run YOUR phone

2) Profiles only override the main profile when their condition is met. I.E. if you set the CPU Temp to trip off at 35C, then your main profile will be used until the OMAP3430 reaches that temp. But once you hit 35C and SetCPU detects that, then it will run at 125/125 until the temp falls back below 35C.