Root A guide to over/underclocking your Hero.

[dino]

so is it right that the hero runs 528mhz even during sleep mode by factory default (ie, has no dynamic clocking at all?) wouldn't suprise me, just thought i would check.

does anyone know if setting the update interval too low (ie. every 5 secs) adversely affects underclocking performance? As in, does the CPU need to speed up every 5 secs to check the load and in order to display the frequency on the homescreen? Because that would be ironic....

 

[Xyro]

Are you talking about the update interval on the widget? If you're talking about what I think you are, that's how often the widget will update with the new frequency; it's not how often he processor speed changes.

 

[Slug]

so is it right that the hero runs 528mhz even during sleep mode by factory default

I don't think so... I'm sure that the stock kernel varies between 528MHz and 245MHz. It's been so long since I actually used a stock kernel though so my memory might be playing tricks.

 

[dino]

I don't think so... I'm sure that the stock kernel varies between 528MHz and 245MHz. It's been so long since I actually used a stock kernel though so my memory might be playing tricks.

right, so if i'm using the widge to underclock and aren't going below 245MHz so it comes out of standby quickly, then the app is only tweaking the aggressiveness of clocking down?


@xyro - i was wondering if the widget updating was enough to cause the processor to flip to its max. So it would be ironic, if you had it updating every 5 secs but that was causing the CPU to run high/fast.

 

[Slug]

right, so if i'm using the widge to underclock and aren't going below 245MHz so it comes out of standby quickly, then the app is only tweaking the aggressiveness of clocking down?

The only thing being altered is the min/max frequency range - the actual response is controlled by the CPU scaling governor selected, which depends on the kernel in use.

Elelinux v2.2 includes the latest FlyKernel, which by default uses a custom scaling governor named smartass. This will automatically cap your upper freq at 352MHz when the device is "asleep", so if you set a min/max of 245/528 then the device will use that range but drop to 245/352 whenever the screen switches off.

 

[dino]

Hey thanks slug,

That's all really interesting to learn. I am using that ROM and it seems to give me horrible battery life (ie. less than a day's use), so i've started to get into the various tweaking possibilities. Clear that standby underclock works well - only lost 4% battery over the last night in standby. May be a consequence of my work building having bad reception which means the various homescreen programmes polling (not that many though) get stuck cycling the 3G antenna trying to get a signal. Using the music player in this ROM seems to eat much more battery than stock Sense.

Looked up some info about the processor to check default scaling and found out that it has four cores! (albeit ARM cores being a totally different kettle of fish to x86).

Are there separate temp. sensors for the battery and CPU? just trying to figure out where some reporting apps pull their data from.

EDIT: just reading the release notes for smartass over at XDA and he recommends ext2 instead of ext3 possibly the cause of my battery woes. given 2.2 crashes every so often i had though if ext3 would have been the safer option.

 

[Slug]

I am using that ROM and it seems to give me horrible battery life (ie. less than a day's use)

That doesn't match my own experience. Mine runs at 245/691, which the Smartass governor will clock down to 245/352 whenever the display is off. I easily get a whole day's use with plenty to spare, even with 2-3hrs of streaming radio at work.

Are there separate temp. sensors for the battery and CPU? just trying to figure out where some reporting apps pull their data from.

I don't think so, no. I've never seen a discrete CPU temp reading even when digging through the 'hidden' test settings e.g. as revealed by Spare Parts.

he recommends ext2 instead of ext3

Yeah, the journaling in ext3/4 is great for data reliability but comes at the cost of increased writes. This isn't good for flash memory devices, hence Ele's advice.

 

[vaira.m]

I am running stock 2.1 kernel..
I tried installing overclock using the above instructions, it all went fine.
But i don see an option more than 512 in the max or min section.
But i added it from define option and selected it..

But now my question is how can i check wats the max clock speed my processor can go?
Is there any benchmarks available to test this app working??

 

[Slug]

I am running stock 2.1 kernel. I tried installing overclock using the above instructions, it all went fine. But i don see an option more than 512 in the max or min section. But i added it from define option and selected it.

HTC have what's known as a "perflock" on their kernels which prevents overclocking beyond the stock 528MHz. Using SetCPU this can be disabled (or at least attempted - it doesn't always succeed) by opening the app, selecting Menu then Perflock Disabler. If successful you will now be able to increase the CPU beyond 528MHz. If you have already selected the correct device (Menu/Device selection) then you're good to go.

how can i check wats the max clock speed my processor can go?

Using SetCPU, the Info tab shows the frequency range for your device and the time spent at each frequency step since reboot. The only way of finding out your own particular device's limits is trial-and-error, I'm afraid, so start sensible and don't enable Set at boot until you're confident that the device is stable.

Is there any benchmarks available to test this app working??

SetCPU has its own built-in benchmark routines, and tests such as Linpack and Quadrant are available in the Market.