Impact of higher clock speeds - G1 Android Development

I have heard a lot of people saying they can't tell the difference between the underclocked default and running at 172 to 528 so I thought it best to discuss the benefits, disbenefits and thus if it's worth doing, if it's worth slowing it down further and if it's worth going even faster.
So far I have found the most noticable area of improvement to be in file transfer performance. To transfer a 134mb file from SD card to notebook I got 14 seconds vs 19 seconds at stock speed (somebody confirm?).
I have not noticed any change in battery life.
Was it underclocked from new due to cooling issues or battery or what?
I think it was also a bit quicker updating 13,000 camera locations in MySpeed.
A lot of the variables are difficult to test so any suggestions would be welcome.
A

You didn't verify what speed you are running it at. I assume you set it at a constant 528? I overclock it every once in awhile. I think I may set it to 528 and let it sit all day.

I don't know about you guys, but when I leave it locked at 528 for a long period of time. My phone speed gets ****ed. It feels like its running at 172. 528 is great for when you're using your phone heavily, but once you put your phone to sleep, it seems that it drops from 528 regardless of what you have it set at. Try it out... you'll see. Especially when the phone starts getting hot. Left it on all day and the touch screen was way too hot to be normal. Not good.

Why you would **** with the speed/heat consumption of a device that already gets hot charging the battery is beyond me. It's asking for failure.

APrinceAmongMen said:
I don't know about you guys, but when I leave it locked at 528 for a long period of time. My phone speed gets ****ed. It feels like its running at 172. 528 is great for when you're using your phone heavily, but once you put your phone to sleep, it seems that it drops from 528 regardless of what you have it set at. Try it out... you'll see. Especially when the phone starts getting hot. Left it on all day and the touch screen was way too hot to be normal. Not good.
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Click to collapse
Hmm I've had my phone @ 528MHz for like a month now. Even leaving it on for weeks at that speed I don't see any problems. One thing you might try when it starts going slow like that is make sure it's still running at 528(OS resets it sometimes) and check what apps are running.
At any rate, for me overclocking works perfectly and I haven't had any issues at all with it. For battery life it'll probably depend on your usage. Clocking at 528MHz will lower battery life if you leave your phone asleep most of the time(even if you set a lower minimum since there's more of a jump the cpu has to make when scaling back to max speed), but if you use your phone a lot and it's rarely asleep then you'll probably actually get better battery life with it set to 528 max and min, since the cpu no longer has to use the energy required to change speed.
EDIT: @afflaq: It's not the cpu that gets hot from charging, it's the battery. You're not going to overheat the cpu just by clocking it to its rated speed.

Ditto @ marcusmaximus, I got the same temperature readings during 528 and 384 mHz. Been running it on 528 for a while as well.

APrinceAmongMen said:
I don't know about you guys, but when I leave it locked at 528 for a long period of time. My phone speed gets ****ed. It feels like its running at 172. 528 is great for when you're using your phone heavily, but once you put your phone to sleep, it seems that it drops from 528 regardless of what you have it set at. Try it out... you'll see. Especially when the phone starts getting hot. Left it on all day and the touch screen was way too hot to be normal. Not good.
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Click to collapse
Which overclocking application are you using, and which Android version are you running?

Overclocking
It works fine overclocked all the time. I don't even notice any difference in battery life either. My phone is mostly in sleep mode btw. On all day, I only see it drop to 66% with light usage. Overclocked surfing the web, I surfed for an hour continuous and the battery went from 100% to around 80%.
Using Open overclocker and any rooted build should work as long as you have it setup right. Just set it to 528 in both fields and forget it. The app automatically asks permission from the root app every time you reboot.
I am currently using TheDudes build and it works perfect. I have never had it reset the speed either as others suggest. Try one of his builds and get the Open Overclocker app from the market. That is the best build anyway.
Currently running .93 ... waiting for .95 which will be even faster.
JCD4429

Related

Improve battery life by Underclocking ??

I just installed "Overclock Widget", found here:
http://www.appbrain.com/app/org.freecoder.widgets.overclock
Which not only lets you overclock, but under-clock as well, and set ranges of frequencies for when the screen is both on and off. My phone is rooted and it appears to work fine, I just set it up so we'll see if it helps battery life. I set it so that when the screen is off the max frequency is 400,000 and when the screen is on the max is 800,000. The phone doesn't feel any slower than before -- to be honest, the speed is fine for me, I just need better battery life so we'll see if this helps.
Is anyone else using this app, or tried something like this to help with the battery life?
Another option is "SetCPU", available here on XDA:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=505419
I don't know if there really is a need for this. I installed System Panel on my phone and it shows that the phone automatically underclocks based on load. My phone went down to 100Mhz while I was watching it.
I saw on AndroidForums installed a clock manager and was boasting that he set his phone to drop to 700Mhz. So, in reality, he just forced it to run faster than the phone would've on its own!
meatrocket said:
I don't know if there really is a need for this. I installed System Panel on my phone and it shows that the phone automatically underclocks based on load. My phone went down to 100Mhz while I was watching it.
I saw on AndroidForums installed a clock manager and was boasting that he set his phone to drop to 700Mhz. So, in reality, he just forced it to run faster than the phone would've on its own!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting, I'll have to check that out. But, at the very least, with an app like this we should able to "throttle" the top speed to 800MHZ or so to save a little juice at the cost of some speed, correct? Or, is even something like that probably not worth it?
So is there no reason for SetCPU anymore? I just downloaded it, but I'll go ahead and uninstall it if people think its pointless on this phone
yeah the phone throttles on its own.
its still usefull if you can throttle voltage i guess
I thought about looking for something like this, but then when I went into system infoormation it showed that was I spending like 88% of my time with the cpu clocked to 100mhz, so there seems to be little point.
the screen is the real culprit in battery loss on this phone. black background swith red streaks are your friend.

HELP! Where did I go wrong?

So I just got a brand new D2G and thanks to the info in this forum I rooted it and installed fission rom and FRM...Im loving the phone, its fast, smooth and beautiful but the battery is AWFUL. I have read all the info about how to get the most out of your battery and everything on these forums but mine is waaaay worse than anyone has said before.
For instance, last night my phone was charging oernight, at 6 am when i woke up to pee it was at 100% so I unplugged it and went back to sleep, come 10 am when i woke up my phone was down to 15%!!! From just sitting there with the screen off...
Ive set the network to CDMA/Evduo automatic, installed Jrummy's overclock app...Can anyone explain in detail what exactly the settings in the overclock app mean? "set scaling frequencies at boot, cpu scaling frequencies etc?" for instance if I set scaling frequencies not at boot to ultra low voltage and 1 ghz and lower, do i need to also go into cpu scaling frequencies and make profiles and stuff?
Any information is greatly appreciated, Ive been reading up for days but this stuff is hard to find clear answers on specific issues. Thanks!
This is probably the most basic first thing to ask/do, but have you checked the battery useage to see which apps are using the most power? try doing what you did where you charged, and then let it sit for 4 hrs, and after that see what's using the battery, I bet there is some app that just nonstop uses the gps or 3g data or something wearing your battery life out super fast.
Yeah i looked at that this morning to see and all it said was suspend took up like 90% of the battery...Doesnt make any sense
1. Set at boot isn't what you're thinking. Set at boot means that whatever your current settings are will be set the NEXT time the phone boots. This is used when you have a setting you like. The reason you DON'T want to set at boot is that if you accidentally pick a setting that your phone doesn't like, and it makes it crash, then next time it will boot up with normal settings. Otherwise, you'd be looking at some work doing a recovery with either CWR or RSDLite... There are better ways to spend 30 minutes. Disclaimer: I use SetCPU, but the settings are all essentially the same.
2. For scaling, unless you're a power user (read: Geek) who's really up on his stuff, you should just stick with ondemand. This means your CPU will run at the lowest frequency possible, but will scale its speed up when processes call for it. This is efficient.
3. Yes, you should still make profiles. The setting on the main screen where you choose "Set at Boot" (Again, I'm speaking from SetCPU experience, but it SHOULD be the same) is just the main profile, setting the global minimum and maximum. You should leave the minimum on this at 300. The phones don't like to run much lower than that, even with the screen off; They start not ringing for calls, not waking up, etc. Set the maximum to whatever you want the max to be. You can overclock, which will obviously hurt your battery life. You could underclock and set the maximum to 1GHz, or even 800MHz, which would have a decent effect on battery life with no noticeable performance decrease to the average user. I run mine at the stock 1.2GHz and it's fast enough for my needs.
4. I wrote this thread to help people maximize their battery life. It's pretty detailed, you should give it a thorough read, it works well for me, and seems to work for others. I'm at 32hrs unplugged and my battery has gone from 90% to 20%. That's pretty light use, and I have an extended battery, but I still see over a day on my stock battery when I use it. There's a list of my SetCPU profiles there too, that might be helpful in setting up your own.
Thanks for the info on overclocking, I think I have it figured out now...
I will definitely read through your thread, but is it possible that I just had a bad battery? due to a shipping error, when verizon sent me my phone they sent 2 by accident so I just swapped out the battery for the other one and it seems to be doing much better already...

What does the 1.5ghz overclock do to the battery?

Meaning, does the battery life take a dip when you overclock to 1.5ghz. Does it get any hotter? Is heat an issue at all on this thing? Also, any performance or battery changes from installing the tiamet kernel itself? I'm in the wifi xoom btw.
Strangely enough battery life seems to be about the same. Heat has not been an issue mainly due to having the dual core, however its something you always want to keep an eye on.
Battery life is affected most by the screen. Screen> Network connections > CPU > RAM
There was a thread that someone made a while back about the things that affected battery life the most. If I can find It ill send it your way. After seeing the charts I figured Id try changing some settings.
things I did:
1. Set my max cpu freq to 1.19 min to 488 same for all my cpu tunner profiles ( I wanted to have my phone running the same all the time)
2. Lower'd my screen settings. I didnt need a pocket flashlight EVERYTIME I unlocked my phone.
3. Turned off un needed network connections. Its not hard to turn them back on when you need them.
4. I then looked for things that were running but were not needed by anything ( google maps are used by a few apps so dont disable it haha) I used Uninstaller for root users to get rid of some things.
After all these steps my battery life went WAY up. I have been doing the same thing on my Xoom now and my batt lasts the same at 1.5 as it did at 1.
I still get VERY respectable battery life at 1.5ghz, I can easily get through the day with normal usage. Yesterday night in fact, I left the house with maybe 75% battery life, used my tablet quite a lot throughout the evening(left the house around 9, went to sleep around 1am) and used it all morning basically constantly from 7am to around noon and came home with 9% battery left.
No problems here either. Woke up around 8:30 yesterday and used it all day sometimes pretty heavy. Finally had to plug it in around 6:30. I'm home all day with a broken hip and femur, so I've been putting it through the paces. Running @ 1.5ghz with interactive gov.
Chris
+1 on 1.5GHz having little effect on battery life. I didn't have to change anything else, either.
thats all great to hear! I suppose ill start looking into rooting my wifi xoom tomorrow then. Thanks for the help!
Im very happy with the battery life on this thing. I expected 4 hours max after a few weeks of use/charges. I never thought that it would keep up with anything Apple, Lets face it.. Apple knows how to make stuff run forever. But I was plesently suprised. Xoom +1000
yeah, the battery is good, but i won't know any damage to the cpu when overclocked ?
I wouldn't worry about any CPU damage- too many people have reported success (and no reports of failure).
Anyone else notice with the tiamat kernel that their xoom becomes very unstable overclocked at 1.5 using setCPU? Mine was essentially a soft brick at 1.5 constant rebooting and never able get pass the unlock screen, I had to rewipe with bootloader. I can do 1.2 no problem but don't even want to try going higher.
All of our chips have variations, so the overclock isn't universally guaranteed. That being said, I've been using the Tiamat kernel @1.5GHz since it was released with no problems.
Should have stated that mine is the wifi model, but yea thanks for info.
Here was that post I was looking for on this stuff. http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=946

Thoughts on OverClocking Sensation

Hey guys,
Ive been using SetCPU since it was fixed for the sensation. I am curious about what others have observed as far as battery life and performance goes.
I am running 1.8Ghz with a cpu voltage of 1.265V (1265000uV).
My battery doesnt last all that long despite all the profiles I have in place. I guess thats expected when you overclock by that much, huh? Is it worth it though?
Im sure more of you out there have experience to share. Im not talking Quadrant and benchmark scores, Im talking REAL use!
I am beginning to feel that dropping the frequency down may be in order since I cannot find anything that needs 1.8Ghz to work on this phone. Plus, less frequency means less required voltage. That would mean more battery!
Anyone care to chime in with their overclock frequency + voltage and experience?
Matt
I'm also interested in getting some input from other users, without having to clog up the respective overclocking threads in the Development section.
Yesterday after work, I set up the 1.5Ghz Undervolted option using utking's tool (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1168707). I didn't see too much need to push my CPU too hard, and a stable UV always piques my interest.
I created a couple of basic SetCPU profiles (screen off, battery below 20%, temperature < 50C), and scaling on demand up to 1512Mhz, my phone took about another 7-8 hours of moderately heavy use (Navigation, Maps, Yelp, photos, etc.) before it was on its last legs.
Bear in mind that I've been using the Anker 1900mAh battery. But even after the OC-UV that I set up, this was at least as good of battery usage as before without any SetCPU or overclocking, and actually seemed to be a little bit better to be honest.
I just dropped down to 1.6Ghz @ 1.26V...
I couldn't keep my phone from freezing with anything less than 1.26V @ 1.6Ghz. We will see how this goes for a few days and compare to my previous 1.8Ghz @ 1.265V.
So far, speed seems to be FASTER than 1.8Ghz. My Quadrant score (only being used here for comparison reasons) was 2700 right off the bat, whereas 1.8Ghz would peak around 2700-2800 after several tries.
The carousel works much better! I can swipe through quickly and have it scroll with zero lag. I can also fast swipe and watch is spin nicely!
Google Earth and Maps is about the same as 1.8Ghz.
Before, at 1.8Ghz, I could probably get 16 hours out of my phone with VERY LIGHT use. (A few 2min phone calls, check mail throughout the day, check the web a little). I am charging the phone up and will report back later.
Matt
I went down from 1.62 UV to 1.5 UV,because I could not see any difference in general use nad in benchmarks(except Quadrant) and battery consumption is much bigger with 1.62 with exact same profiles on setCpu.I think that this is best compromise between speed and battery life and as far as I know this is native clock speed of 8260 Snapdragon.
mrg02d said:
I just dropped down to 1.6Ghz @ 1.26V...
I couldn't keep my phone from freezing with anything less than 1.26V @ 1.6Ghz. We will see how this goes for a few days and compare to my previous 1.8Ghz @ 1.265V.
So far, speed seems to be FASTER than 1.8Ghz. My Quadrant score (only being used here for comparison reasons) was 2700 right off the bat, whereas 1.8Ghz would peak around 2700-2800 after several tries.
The carousel works much better! I can swipe through quickly and have it scroll with zero lag. I can also fast swipe and watch is spin nicely!
Google Earth and Maps is about the same as 1.8Ghz.
Before, at 1.8Ghz, I could probably get 16 hours out of my phone with VERY LIGHT use. (A few 2min phone calls, check mail throughout the day, check the web a little). I am charging the phone up and will report back later.
Matt
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Click to collapse
How simple is it to temp-root and overclock? I am really only interested in overclocking to speed up Sense, and you said it performs better with a speed boost.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA Premium App
Very,very easy,just read this tread :http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1168707
I have mine undervolted at VDD_1175000 and 1500MHz. I like it very much...makes a big difference in quadarant score, but not sure in reality how much faster. Battery life is fine (when the phone is on). Have not experiened FC's
I have modified eugenes batch file to push my kernel file and preferred speed after perma-temp-root and now is all in one click...
So here is a little update:
Its been about 8 hours since full charge and I am at 55% battery left.
1.6Ghz @ 1.26V, On Demand.
Ive been checking email, making a few calls, and surfing the net with both wifi and GPRS (was out of the network, away from 4G). I also played Angry birds for a little bit and showed off Google Maps and Earth to my Mom.
Now that Im back home, ive turned back on 4G...
Ive noticed a slight amount of hesitation while opening and closing things, but nothing bad.
I havent had any profiles kick in yet, but they will soon with the battery getting low. I will resist charging the phone and see if I make it through the night, using it as I need it. I will report tomorrow.
Matt
I must be doing something wrong.
I am rooted and running LeeDriods 1.2 Rom. When I launch setcpu the only options i have are 1000 mghz? WTF am i doing wrong?
i think at LeeDroid 1.2 you must not use setcpu but Demon control?
BigBoppa said:
i think at LeeDroid 1.2 you must not use setcpu but Demon control?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm, okay. I saw where set cpu was updated for the sensation in the latest release but it doesn't seem to support overclocking with this rom.
Shame that as i was about to get that rom and flash it onto my phone, glad i came in here now
Running Leedroid 1.0
Kernel @ 1.7ghz max, i have it set to 1.5ghz and 192mhz
Runs hot when i play finger racing or reckless racing or modern combat 2 or something intensive, but besides the heat, it drains just like it normally would to be honest, maybe a little quicker, definite speed increase in overall user experience, without an OC the rom just flops, better than stock but just crap, OC is needed.

[Q] CPU hitting 601mhz frequently even on idle

Doesn't matter which ROM, which kernel (except stick, didn't stay on there long enough to notice), when everything are off or idling, CPU would still constantly kick up to 601mhz (unless i under clock of course), never really sleep/idle at 214 or whatever
Y?
Seems like this CPU can never sleep, or even idle, thus killing the battery
this phone (and alot of newer ones) are using an idea called Race to idle.
this means that the cpu will kick its cpu speed up higher than it needs to get things done faster, so it can get back to a low power idle state faster.
In reality your cpu is really going in and out of sleep states hundreds or thousands of times a second, the frequency is just kicked up so that it can spend less time computing, and more time sleeping.
for the hell of it try downloading an app that shows you cpu usage in %
that number is the amount of time that the cpu is in a fully awake state vs being in its first stage sleep state, LP1.
if nothing happens for a bit longer than it will go into an even lower power state called LP2. frequency can still be set to a higher number (like 600mhz or even 1ghz) but the cpu is actually not doing any calculations. its sleeping till something needs it.
also, changing cpu speed takes a long time (cpu wise), the cpu has to pause, change speed, then wake up. so the less it does this the less lag you have.
^The guy above is right, you can put it to 1.5 gHz and it wouldn't die sooner, what makes the difference is how much you use the phone. If you listen to music and text, you don't need it to go farther than 800 mHz, but the extra boost with make it faster but also use more energy.
What background apps are open?
Klathmon said:
this phone (and alot of newer ones) are using an idea called Race to idle.
this means that the cpu will kick its cpu speed up higher than it needs to get things done faster, so it can get back to a low power idle state faster.
In reality your cpu is really going in and out of sleep states hundreds or thousands of times a second, the frequency is just kicked up so that it can spend less time computing, and more time sleeping.
for the hell of it try downloading an app that shows you cpu usage in %
that number is the amount of time that the cpu is in a fully awake state vs being in its first stage sleep state, LP1.
if nothing happens for a bit longer than it will go into an even lower power state called LP2. frequency can still be set to a higher number (like 600mhz or even 1ghz) but the cpu is actually not doing any calculations. its sleeping till something needs it.
also, changing cpu speed takes a long time (cpu wise), the cpu has to pause, change speed, then wake up. so the less it does this the less lag you have.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, and i know about the race to idle. 1. My previous phone was a galaxy s 4g. when in idle, it stays at 100mhz, lowest speed and stay there til the screen goes out. Great idle battery life. Cpu info and the likes shows large percent of time in sleep state based on reading the time in state file
2. I haven't found a single kernel that support the time in state file (various cm, faux, morfic, harsh, can't remember the rest, sorry devs - gb n ics). Without this file, we cannot determine time in sleep
Bonus, i use to have a viewsonic tab with same harmony tegra 2 board as the g2x and it can't get 3 days of standby compared to other tablets that can do over a week. Also due to sleep issue. And that don't even have cell data. Wifi off too
atb1183 said:
Thanks, and i know about the race to idle. 1. My previous phone was a galaxy s 4g. when in idle, it stays at 100mhz, lowest speed and stay there til the screen goes out. Great idle battery life. Cpu info and the likes shows large percent of time in sleep state based on reading the time in state file
2. I haven't found a single kernel that support the time in state file (various cm, faux, morfic, harsh, can't remember the rest, sorry devs - gb n ics). Without this file, we cannot determine time in sleep
Bonus, i use to have a viewsonic tab with same harmony tegra 2 board as the g2x and it can't get 3 days of standby compared to other tablets that can do over a week. Also due to sleep issue. And that don't even have cell data. Wifi off too
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that's due to the 'unique' governor built into tegra. it likes to kick the speed up at the slightest need for power, and keep it there just in case you want to do something. its sure as hell an eager little bugger
on the galaxy s 4g you can change the governor to change its behavior, your probably using a fancy Linux governor that is tweaked to be damn near perfect, Nvidia tried to design its governor from scratch... the success they had is debatable, but its different from what your used to.
Nvidia seemed to prefer performance over battery life, and its definitely not the most standby friendly, but the good news is that custom kernels and roms allow you to change that
Thanks. That's a satisfactory and most likely to be true. Used on demand gov on the gs4g w plenty of tweaks. Hopefully we can do similar tweaks in here on the new kernels
Yeah for a light user like myself, I only use the phone for text/fb/twitter/email and music, so I usually keep my clock at 800mhz, and well.....when i need to play games i just clock it to 1.2kmhz, thats usually enough for me, havnt lag in any 3d games i played yet so far.
and sell, if you open the setcpu and watch it for like 20 seconds, you should notice it never going above 601 on idle, mine kinda bounce between 389 and 601 with 389 most of the time. Which kernel/rom you using anyways? Just wondering.

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