[Q] Dangers of overclocking the Sensation's GPU (Adreno 220) - HTC Sensation

Hey there,
I've read some threads about the dangers of overclocking an Android-device in general. I'm aware of these dangers.
But in my feeling overclocking the sensation is a little different.
Most custom roms set CPU-speed to 1500MHz each core, which is the native clock of the chipset (or am I'm wrong?). No problem so far.
But with tweaking the CPU often the GPU is overclocked, too.
Now the point: What are the dangers of overclocking the GPU?
Does it make sense to overclock just the CPU without the GPU? Is it possible?
What are your experiences with overclocking (e.g. with IsertCoin or RevolutionHD) the GPU?

What you have to remeber with regard to overclocking is that your not alone in doing it when you use one of the custom roms.
Many thousands of ppl are running overclocked handsets and the first things you see happening from overclocking to far is your handset not booting up or locking up well before you would do any physical damage to the handset i would say.
I have run my sensation at 1800 cpu speed and it started ok but locked up when doing one of the benchmark tools , i rebooted and reduced the speed a little but all running fine with no concerns with regard to overheating

So there is a hardware protection to prevent serious damage?

I dont know enough about the handset to say if there is or not i suspect there will be something , but have you ever tried to overclock a graphics card on a pc you get so far and it wont display or something like that so you reduce it.
Heat with any electronic component is i problem and overclocking something increases that heat, but when you get to a certain point your phone will lock freeze reboot etc usually before any damage is done.
If you have any concern about destroying your phone by overclocking the simple answere is that you dont overclock it .

Diydude said:
[...]
If you have any concern about destroying your phone by overclocking the simple answere is that you dont overclock it .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes you're right of course, but i just want to get a feeling for this topic... i just try to decide if it's a good idea to use RevolutionHD, which is overclocked from the beginning.
And to get a feeling, I just asked about the risks, because the benefits are clear for me

To answer your question, yes, the sensation comes with thermal protection that helps against overheating. If the device becomes to hot, it(in most cases) shuts itself down until it cools. The CPU in the sensation is underclocked when it's shipped at 1.2Ghz(1188), but the true spec of the CPU is actually 1.5Ghz(1536). HTC underclocks the CPU to 1.2 to save on battery consumption. I personally have ran my phone just fine at the 1.5Ghz setting, I've even pushed it up to 1.6Ghz(1620) and it ran fine with the exception it did get just a little hot, but nothing to worry me. That being said I've since underclocked my CPU to 1296 and all is well. And afterall, how fast do you really need your phone to be before you take it too far and fry the cpu?? The sensation is fast right out of the box and even faster when using a NO sense rom, such as cm7(my personal fav)
Side Note : The new sensation XE ships with the cpu at it's original clock speed of 1.5Ghz.. both sensations have the 'exact' same cpu.
In regards to your GPU question, I have mine set @ 300mhz and not 320. The sensations GPU comes clocked at 266.I've ran it @ 320 and it ran just fine.. for me it's more of a personal preference. My graphics look just fine clocked @ 300mhz.. Below is a quote about the chipset and the new one coming out.
"With Adreno 225 Qualcomm improves performance along two vectors, the first being clock speed. While Adreno 220 (used in the MSM8660) ran at 266MHz, Adreno 225 runs at 400MHz thanks to 28nm. Secondly, Qualcomm tells us Adreno 225 is accompanied by "significant driver improvements". Keeping in mind the sheer amount of compute potential of the Adreno 22x family, it only makes sense that driver improvements could unlock a lot of performance. Qualcomm expects the 225 to be 50% faster than the outgoing 220."
if this helped, give the thank you button a punch
p.s. I've ran both insertcoin & revolution HD and both ran fine.. I just really prefer no sense roms

Quakeworld said:
To answer your question, yes, the sensation comes with thermal protection that helps against overheating. If the device becomes to hot, it(in most cases) shuts itself down until it cools. The CPU in the sensation is underclocked when it's shipped at 1.2Ghz(1188), but the true spec of the CPU is actually 1.5Ghz(1536). HTC underclocks the CPU to 1.2 to save on battery consumption. I personally have ran my phone just fine at the 1.5Ghz setting, I've even pushed it up to 1.6Ghz(1620) and it ran fine with the exception it did get just a little hot, but nothing to worry me. That being said I've since underclocked my CPU to 1296 and all is well. And afterall, how fast do you really need your phone to be before you take it too far and fry the cpu?? The sensation is fast right out of the box and even faster when using a NO sense rom, such as cm7(my personal fav)
Side Note : The new sensation XE ships with the cpu at it's original clock speed of 1.5Ghz.. both sensations have the 'exact' same cpu.
In regards to your GPU question, I have mine set @ 300mhz and not 320. The sensations GPU comes clocked at 266.I've ran it @ 320 and it ran just fine.. for me it's more of a personal preference. My graphics look just fine clocked @ 300mhz.. Below is a quote about the chipset and the new one coming out.
"With Adreno 225 Qualcomm improves performance along two vectors, the first being clock speed. While Adreno 220 (used in the MSM8660) ran at 266MHz, Adreno 225 runs at 400MHz thanks to 28nm. Secondly, Qualcomm tells us Adreno 225 is accompanied by "significant driver improvements". Keeping in mind the sheer amount of compute potential of the Adreno 22x family, it only makes sense that driver improvements could unlock a lot of performance. Qualcomm expects the 225 to be 50% faster than the outgoing 220."
if this helped, give the thank you button a punch
p.s. I've ran both insertcoin & revolution HD and both ran fine.. I just really prefer no sense roms
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Click to collapse
some sources say adreno 220 can be overclocked to 400mhz .... bdw how can i overclock ...is der a app like setcpu for it ?????

rohit choudhary said:
some sources say adreno 220 can be overclocked to 400mhz .... bdw how can i overclock ...is der a app like setcpu for it ?????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
a few time ago some other user reported the same thing about adreno 220
but i think it is too high that value and it is impossible for gpu to handle such a value
in order to overclock the gpu you have to flash another kernel

Related

Using overclocked kernel brings some heating.

Hi all.
Im using SebsstianFM 1.5 GHz kernel on my sensation . It becomes warm and heats my fingers, so I can't resolve is this an issue. I thought before that htc sensation has the same chipset in both xe and non-xe series. Hasn't it?
Perhaps Im unlucky one with the specific cpu or some heating is normal?
Thanks a lot in adv
Every processor is different, some can handle higher clockrates than others. Try underclocking it.
Thanks, I do.
But I'm sad a bit when informed about new Sebastian 1.7 GHz kernel. As for me 1.3 is the far frontier..
garryveda said:
Thanks, I do.
But I'm sad a bit when informed about new Sebastian 1.7 GHz kernel. As for me 1.3 is the far frontier..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
try it without charger for a while, the chips are made for 1512MHz
it can get hot for me when running on 1512 but only with charger
For me 1.5 GHz was OK, only got "hot" when I played 3D games like CS and FIFA, but I Find the 1.35 GHz a bit friendlier for the battery (and at the clock the phone very rarely gets hot).
No prob here with Sebastian's V1.30.1 @1.5ghz yet again all chips handle every frequency in a different manner
Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using Tapatalk
How hot is hot? Am using using bricked 1.6 for aosp and I o/c to 1.9 Ghz to run benchmarks. After 10 minutes set at performance my battery hit 80° lol. Good benchmark scores tho.
Daily I use 1.56 Ghz and all is fine, wish I could o/c to 2ghz tho, just for the sound of it
sent from my Sensation XE
I didn't realize installing Sebastian's kernel would overclock me to 1.7GHz. My Senny is cooking over here. Anyone know where I can find the stock kernel? Or should I just slow it with SetCpu?
NVM...found it!
As for mine one it is really hot. Phone got 50 degrees within five using minuites while 1.5 GHz running. Though it is quite cold when used usual way like the calling, messaging etc. But anytime I load it with real tasks like playing 3d games, shoting videos it becomes hot and not suitable to use.
So 1.3 is my top...
Overheating for me is usually because of the app. Poorly built apps can cause overheating. My phone overheats even with the stock HTC 1.2GHz kernel when playing certain games.
Use SetCPU as a govenor to set the processor automaticly back to 1,2 Ghz when overheating.
I guess my processor is one of the luckier ones, I'm getting 1.72GHz under volted with no problems At the end of the day the Sensation was 'designed' to run at 1.22GHz so anything above is a bonus
You should be glad your phone doesnt blow up...as far as i see it, 1.7 ghz speed is so much closer to the netbook laptop processor speeds we get these days. these netbooks come with built-in exhaust fans to avoid heating up of the processor.
The sensation does not have such hardware builting, so its better not to overclock it too much or you might end up with a burnt up phone.
ARHD rom has a stock kernel , U can try it :d
Situation has chanched since I got updated with ARHD 6.5.3. For now I'm using 1.6 SebastianFm kernel with no prob.
Phone is comfortable with its temperature even when hard tasks running.
I don't know whether the new ROM is brilliant or the weather becomes more warm causing not to feel device heating with my fingers.
The fact is that issue has gone and I'm happy

sensation & sensation XE cpu chipset comparison

i'm sure this has been asked before but i just want to make sure. both the sensation and the XE have the same cpu chip but the XE chip is O/C'd to 1.5 ghz, correct? meaning i can O/C my sensation to 1.5ghz and run it daily without any worries of shortening its life? also, what is the max frequency this chip can handle, safely?
HTC|Sensation|Cambodia
swift2fly said:
i'm sure this has been asked before but i just want to make sure. both the sensation and the XE have the same cpu chip but the XE chip is O/C'd to 1.5 ghz, correct? meaning i can O/C my sensation to 1.5ghz and run it daily without any worries of shortening its life? also, what is the max frequency this chip can handle, safely?
HTC|Sensation|Cambodia
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Click to collapse
The normal Sensation is in fact underclocked, so by clocking it to 1.5 you are releasing its ability.
As far as the Max is concerned, mine tops out @ 1.72 before I start getting problems (shutdowns and VERY warm handset)
Remember every chip is different so what is good for me may not be good for you, or you may even be able to go to 1.8!!!
mrew42 said:
The normal Sensation is in fact underclocked, so by clocking it to 1.5 you are releasing its ability.
As far as the Max is concerned, mine tops out @ 1.72 before I start getting problems (shutdowns and VERY warm handset)
Remember every chip is different so what is good for me may not be good for you, or you may even be able to go to 1.8!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the info. i can OC up to 1.83, anything after that my phone would just reboot. if the chipset is underclocked ive been underclocking it even more to 1.18.
HTC|Sensation|Cambodia
The Sensation and Sensation XE use identical hardware - just with the case of the Sensation, as pointed out by the previous post, is underclocked - the Sensation XE is just clocked higher, has had a lick of paint and been covered in Beats gimmicks. Which is pretty worthless if you're flashing ROMs anyway.
When it comes to overclocking, any form reduces the lifespan of components, but not to any sort of level that you should be losing sleep over. You should just play around with clock speeds and get the balance between speed and stability you're looking for. As pointed out in countless threads, every CPU is slightly unique, so some can take higher clocks than others, whilst some can only just make the 1.5GHz mark, or so I have read.
If you do go over 1.7GHz, it is probably worth keeping an eye on any excess heat being kicked out. Overclocking does have a slight degradation on battery life, but it's heat you should be wary of. Heat is the death of electronics, and warranty doesn't cover overclocking (although, if you are overclocking, you're rooted, so your warranty is void anyway ).
Just don't go mad. In my opinion, it's definitely worth bridging the gap between the Sensation and the XE by bolstering it up to 1.5 GHz, but after that point, it becomes more of a benchmark game - which don't really mean anything anyway. Clock speed isn't everything - it's more down to the architecture of the CPU more than anything.
Pash. said:
The Sensation and Sensation XE use identical hardware - just with the case of the Sensation, as pointed out by the previous post, is underclocked - the Sensation XE is just clocked higher, has had a lick of paint and been covered in Beats gimmicks. Which is pretty worthless if you're flashing ROMs anyway.
When it comes to overclocking, any form reduces the lifespan of components, but not to any sort of level that you should be losing sleep over. You should just play around with clock speeds and get the balance between speed and stability you're looking for. As pointed out in countless threads, every CPU is slightly unique, so some can take higher clocks than others, whilst some can only just make the 1.5GHz mark, or so I have read.
If you do go over 1.7GHz, it is probably worth keeping an eye on any excess heat being kicked out. Overclocking does have a slight degradation on battery life, but it's heat you should be wary of. Heat is the death of electronics, and warranty doesn't cover overclocking (although, if you are overclocking, you're rooted, so your warranty is void anyway ).
Just don't go mad. In my opinion, it's definitely worth bridging the gap between the Sensation and the XE by bolstering it up to 1.5 GHz, but after that point, it becomes more of a benchmark game - which don't really mean anything anyway. Clock speed isn't everything - it's more down to the architecture of the CPU more than anything.
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thanks for the info. i dont plan to over do it. i recently installed GTA3 and it was running slow and choppy so i set my cpu to 1.5ghz and cpu governor to "performance" and it runs the game smoothly. just wanted to make sure that its ok to run it at 1.5 for a long period of time. i dont really have a reason to clock my cpu any higher. if anything i'd just stick to 1.18 just for battery consumption reasons.
HTC|Sensation|Cambodia

[POLL] Tested Dual-core ( 972 mhz) vs Single-core ( 1.836 Ghz)

Hello guys,
Since i`ve seen so many debates about single vs dual-core, today i was bored and i tested with antutu and quadrant this thing.( I know that benchmarks isn`t a real proof in day-to-day performance )
WANT THE SCRIPTS FOR UNDERVOLTING AND FORCING CPU1 ONLINE OR OFFLINE ? See 2nd post
SO , what I actually did:
-flashed a freshly new rom ( using elegancia 3.1.0 for about 2 weeks and i found to be very stable and smooth with better battery life than any other rom i`ve tested)
-flashed latest bricked kernel min 192 mhz max 972 mhz with gpu oc @300mhz, lagfree governor, I/O deadline, both cores online via init.d script, booted and tested with antutu and quadrant and then i let the phone settle for a while to see what is the power consumption in stand-by with battery monitor widget.
-after that, i flashed bricked kernel with only max speed change to 1836 mhz, cpu1 offline via inid.d script and made those tests again
Here`s what I got:
Antutu: 4827 (both cores online, clocked @ 972 Mhz)
Quadrant: 2592
BMW: -19mA
Antutu: 4593 ( cpu1 offline, clocked @ 1.836 Ghz )
Quadrant: 3393 ( cpu1 offline, clocked @ 1.836 Ghz )
BMW: -28mA
Those numbers doesn`t reflect exactly the user experience. Some apps opened faster with 2 cores, some faster with only 1 core clecked at higher speed. The only major difference i noticed was in the browser( stock ICS browser) where the more fluid experience was with both cores on.
I`m gonna test those 2 configuration further to see which one has better battery and post some screenshots.
I will add a poll to see which configuration you think is the best.
Be aware that SoC are not created equaly, so the UV script or OC will NOT work with all devices.
Unrar the archive and choose what you want
This files needs to be copied in /system/etc/inid.d and then set the right permissions ( read: all 3 needs to be checked; write: owner checked; execute: same as read) . You need a file explorer that has access up to root ( i recommand Root exploer)
Benchmarks should always be done using Performance governor for consistency
Michealtbh said:
Benchmarks should always be done using Performance governor for consistency
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Click to collapse
I knew that, but i wanted a more real-life experience, and in my opinion there isn`t that much difference in lagfree vs performance. I ran benchmarks 2 times and the scores where almost identical
Please be aware that because of the instruction sets hard coded at low level into the cpu it doesn not mean that 2x 900mhz cpu cores is equal to 1x 1800mhz cpu core because of the way in which the second core is utilised. Its exactly the same with pc's hence why sometimes an AMD cpu with 2 cores can give a better real world performance benchmark than an intel cpu with 4 cores. the same applies vice versa, it just depends on what instruction sets were used and how the cpu is used. Benchmarking stuff like this is not a reliable way to test
Jonny said:
Please be aware that because of the instruction sets hard coded at low level into the cpu it doesn not mean that 2x 900mhz cpu cores is equal to 1x 1800mhz cpu core because of the way in which the second core is utilised. Its exactly the same with pc's hence why sometimes an AMD cpu with 2 cores can give a better real world performance benchmark than an intel cpu with 4 cores. the same applies vice versa, it just depends on what instruction sets were used and how the cpu is used. Benchmarking stuff like this is not a reliable way to test
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Click to collapse
Thanks (I'd use thanks button,but i'm limited to 8 oer day) for clarifying this for me and any other users, this post should be sticky because many members on xda think that way. I am aware that 2x900 doesn't equal 1x1800, but I didn't knew the exact explanation. The only reason that I did these tests was to see which configuration gives the best battery life. Their not equal, but acording to antutu, quadrant and end user experience they are comparable
Thanks for your time in doing these tests... It might not be reliable but it was interesting to know bout it... Im curious between the two tests though, which test puts the cpu under more stress? the first test shows awesome result on the battery so being single core might stress the cpu more, im guessing
Sent from my HTC Sensation using Tapatalk
AndroidNeophyte said:
Thanks for your time in doing these tests... It might not be reliable but it was interesting to know bout it... Im curious between the two tests though, which test puts the cpu under more stress? the first test shows awesome result on the battery so being single core might stress the cpu more, im guessing
Sent from my HTC Sensation using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
33% left and it's running for15 hours with 2 cores

[Q] Is the Infuse underclocked from the factory?

I'm running CM10, and it's running fine overclocked to 1600 MHz, yet the phone is factory clocked, (with a factory ROM), to 1200 MHz. Why? My phone seems to run perfectly fine using SmartAss2 management, but Samsung apparently purposely underclocks phones for some unknown reason. Obviously stability isn't a concern, or it would crash at 1600 MHz. Yet it is stable, so why is the default clock speed so slow? Considering the phone is perfectly stable at 1600 MHz, would it be possible to O/C my phone to 2 GHz, or would I risk frying my phone if I somehow managed to OC it by that much?
k-semler said:
I'm running CM10, and it's running fine overclocked to 1600 MHz, yet the phone is factory clocked, (with a factory ROM), to 1200 MHz. Why? My phone seems to run perfectly fine using SmartAss2 management, but Samsung apparently purposely underclocks phones for some unknown reason. Obviously stability isn't a concern, or it would crash at 1600 MHz. Yet it is stable, so why is the default clock speed so slow? Considering the phone is perfectly stable at 1600 MHz, would it be possible to O/C my phone to 2 GHz, or would I risk frying my phone if I somehow managed to OC it by that much?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
uhh well.... yea and no. there are a few things you need to understand about microprocessors. no two are alike. they are built on a scale of a few nanometers and any difference causes a significant difference. to keep production numbers up there is a line they have to draw between performance potential and stability. more chips will be stable at lower clocks so they pick an speed they can get a high production number out of. sometimes a whole line of chips is produced with exactly the same core. chips that pass the highest get boxed as the highest performing and priced. chips that dont pass will either have specific features turned off, cores turned off or be underclocked and sold as lower models. in addition to that the top performing models are actually over priced, and often many more pass the tests than they need so perfectly good processors are intentionally disabled to fill the market for lower speed processors, so yes the cpu may be "underclocked" in a sense. but i don't know if that really applies to the infuse because i don't know if there are any chips in the same family that have a higher rated clock speed, if there are they aren't used in phones.
in example, on my pc i have a 3 core processor, it's actually a 4 core and i can even turn the 4th core on in bios, but a certain percentage of that particular model of chip will be unstable with the 4th core active.
another thing to understand is how the clock speed is set. there is a buss and a table of multipliers and dividers. so as one part of the chip oscillates at one frequency the multipliers and dividers say how may times per oscillation the other components go. the cpu speed changes by changing these multiplier values. the problem is that there are only so many multipliers the cpu is designed to use. this is a hardware limitation and can't be overcome so at some point the only way to get more clock speed is to change the buss speed which affects the entire system and will cause instability in most cases. occasionally you can get around this if you change the multiplier values for other componants as well but it's probably not a good idea to mess with it. the hummingbird chip only has multipliers to go to 1600mhz regardless of stability unless you mess with the buss, one developer got the galaxy s to 1700 with buss overclocking but some things didn't really work at that speed and it took a lot of changes to other system clocks. snapdragon chips can go to higher clocks and process numbers better but the hummingbird is better for graphics and multimedia which is more important on a modern phone imho.
so yeah 1600 is it, as far as practicality goes anyway. there are a few infuses that can only go to 1400-1500 as well and galaxy s phones which have the same clock limitations but are only rates for 1000mhz rarely go to 1600, but a few do, my captivate was absolutely peaked out at 1300, believe me i tried to get it higher, i tried a lot of things with voltages to try to get it stable, but even 1300 took some doing. it took a long time before developers even produced a kernel for the sgs that used clocks over 1200 because many of the early builds of the sgs series were much like mine and were not stable at high speeds.
Beautiful. :thumbup:
Sent from my SGH-I997 using xda app-developers app

Overclocking's effect on phone's lifespan

It seems to me many people overclock their HOX up to around 2ghz through various kernels/ROMs. I'm relatively new to Android phones but I do have a fair amount of OC experience on PC. The thing is, on PC the OC is generally well studied/tested by many people with well established thresholds, and people often upgrade their cooling system to accommodate OC. If stock cooler is used, there are usually established conservative limits. Furthermore, there are programs that stress test the setup to detect any instability. It's known that OC decreases hardware's lifespan, but if you do it right, that decrease can be negligible because of the realistic lifespan of PC.
Our phone is tiny and its cooling is not upgradable. If we overclock it by 30%, what effect will it have on its lifespan? Is there something about these S4 CPU's that I don't know about? Were they made to be able to easily handle the OC without any significant heat increase?
Please share your thoughts.
I'm not sure the true clock speed of the krait but I've read that most CPUs are under clocked by default
So I would think the impact would depend on its true clock speed
It also depends on how long you intend on keeping the phone. I change phones quite often.
If you intend on keeping it two years then I'd suggest just be safe and not sorry. This phone is fairly new and not much is know of long term issues quite yet
Sent from my One X using Tapatalk 2
i know the S4 can be clocked at different speeds by default (1.5-1.7 GHz Dual-core Krait). there is also superpi for android to test stability. it seems 1.5 - 2.0 GHz doesn't give much of a performance boost as far as benchmarks go imo. If we could somehow manage to tweak memory timings like on a pc that would be awesome.
OC = shorter life........to what extent I cannot say. But it's a fact
Sent from my HTC One X+ p_type 0.91.0
My P3 that was a stock speed of 733 an runs at 1.8ghz for last 6 years with factory cooling says don't worry about it.
Also, i couldn't hit 229ms in pi until 2ghz.
If your worried about shortening the life span, by over clocking, its not for you honestly.
WR
Sent from my One X
you overclocked a Pentium 3 733 to 1.8 ghz? i don't believe that at all..
DvineLord said:
you overclocked a Pentium 3 733 to 1.8 ghz? i don't believe that at all..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are correct, its a typo, it should read 1.4 and not 1.8.
WR
Sent from my One X

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