What are the dangers of an overclocked CPU/ undervolted kernel? - HTC Sensation

Please excuse me for my ignorance, but I don't know much about these kinds of topics.
I wanted to know if anybody could be kind enough to explain the dangers and negatives of an overclocked CPU and an undervolted kernel?
I know their benefits because of some research I did, but I could never find a concrete answer explaining the negatives and dangers.
I've heard some horror stories of overheating handsets that get so hot that internal components fry, heard about damaged radios that need to be replaced, and loss of signal. But I'm not entirely sure if those instances are correlation instead of causation.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
-Chris
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App

The general issue that applies to both modifications is that you are using the chips outside their specifications. Their whole behavior might no longer be as expected.
This is usually happening at such low level and in a so small range that it doesn't affect normal use.
Overclocking will definitely produce more heat. That's why people that overclock pcs to insane levels use non-standard cooling like dry ice or even liquid nitrogen.
As you can't change the way your phone will transport heat, there's only very limited room for overclocking.
The phone is designed to switch itself off if it gets too hot, however this is not something one should rely on.
Not sure about any specific risks of undervolting, but the general issues will definitely apply. Noone can guarantee for stuff to work as expected when you run components outside the specifications, as they were tested to run safe only inside the specs as supplied by the manufacturer.

It can cause permanent CPU damage which can lead to you bricking your phone, but the chances of that aren't that great. Usually if you undervolt too much, your phone will just reboot.

Stability is the biggest issue. It can put the components too far out of their comfort zone.

Unstable, unexpected behaviour and/or (in very strange cases drastically) reduced life expactancy. However, if you do undervolt your cpu, the only/main issue becomes unstable.
In my experience (lot of pc overclocking), you will notice when your material can't keep up with the settings and if you change it (back), no problems will occur.

aNYthing24 said:
It can cause permanent CPU damage which can lead to you bricking your phone, but the chances of that aren't that great. Usually if you undervolt too much, your phone will just reboot.
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So would you say it's worth the risk to flash a ROM that has an overclocked CPU and undervolted kernel? I'm so scared to damage my device
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App

LPChris47 said:
So would you say it's worth the risk to flash a ROM that has an overclocked CPU and undervolted kernel? I'm so scared to damage my device
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
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Click to collapse
Yes I would, in a way the lower voltage cancels out the higher voltage, and even produces less heat overall. There are no dangers of undervolting AFAIK, saving battery is good, although if you set the volt extremely low the phone will freeze up. Devs put the volt at a good level but most of the time you can lower it by a notch or increase it for no reason. If this phone ever gets 2GHz clock that would be a danger to run at, because the voltage would be insane.

Related

[Q] overclocking droid charge

How can I go about overclocking my droid charge? I am running TWEAKSTOCK 1.0 rom and was wondering how to overclock my charge?
I haven't seen any over clockable kernels so until then I don't think you can.
Download tegrak overclock from the market if u want to overclock. I'm running mine at 1.2 and undervolted and it works great.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App
Chitala383 said:
Download tegrak overclock from the market if u want to overclock. I'm running mine at 1.2 and undervolted and it works great.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With the same kernel?
Well, if you actually searched, this would be clearly stated in many threads.
For GB overclocking, use Tegrak for now, until we can get an actual OC kernel up and running. I think Tegrak will work on the stock kernel as long as you're rooted, as it uses a module to modify the CPU frequency.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using xda premium
Another tegrak user here. I paid for the ultimate version for undervolt and start on boot
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App
xdadevnube said:
Another tegrak user here. I paid for the ultimate version for undervolt and start on boot
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App
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Are there noticeable improvements with overclocking/undervolting?
Also what settings do you use?
BattsNotIncld said:
Are there noticeable improvements with overclocking/undervolting?
Also what settings do you use?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Take what I say with a grain of sand, I'm expressing my views without much scientific validation.
Keep in mind that overclocking is like icing on the cake. There are far more beneficial things like changing the scheduler to noop or deadline. Fugu tweaks and V-6 are highly recommended to improve responsiveness and improve your launcher resiliency. That said, I feel overclocking has its place and helps in many cases. I've noticed, in general, various tasks and some web-browsing will benefit from the increased clock speed. Some things don't ramp up the CPU very much and you won't notice much difference in that case.
I monitor my CPU usage with CPUNotify as well as OS Monitor.
I monitor the CPU temps with TempMonitor (it allows for a notifcation icon that shows the CPU temp.)
I use StabilityTest to check for overclock settings stability. The cool thing about Tegrak is that when you apply overclock settings on boot (paid version only) and you choose settings that crash the phone, the settings don't apply until most of the phone is already booted up, so you aren't stuck in an infinite boot loop of crashing fun. You should be able to simply change up the settings after they apply since the phone will be mostly idle by the time Tegrak settings are applied.
As for settings...
I use the Interactive X governor. I prefer this governor for its simplicity and ability to ramp up to high CPU clock speeds quickly. I enable the governor by typeing "su" and "ix enable" in Terminal Emulator when on Imoseyon's 4.0 kernel.
I change the "scaling min" to 200Mhz to avoid instability when CPU usage ramps down quickly.
Currently at CPU Level 0 I am at 1265mv Core Voltage, 1100mV (unchanged) Internal Voltage, and 1200 Mhz Frequency.
I don't actually change other CPU Levels.
Lately I've been just keeping at eye on temps so I haven't achieved my desired clock speed of a relatively low-voltage 1.4Ghz to 1.5Ghz.
Overclocking is very dependent on the particular sample you get. Some of us have "Golden Chips" and some of us have duds.
Your CPU should be totally safe at temps around 130 degrees F, although I suspect that it could even take higher sustained temps well above that if it needed. I don't actually know, this is speculation.
I like to keep my temps low in general, I rarely crack 100F with my current settings (weather is cool here.)
Overclocking computers is one of my hobbies, and its fun to dive into the phone side of things. I haven't been able to find a whole lot of information regarding overclocking the Hummingbird processor. People have overclocked to 1.6Ghz. Stability tests are essential to improve the reliability of your overclock. Die hards will run the tests for 24 hours to weeks in the computer realm. At least with computers its better understood how the stability test actually works. I run 24 hours of Orthos blend mode (Prime95) on each core.
With phones, its hard to say if it will truly be stable.
I test for an hour on the phone with StabilityTest and call it good. Hopefully in the future more information will come to light regarding how to properly overclock.
Remember, the other side of the coin is underclocking and undervolting. If you drop your voltage, you should see a nice increaes in battery life. If you drop your clocks, then you can drop your voltage even more. If you get your phone dialed in to where there isn't much background apps sucking juice- a phone that is UV/UC'ed should have excellent battery life.
Does anyone else read noop as nope?
What's the difference between internal and CPU voltage?
Also, I hope you know that Orthos does not scale well across multiple cores. You are essentially relying on Task Manager to put the load on different cores.Orthos was originally made with dual cores in mind.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using xda premium
kvswim said:
Does anyone else read noop as nope?
What's the difference between internal and CPU voltage?
Also, I hope you know that Orthos does not scale well across multiple cores. You are essentially relying on Task Manager to put the load on different cores.Orthos was originally made with dual cores in mind.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Apparently little is known in the public domain about Internal voltage. I have been unable to find good information regarding Internal voltage. Knowing little about the architecture of the SOC, I suspect it is a voltage that controls different parts of the SOC hub. I suspect that you could say its synonymous with a computer motherboard's voltage (although there are several.)
I find it interesting that, as far as I can tell, few people have increased Internal voltage much even though they may achieve a clock speed of 1.6GHz by increasing CPU voltage.
In any case, I have heard reports of instability by going to low, as would be expected. I haven't found the need to increase Internal voltage yet.
P.S. You can run an instance of Prime95 on each "core" or one instance of Orthos per two "cores" and still be able to test stability reliably. You have to set Core affinity, and I usually set it so that each core and hyperthreaded core each get an instance of Orthos. In this case, each core's usage will be 100%.
xdadevnube said:
Apparently little is known in the public domain about Internal voltage. I have been unable to find good information regarding Internal voltage. Knowing little about the architecture of the SOC, I suspect it is a voltage that controls different parts of the SOC hub. I suspect that you could say its synonymous with a computer motherboard's voltage (although there are several.)
I find it interesting that, as far as I can tell, few people have increased Internal voltage much even though they may achieve a clock speed of 1.6GHz by increasing CPU voltage.
In any case, I have heard reports of instability by going to low, as would be expected. I haven't found the need to increase Internal voltage yet.
P.S. You can run an instance of Prime95 on each "core" or one instance of Orthos per two "cores" and still be able to test stability reliably. You have to set Core affinity, and I usually set it so that each core and hyperthreaded core each get an instance of Orthos. In this case, each core's usage will be 100%.
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Internal SOC voltage...maybe akin to northbridge or southbridge voltage? When OCing a computer you have to keep the northbridge within a nominal voltage of the CPU frequency (if that makes sense). Too much of a discrepancy makes the computer unstable. Increasing the southbridge voltage increases the memory overclocking stability with large amounts of RAM, and obviously, when you overclock a processor you are also overclocking memory.
Maybe we could ask the developer? Although he is Korean and we may not be able to get our point across.
For stability testing on PCs I recommend OCCT. Scales well over Multiple cores and also allows GPU and power supply stability testing.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using xda premium
kvswim said:
Internal SOC voltage...maybe akin to northbridge or southbridge voltage? When OCing a computer you have to keep the northbridge within a nominal voltage of the CPU frequency (if that makes sense). Too much of a discrepancy makes the computer unstable. Increasing the southbridge voltage increases the memory overclocking stability with large amounts of RAM, and obviously, when you overclock a processor you are also overclocking memory.
Maybe we could ask the developer? Although he is Korean and we may not be able to get our point across.
For stability testing on PCs I recommend OCCT. Scales well over Multiple cores and also allows GPU and power supply stability testing.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using xda premium
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Click to collapse
Well, I have heard of slight Internal Voltage increases being necessary for high overclocks on Hummingbird. I have heard dropping it causes major instability. I would guess that it doesn't need to be modified for modest overclocks.
I did quite a bit of web searching trying to find conclusive guides or overclocking results for Humminbird to no avail.
I use ATI Tool for checking GPUs, but OCCT may be better. It seems OCCT has improved a fair bit, I may use it.
xdadevnube said:
Well, I have heard of slight Internal Voltage increases being necessary for high overclocks on Hummingbird. I have heard dropping it causes major instability. I would guess that it doesn't need to be modified for modest overclocks.
I did quite a bit of web searching trying to find conclusive guides or overclocking results for Humminbird to no avail.
I use ATI Tool for checking GPUs, but OCCT may be better. It seems OCCT has improved a fair bit, I may use it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Probably because no one has taken the time to write one. Not exactly in high demand. I knew of one "guide" but the site has been down for quite some time.
Of course there are noobs guides but nothing quite in depth. I suppose people don't write them because there are obvious limits set by the kernel dev, and anything beyond that requires someone who obviously knows what they're doing, which defeats they purpose of a guide.
Sent from my GT-P1000 using xda premium

MIT student proves by A + B that T-Mobile G2x has hardware issues related to overheat

MIT student proves by A + B that T-Mobile G2x has hardware issues related to overheating / shutdown / battery
http://www.lgforum.com/forum/boards/carriers/t-mobile/topics/g2x-g2x-gingerbread-2-dot-3-3-shutdown-requiring-battery-pull-due-to-overheat
Let's share this and be social.
Here are some other references for this same post.
#OccupyLg
LG: http://www.lgforum.com/forum/boards/carriers/t-mobile/topics/g2x-g2x-gingerbread-2-dot-3-3-shutdown-requiring-battery-pull-due-to-overheat
XDA-Developers: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1433445
T-Mobile: http://support.t-mobile.com/thread/16431
I would assume a hot reboot would work as well if you don't want to install an app killer
Sent from my LG-P999 using xda premium
If you are having issues you need to post more info. Rom? Kernel? Certain apps can cause issues. If you need help ask. Posting a rumor by a "MIT" kid is not overly impressive to me. Egg heads over think things sometimes.
jcbofkc said:
If you are having issues you need to post more info. Rom? Kernel? Certain apps can cause issues. If you need help ask. Posting a rumor by a "MIT" kid is not overly impressive to me. Egg heads over think things sometimes.
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Click to collapse
RG2X with Faux .47 and on .48 kernal. I am getting exactly what the IT guy described. Overheating during deep sleep while on charger. Non-OC'd with nothing major running in the background. Not even Setcpu or Juice Defender. I will assume this guy isn't on RG2X's rom nor on a MIUI rom. Maybe on Faux but I think it would be better to assume he is probably on 2.3.3/4 stock. Also he stated it was on two different phones that he did both of these tests we can assume it's not a rare thing. Noted it's not with every phone this happens but some for sure are getting dead phones upon wake. Because they die probably about half way during sleep by the time the person wakes up they only notice a dead phone that needs a battery pull. The heat is already gone so they wont notice the over heating. I actually felt my phone overheat on the charger so I can tell you what this guy is saying has some weight to it.
I shouldn't assume I should just read "We both a running stock lg g2x gingerbreads and have not tested it on any other roms"
psychoace said:
RG2X with Faux .47 and on .48 kernal. I am getting exactly what the IT guy described. Overheating during deep sleep while on charger. Non-OC'd with nothing major running in the background. Not even Setcpu or Juice Defender. I will assume this guy isn't on RG2X's rom nor on a MIUI rom. Maybe on Faux but I think it would be better to assume he is probably on 2.3.3/4 stock. Also he stated it was on two different phones that he did both of these tests we can assume it's not a rare thing. Noted it's not with every phone this happens but some for sure are getting dead phones upon wake. Because they die probably about half way during sleep by the time the person wakes up they only notice a dead phone that needs a battery pull. The heat is already gone so they wont notice the over heating. I actually felt my phone overheat on the charger so I can tell you what this guy is saying has some weight to it.
I shouldn't assume I should just read "We both a running stock lg g2x gingerbreads and have not tested it on any other roms"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If (big if) the overheating observed is due to heat from the battery charging leaching into the phone, wouldn't a quick and easy fix/test be a piece of aluminum foil between the battery and the phone?
Sent from my LG-P999 using Tapatalk
I have no problems at all. Running CM7 Latest Kang / Faux .48 CM battery. The last few versions of Faux's kernel fixed the SOD. I have never done an exchange. I got my G2X the 1st week it was out. I have never had any problems at all once the phone was rooted. Only thing I have problems with is the screen bleed. I am not OCed at all just UVed. When the phone screen is off setcpu sets the cpu at 389min 503 max. I have no overheating problems. So if you have overheating I would say that your phone is broke, you need to lower the OC if you are OCing, or you have done something wrong with the software.
Prod1702 said:
I have no problems at all. Running CM7 Latest Kang / Faux .48 CM battery. The last few versions of Faux's kernel fixed the SOD. I have never done an exchange. I got my G2X the 1st week it was out. I have never had any problems at all once the phone was rooted. Only thing I have problems with is the screen bleed. I am not OCed at all just UVed. When the phone screen is off setcpu sets the cpu at 389min 503 max. I have no overheating problems. So if you have overheating I would say that your phone is broke, you need to lower the OC if you are OCing, or you have done something wrong with the software.
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Thanks for the report captain obvious.
I am glad your setup is fine. For those that are in stock configuration and non oc'ed yet experience these problems, they have probably come to realize that there is no support from tmobile or LG.
If the words "restart " or "shut down " during your tech support convo, you will be told to suck it up and wait for a software update. An update which will probably not come considering how many months has passed.
erikikaz said:
Thanks for the report captain obvious.
I am glad your setup is fine. For those that are in stock configuration and non oc'ed yet experience these problems, they have probably come to realize that there is no support from tmobile or LG.
If the words "restart " or "shut down " during your tech support convo, you will be told to suck it up and wait for a software update. An update which will probably not come considering how many months has passed.
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Click to collapse
FYI if it does it on all roms then its a hardware issue and software change wont fix it...
Sent from my LG-P999 using xda premium
I also had the dreaded sod at least once every couple of days.
However, after I installed eb kang with faux oc/uv profile with set cpu, I have had no problems since.
I guess its ymmv...
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
No problems at all here with overheating or SOD. I have over 200 apps installed. And yes, I'm seriously still running stock Froyo.
The only problems I've had are sluggishness and freezing after disconnecting the USB (both computer and wall chargers.) I think it's an automatic sync thing, or possibly something reading my 10GB of music files on the SD.
Got mine the first week out too, but from Amazon.
gggirlgeek said:
No problems at all here with overheating or SOD. I have over 200 apps installed. And yes, I'm seriously still running stock Froyo.
The only problems I've had are sluggishness and freezing after disconnecting the USB (both computer and wall chargers.) I think it's an automatic sync thing, or possibly something reading my 10GB of music files on the SD.
Got mine the first week out too, but from Amazon.
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Click to collapse
I don't think anyone is saying this problem effects everyone. It's just with all the bad units out there with this problem, this is probably why it's happening. Right now I'm trying to run some profiles in setcpu to see if it improves my phones sleep. It's only been one day so I will see by the end of the week how this fares
Sent from my LG-P999 using xda premium
Cm7, morfic Trinity kernel, go launcher ex oc'ed to 1.4 ghz. Perfect! No issues!
Sent from my LG-P999 using xda premium
erikikaz said:
Thanks for the report captain obvious.
I am glad your setup is fine. For those that are in stock configuration and non oc'ed yet experience these problems, they have probably come to realize that there is no support from tmobile or LG.
If the words "restart " or "shut down " during your tech support convo, you will be told to suck it up and wait for a software update. An update which will probably not come considering how many months has passed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Posts like this post is the reason why the devs hate the G2X. Most if not all problems most of the time are with android. If you are not using setcpu to control the cpu by setting up profiles for screen on and off. Then you are missing out on what root gives you access to. My phone might have the same problem yours have with overheating but i will never see if because my phone is UVed and runs at a lower CPU speed when the screen is off. If you want to use my setcpu profile look at my last post.
Prod1702 said:
Things like this post is the reason why the devs hate the G2X. Most if not all problems most of the time are with android. If you are not using setcpu to control the cpu by setting up profiles for screen on and off. Then you are missing out on what root gives you access to. My phone might have the same problem yours have with overheating but i will never see if because my phone is UVed and runs at a lower CPU speed when the screen is off. If you want to use my setcpu profile look at my last post.
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Click to collapse
The overheating is not a Android problem it's a LG doesn't know how to product test problem. All my other Android devices didn't have this problem. One did have an SOD problem that was fixed but I never had to deal with overheating. This is on LG not Google.
psychoace said:
The overheating is not a Android problem it's a LG doesn't know how to product test problem. All my other Android devices didn't have this problem. One did have an SOD problem that was fixed but I never had to deal with overheating. This is on LG not Google.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My friends amaze 4g has it friends Samsung fascinate has it galaxy s 4g and my old g1 and mt3g had it...
Sent from my LG-P999 using xda premium
mt3g said:
My friends amaze 4g has it friends Samsung fascinate has it galaxy s 4g and my old g1 and mt3g had it...
Sent from my LG-P999 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think the term overheating is thrown around too loosely here without more of a description. There's the type of overheating that causes our phones to shut off and stay off until the battery is pulled. There is also the type of overheating that occurs when you plug in an HDMI cable, which may or may not cause your device to die.
I'd assume those two types of overheating are the same, as they result in the same thing: dead device that won't turn on without a battery pull. And the phone gets hot as fsck. Hot as in you'd be scared to keep it in your pocket because (1) it'll burn your leg and (2) you are scared the battery will explode.
Those two types are overheating are different from your phone merely heating up upon use. I'm talking about charging the phone while navigating via GPS at full brightness or playing a graphically intense gaming. That magnitude of that heat is normal. And I'm guessing that's what all your devices have experienced.
And as all the devices get thinner, that battery's going to sit closer and closer to your hand, which equals more heat. And as the glass technology gets thinner (gorilla glass 2.0), your face will probably feel the heat to a greater degree as well.
---------- Post added at 04:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:13 PM ----------
psychoace said:
The overheating is not a Android problem it's a LG doesn't know how to product test problem. All my other Android devices didn't have this problem. One did have an SOD problem that was fixed but I never had to deal with overheating. This is on LG not Google.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's true, it's not android, it's LG.
And to all the people thinking that undervolting and underclocking your phone will fix everything, it won't. Android already underclocks the CPU when it's not in use. SetCPU does nothing in this instance. The only instance they'll see a difference is if they have some sort of rogue app that's maintaining a wake lock. You just can't beat terrible design (referring to the MIT guy's findings). Sometimes it'll work, sometimes you just lose.
LG majorly screwed up with this and I hope that their mobile efforts in the future fail for their lack of follow through.
I think I've avoided the charging SOD by accident....
I don't like the official LG charger since it uses a microUSB cable which I'd rather have as a spare on my computer..... so most of my charging is done with an old charger I just had laying around, which turns out to be 0.7a instead of 1.0a which the LG charger is, or on USB which goes through about 3 different hubs so probably has little power left by the time it gets to the phone.
Sure, charging is a bit slower, but that probably prevents some of the overheating.
Lesson: If you're having overheating during charging, dig through all your old chargers and find one with a lower output rating. Use the higher output ones only if you're in a hurry to charge.
Just wanted to say that this thread has been really helpful to me. Every time I've flashed a custom kernel, my phone has always, within the first 2 nights of installation, turned off in the middle of the night while on the charger. So I've always been stuck with the stock kernel. But then the suggestion to use SetCPU to lower the speed while the screen is turned off worked for me. So far no SOD and my phone has survived Faux's kernel and charging overnight without a battery pull and without overheating.
Now I can try out custom kernels and find all new ways to destroy my battery by doing things I'm not knowledgable enough to be doing!
lotherius said:
I think I've avoided the charging SOD by accident....
I don't like the official LG charger since it uses a microUSB cable which I'd rather have as a spare on my computer..... so most of my charging is done with an old charger I just had laying around, which turns out to be 0.7a instead of 1.0a which the LG charger is, or on USB which goes through about 3 different hubs so probably has little power left by the time it gets to the phone.
Sure, charging is a bit slower, but that probably prevents some of the overheating.
Lesson: If you're having overheating during charging, dig through all your old chargers and find one with a lower output rating. Use the higher output ones only if you're in a hurry to charge.
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Click to collapse
hmm.. I dont doubt you, but I think doing that would not be any different.
BECAUSE, the charger is not constantly charging at 1A rate. If you notice, the phones ramps down the input current after a certain percentage ~90%, and trickles it up to 100. Once at 100, the charging is supposed to be stopped. I've charged mine with my bluetooth 500ma charger, and I didnt see a difference in heat temps; only charging time took longer.
As far as heat, Lion batteries should be able to handle 1C charge (1 x charge capacity) with no problems in heat. That means even at 1.5A charge, it should be OK.
Regarding overclocking, undervolting and overheating. There is a variation of parameters across every silicon wafer; among the 25 or so wafers in a wafer lot; and from wafer lot to wafer lot. This is referred to as the "spread" and parts at the extremes are called "corner parts". Most parts should be in the middle of things, not all. With newer parts and small silicon process geometries, the margins are typically smaller - hopefully improving as the fab gets experience with the new process.
A hardware developer should get corner parts to check their PCBA layout and FW, to see if they have design margin. In the case of DDR (RAM), the voltage, circuit layout and DDR interface timing (from Tegra, in this case) should be checked across some tolerance and with the corner parts. "Fast" parts can draw more current during operation that nominal parts, possible heating up the voltage regulators nearby.
In a good hardware design, everything should work across part variation and the specified operating temperature for the system. When we start playing with the clocking frequency and voltages, there is the risk of FW crashing and HW flipping out. The symptoms can include system shut down (lost), resets, heating, bad effects on other systems (battery, voltage regulator circuits, etc.).
This is why some of us (like me) have little luck Set CPU and others can change it to extreme. What none of us know is how close to the design limits the G2X is - the system and the components like Tegra, the FW control. If due design diligence was not done, the sensitivity to part variation and our hacking is greater than normal.

[Q] Is Overclocking your phone really that safe?

Hello, as the title states, I was just wondering whether over clocking the phone can "break" the phone?
Also another question, Which Sebastian kernel should I use on Virtuous inquisition rom?
Would really appreciate some help with this.
Thanks a lot
I have never had a problem over clocking any of my phones. I do find you need to find that optimum speed, for best performance.
List of phones I have overclocked.
HD2
Nexus S
Nexus One
EVO
Sensation
Heat from overclocking your phone can break your phone but the sensation processor is supposed to be 1.5ghz stock. Pretty sure phone has a built in sensor that shuts it off before allowing it to overheat and fry the chip.
No kernel will really allow any unstable over clock levels, at least not without warning you. The processors in our phones were designed for 1.5ghz but HTC under clocked them stock to save battery. You can still go above 1.5 without damaging your phone. It might shorten the life, and yes you have a very slight risk of overheating but like the other guy said, your phone will turn off before killing itself. You will see a bit more battery drain though. Personally I've found it rather pointless to over clock. If I do I only go to the designed speed of 1.5. With a dual core processor I just don't see the point in going over that.
Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using XDA App

Optimal Undervolt/OC Settings

So I have a few apps... Voltage Control, SetCPU, No-Frills CPU... but I've honestly been a bit weary to use them. I want the best battery life since I'm a heavy user, but I also don't want to overclock/set voltage to a point where I'll screw up my phone. I'll admit that I'm a novice user when it comes to voltage/overclocking, but not when it comes to ROMs, kernels, bootloaders, etc. I work with those all the time, but really trying to get the most out of the battery and CPU.
There's this thread I found that has someone's settings on it, but don't know if its good or how much this guy knows(no offense to him):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1356211
Anyone got any insight or perhaps screenies of their optimally tested settings? VERY VERY appreciated to anyone that can help.
jgruberman said:
So I have a few apps... Voltage Control, SetCPU, No-Frills CPU... but I've honestly been a bit weary to use them. I want the best battery life since I'm a heavy user, but I also don't want to overclock/set voltage to a point where I'll screw up my phone. I'll admit that I'm a novice user when it comes to voltage/overclocking, but not when it comes to ROMs, kernels, bootloaders, etc. I work with those all the time, but really trying to get the most out of the battery and CPU.
There's this thread I found that has someone's settings on it, but don't know if its good or how much this guy knows(no offense to him):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1356211
Anyone got any insight or perhaps screenies of their optimally tested settings? VERY VERY appreciated to anyone that can help.
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there is no rule. every cpu is different. very different. my captivate took a lot of effort to get a meer 1300 mhz but my infuses get 1600 no problem at all. some infuses wont go to 1600 but more will go to 1500 than galaxy s's. they probably held out the best testing cpu's for the higher clocked phone.
for battery life try clocking @ 800 mhz and dont use screen off profiles just because it looks like a good idea to slow the cpu when you arent really using it(causes problems if the max freq is too low with some kernels) and test stability with your uv settings, go down a little at a time, for max frequency uv from the top down, for battery life go from the bottom up and disable the upper freqs if they become unstable. this is because rapid voltage changes can contribute to instability. too much differential will cause crashes if the uv is extreme or the oc is extreme.
at some point though the cpu settings will have a limited effect. the radios use battery as well. manage your screen brightness and try edge only with the screen off using any number of apps that manage the radio. try one of entropys kernels to avoid a feature of the wifi chip (or was it bt) from sucking power when in proximity of another device with the same chip. turn off sync if you dont need push emails from gmail or real time facebook updates and if you really need battery life get in the habit of togging wifi and bt and gps on and off depending on need. i do none on this because i always found the battery life adequate on samsung phones but on my aria, well it was a must and prolly why people hate android. htc and battery life dont go together unless you manually manage the phone functions.
That's a great bunch of information. I currently keep my Brightness at 0%, GPS off, Wifi only ON when I'm at work when the charger is plugged in.
I guess I'm more concerned with the undervolting than the overclocking. I'd rather preserve the battery life with undervolting... the overclocking isnt a HUGE concern, but it'd be nice to see. Regardless, if you have any "ideal" UV settings, or ones that have worked for YOUR Infuse(assuming you have one), then I'd love to see them.
at one point i had -200mv on every freq from 100-1600mhz and no crashes. i started manually editing the uv script (voltage control is only able to write -200 into the script unless you have the pay version) and forgot what i ended up with. but my first infuse was exceptional in that area. some infuses freeze above 1400 mhz no matter what voltage settings are used. about -50 seems to be safe 99% of the time with minor or no overclock across the board but you could probably go -50 down low and -100 from 400mhz up to 1200 and -50 or -75 on overclock freqs. with underclock or atleast no overclock it's probably safe to go -100 to -150. it may be safe to go much more than that as well but on a small number of phones that might be too far as it is. cpus are made on such a small scale that microns of inconsistency make large percentages of difference. many dont pass testing and qc. some are borderline for the application, some are exceptional. the smaller the architecture gets the more potential the design has for speed but the larger the variance in performance is given a manufacturing technique. obviously the manufacturing gets better and better combating this so that they can make smaller architectures they also have redundancy built in, but sometimes they just disable features of a chipset and market it as an economy version if they have a low pass rate. ever see a 3 core cpu for a pc? most are manufactured as 4 cores and on many motherboards the bios can unlock the 4th core with somewhat unpredictable results.
Again, some really great info for the technical guys such as myself. What is the best way to test the UV settings? The built in tools and stuff in SetCPU? Or is there another way that would be more effective and/or would get more realistic results?

[Q] Overclocking but no Exploding

Hi XDA Community. I use Trinity Kernel by Morfic and i was wondering if it is okay to have an Overclocked Nexus 5 and use the phone at a regular basis like a normal stock clock Nexus. I don't want My phone to just randomly explode because of overclocking it. One of the features the kernel has as said at his/her XDA thread is "Up to 2726MHz (higher clocks will vary from device to device)". Is that frequency trustworthy when just using the phone normally or is that a benchmark frequency?
MaLing15 said:
Hi XDA Community. I use Trinity Kernel by Morfic and i was wondering if it is okay to have an Overclocked Nexus 5 and use the phone at a regular basis like a normal stock clock Nexus. I don't want My phone to just randomly explode because of overclocking it. One of the features the kernel has as said at his/her XDA thread is "Up to 2726MHz (higher clocks will vary from device to device)". Is that frequency trustworthy when just using the phone normally or is that a benchmark frequency?
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Don't overclock that high. 2419MHz at most. Overclocking too high will cause more heat and throttle earlier, only useful for a short benchmark such as HWBot Prime or Quadrant (Antutu takes longer and will overheat by the time it finishes). Trinity also supports up to 3014MHz, OP hasn't been updated.
MaLing15 said:
Hi XDA Community. I use Trinity Kernel by Morfic and i was wondering if it is okay to have an Overclocked Nexus 5 and use the phone at a regular basis like a normal stock clock Nexus. I don't want My phone to just randomly explode because of overclocking it. One of the features the kernel has as said at his/her XDA thread is "Up to 2726MHz (higher clocks will vary from device to device)". Is that frequency trustworthy when just using the phone normally or is that a benchmark frequency?
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You don't want to push the phone too much I think the Nexus 5 runs at 2.3 GHz. 2.7 MAY not be too bad but honestly, the phone runs pretty smooth as is. What benefits are you looking for from overclocking?
Thanks guys for sharing your knowledge. You know.. To get the MOST out of the Phone while at the same time being Safe.
if you really wanted, the phone won't explode if you run it at 3015mhz either. the worst that will happen is that your phone won't be able to run that high, and will freeze and reboot.
and don't listen to all.. run your phone how YOU like. yes, it'll cause a little(not much) more heat, and will throttle a little earlier, but that's why people like me disable throttle, so that's a non issue. I run my phone at high CPU speeds all the time, and use 2880mhz high/300mhz low quite often. just because I feel like it, no other reason.
oh, I run trinity as well, and do all of Trinity's testing
MaLing15 said:
Thanks guys for sharing your knowledge. You know.. To get the MOST out of the Phone while at the same time being Safe.
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It's just what @jsgraphicart said. You're not really getting more out of your phone by overclocking. It's not going to run smoother, and most games don't lag anyway so they probably won't run better. I think most people just do it for benchmarks or just to check if it can run on a certain clockspeed.
Also what @simms22 said. You can do it if you want to, but simply because you want to because as far as I know there aren't really any benefits.
Back in my Palm Pre days, we used to overclock that thing to 1GHz. The default setting was 500MHz. I think it was even pushed to 1.2GHz. And it ran fine. But back then, you could tell the difference between a little lag at 500MHz and smoothness at 1GHz. With this phone and how Android has gotten smoother with every update, it's kind of hard to see any difference when overclocking. It will be smooth regardless.
oh, benefits, not really. a little more speed, yes. bit I would never call it a benefit, unless the speed difference was drastic, and its not.
As mentioned, overclocking the CPU can actually turn out to run slower because of aggressive thermal throttling. You could disable or extend the thermal throttling, but 2.3Ghz is already plenty fast for today's mobile software so you won't notice any difference in day to day usage.
bblzd said:
As mentioned, overclocking the CPU can actually turn out to run slower because of aggressive thermal throttling. You could disable or extend the thermal throttling, but 2.3Ghz is already plenty fast for today's mobile software so you won't notice any difference in day to day usage.
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Even if you run your phone at 2880MHz/3014MHz/whatever with thermal throttle off, you can't really do anything too intensive as it'll hit 105C and shutoff lol
Lethargy said:
Even if you run your phone at 2880MHz/3014MHz/whatever with thermal throttle off, you can't really do anything too intensive as it'll hit 105C and shutoff lol
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actually, no, youre wrong. when you run your phone at 2880/300 or 3014/300, you phone will hardly scale up that high, sometimes it will. you wont see any real difference between those high cpu speeds and running it at 2265/300. and battery will be similar. the difference will be if you run it at 2880/2880 or 3014/3014. now i run my phone at 2880/300 very often, and you know i disable thermal throttle. yet, i see no difference in temperatures, except if im doing something thats very cpu intensive.
simms22 said:
actually, no, youre wrong. when you run your phone at 2880/300 or 3014/300, you phone will hardly scale up that high, sometimes it will. you wont see any real difference between those high cpu speeds and running it at 2265/300. and battery will be similar. the difference will be if you run it at 2880/2880 or 3014/3014. now i run my phone at 2880/300 very often, and you know i disable thermal throttle. yet, i see no difference in temperatures, except if im doing something thats very cpu intensive.
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Ah true. But still, a bit easier to hit it if doing something intensive Not to mention it may be a little unstable on some devices
Lethargy said:
Ah true. But still, a bit easier to hit it if doing something intensive Not to mention it may be a little unstable on some devices
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on some devices??? on most devices! anyways, stability is overrated
LOL...no explosions on XDA allowed!

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