Since CM7 already has over and underclocking abilities in the settings, I use SetCPU for profiles, particularly to lower the speed when the screen is off and not in use.
I'm wondering if this is redundant considering that Tegra 2 devices are totally different from other chipsets and if they already have some feature that lowers clock speed (or some equivalent) when not in use. Or in other terms, is there some kind of "CPU governor" (I'm aware Tegra 2 doesn't regulate like more traditional chipsets do) that when the screen is off, battery is being conserved in some way.
Anyone care to shed some light on the subject?
jamadio said:
Since CM7 already has over and underclocking abilities in the settings, I use SetCPU for profiles, particularly to lower the speed when the screen is off and not in use.
I'm wondering if this is redundant considering that Tegra 2 devices are totally different from other chipsets and if they already have some feature that lowers clock speed (or some equivalent) when not in use. Or in other terms, is there some kind of "CPU governor" (I'm aware Tegra 2 doesn't regulate like more traditional chipsets do) that when the screen is off, battery is being conserved in some way.
Anyone care to shed some light on the subject?
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Good point!, I too would like to know more about this.
I believe anything short of ICS does not use dual core - it'd be great to POWER DOWN on of the cores.
I am not convinced screen off profiles make a huge difference. Certain tasks run when the screen is off. It is open to debate if running at a high speed and finishing the task quickly is better than running at a slower speed and taking longer to complete the task.
I did not like the lag created by screen off profiles and in call profiles so I ditched all that stuff a while back. I have better battery life now than then.
---------- Post added at 09:59 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:57 AM ----------
namklak said:
I believe anything short of ICS does not use dual core - it'd be great to POWER DOWN on of the cores.
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I am not sure this is 100% correct. I thought GB made use of dual cores but not to the extent the ICS can.
namklak said:
I believe anything short of ICS does not use dual core - it'd be great to POWER DOWN on of the cores.
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Froyo and Gingerbread do, but not to a level where its a huge difference. ICS is built around dual core, so its optimized for them.
I will recommend not overclocking to 1400mhz and charging it while your about to goto sleep. Lets say that the heat didnt need to be on to warm my bedroom.
After weeks of usage, I believe I have answered my own question. I do not use SetCPU anymore because I believe it is redundant.
Doing several tests, it is clear to me that when I am not using my phone it is setting itself to the lowest CPU clock speed. Even when the screen is on and I'm using a non-CPU-extensive app, it'll lower itself to 216 Mhz (my lowest clock speed).
Related
Can someone point me to where I can learn how to use set cpu and set voltage properly. Just installed superotimized kernel and wondering how to take full advantage of it
p4ranoid4ndroid said:
Can someone point me to where I can learn how to use set cpu and set voltage properly. Just installed superotimized kernel and wondering how to take full advantage of it
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overclocking is pre-enabled, under volting can be done through an app the link is in the thread. there are 2 settings. try about -50v each if that works fine bump one down to -75mv at a time. test the phone over a day or two and see how it runs, see if it has sleep death after a few periods of inactivity, especially extended periods, see if it has sleep death while charging, which seems to make a difference that will test the low setting.
see if the phone shuts down without freezing, and see if it shuts down without freezing while charging, the heat in the battery makes a big difference, play some 3d games. if you have freezing issues you can disable overclocking under different situation with set cpu or se t the volts to a more conservative setting.
Dani897 said:
overclocking is pre-enabled, under volting can be done through an app the link is in the thread. there are 2 settings. try about -50v each if that works fine bump one down to -75mv at a time. test the phone over a day or two and see how it runs, see if it has sleep death after a few periods of inactivity, especially extended periods, see if it has sleep death while charging, which seems to make a difference that will test the low setting.
see if the phone shuts down without freezing, and see if it shuts down without freezing while charging, the heat in the battery makes a big difference, play some 3d games. if you have freezing issues you can disable overclocking under different situation with set cpu or se t the volts to a more conservative setting.
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Click to collapse
I've been told that undervolting can improve the battery time. Of course, lots of varying opinions of how good/bad it may be to overclock.
If I want to just undervolt, is that possible with SetCPU?
Dani897 said:
overclocking is pre-enabled, under volting can be done through an app the link is in the thread. there are 2 settings. try about -50v each if that works fine bump one down to -75mv at a time. test the phone over a day or two and see how it runs, see if it has sleep death after a few periods of inactivity, especially extended periods, see if it has sleep death while charging, which seems to make a difference that will test the low setting.
see if the phone shuts down without freezing, and see if it shuts down without freezing while charging, the heat in the battery makes a big difference, play some 3d games. if you have freezing issues you can disable overclocking under different situation with set cpu or se t the volts to a more conservative setting.
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Click to collapse
ewingr said:
I've been told that undervolting can improve the battery time. Of course, lots of varying opinions of how good/bad it may be to overclock.
If I want to just undervolt, is that possible with SetCPU?
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Interesting stuff...
I too would like to know if it is possible to simply under-volt. Does anyone know the optimal settings for SetCpu with the Captivate...or does it vary depending on each users profile/ phones?
So Ive been playing around with various settings for set cpu and voltage control and all has been well so far. The only problem im having is voltage control seems broke. I try to open the all but it just black screens. I tried to clear the memory and unistall and reinstall and still have the same problem. Any ideas?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=432086&d=1288709102
^you can under volt setirons kernel and disable overclocking with this app.
i find my battery life to be less than stock with this kernel, i need to see if it is a common issue, maybe because it is not a captivate kernel. but in the past with unhelpfuls kernel for 2.1 battery life was awesome.
spartan062984 said:
Interesting stuff...
I too would like to know if it is possible to simply under-volt. Does anyone know the optimal settings for SetCpu with the Captivate...or does it vary depending on each users profile/ phones?
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It's going to depend on the individual CPU in your phone. Your best result is to start at a given clock speed and begin lowering voltage in the smallest step possible, test for stability, repeat until you begin to notice instability (or you just run out of voltage options). You can just undervolt without increasing clock speed any, or you can not undervolt yet raise clock speed, or you can overclock and undervolt, depending on how your particular chip reacts. Some might need additional voltage to stabilize the snapdragon at 1.2Ghz while others (mine for example) is stable Able @ -100mV and 1.2Ghz. Overclocking silicon is the ultimate in YMMV.
Another thing to bear in mind is that increasing clock speed necessarily increases power consumption. There is no way around this. So a chip at 1.2Ghz will use more juice than 1Ghz even with the same voltage. It's difficult to say at this point whether, say, the Snapdragon @ 1.2Ghz and -100mV uses more or less power than the same chip @1Ghz and stock voltage. It's absolutely possible that the former uses more power, which would explain why you see at least one claim here of battery life decreasing even when voltage settings are left untouched.
hawkeyefan said:
It's going to depend on the individual CPU in your phone. Your best result is to start at a given clock speed and begin lowering voltage in the smallest step possible, test for stability, repeat until you begin to notice instability (or you just run out of voltage options). You can just undervolt without increasing clock speed any, or you can not undervolt yet raise clock speed, or you can overclock and undervolt, depending on how your particular chip reacts. Some might need additional voltage to stabilize the snapdragon at 1.2Ghz while others (mine for example) is stable Able @ -100mV and 1.2Ghz. Overclocking silicon is the ultimate in YMMV.
Another thing to bear in mind is that increasing clock speed necessarily increases power consumption. There is no way around this. So a chip at 1.2Ghz will use more juice than 1Ghz even with the same voltage. It's difficult to say at this point whether, say, the Snapdragon @ 1.2Ghz and -100mV uses more or less power than the same chip @1Ghz and stock voltage. It's absolutely possible that the former uses more power, which would explain why you see at least one claim here of battery life decreasing even when voltage settings are left untouched.
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Thanks for clarifying Hawkeye! I will report back on in a few days once i have tested out a few profiles. In my opinion, I feel that it is best to leave Over-clocking at default and maximize battery utilization with setcpu. However, the thought of over-clocking the Dragon beast is VERY tempting. Who wouldn't? I will definitely check out the differences when playing games and such.
spartan062984 said:
Thanks for clarifying Hawkeye! I will report back on in a few days once i have tested out a few profiles. In my opinion, I feel that it is best to leave Over-clocking at default and maximize battery utilization with setcpu. However, the thought of over-clocking the Dragon beast is VERY tempting. Who wouldn't? I will definitely check out the differences when playing games and such.
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I have to tell you, I'm not personally very fond of SetCPU on this device, even though I paid for the app (ugh). With raspdeep's voltage control app and SetIron's OC/UV kernel, the CPU defaults to 1.2Ghz at stock voltage, which for a basic setup is fine. Voltage Control app is phenomenal for adjusting in increments of 25mv at a time...one setting is for high clocks (1Ghz - 1.2Ghz) and the other is for < 1Ghz. It's probably best actually to start with the lower clock setting in Voltage Control, as your phone will spend the lion's share of it's time at those clocks and so that is where you should see the most gain in battery life. My only gripe is that I can't get the boot settings to stick on the Captivate so I have to go in and adjust them each time I reboot the phone. no biggie there.
SetCPU, on the other hand, has caused me loads of problems in the past, including causing the phone not to wake up from sleep and just atrocious battery life, I assume from constantly polling the CPU clock to measure clock speed. I have not experienced any of that with Overclock Widget, but I also don't use any of the independent clockspeed controls in the app...basically it's just a widget to display clock speed the way I use it. Otherwise, Setiron's kernel gives the 200mhz overclock and I just let the Hummingbird deal with changing clocks on its own. Jmo, but it works for me with no resulting battery drain beyond the additional I expect as a result of the extra 200mhz.
edit: whoops, long day. hummingbird in my post from above, not snapdragon. I need a drinky poo.
hawkeyefan said:
I have to tell you, I'm not personally very fond of SetCPU on this device, even though I paid for the app (ugh). With raspdeep's voltage control app and SetIron's OC/UV kernel, the CPU defaults to 1.2Ghz at stock voltage, which for a basic setup is fine. Voltage Control app is phenomenal for adjusting in increments of 25mv at a time...one setting is for high clocks (1Ghz - 1.2Ghz) and the other is for < 1Ghz. It's probably best actually to start with the lower clock setting in Voltage Control, as your phone will spend the lion's share of it's time at those clocks and so that is where you should see the most gain in battery life. My only gripe is that I can't get the boot settings to stick on the Captivate so I have to go in and adjust them each time I reboot the phone. no biggie there.
SetCPU, on the other hand, has caused me loads of problems in the past, including causing the phone not to wake up from sleep and just atrocious battery life, I assume from constantly polling the CPU clock to measure clock speed. I have not experienced any of that with Overclock Widget, but I also don't use any of the independent clockspeed controls in the app...basically it's just a widget to display clock speed the way I use it. Otherwise, Setiron's kernel gives the 200mhz overclock and I just let the Hummingbird deal with changing clocks on its own. Jmo, but it works for me with no resulting battery drain beyond the additional I expect as a result of the extra 200mhz.
edit: whoops, long day. hummingbird in my post from above, not snapdragon. I need a drinky poo.
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LOL. No Worries. I myself made the same mistake. I thought something was odd with my post. SnapDragon...Hummingbird....Bulbasaur.....I knew what you meant. lol
Still not having any luck with the voltage control app. Ive tried flashing different roms to see if it would work. I undervolted it to 100/75 the first time i did it and now i cant change. Only a little worried
i guess there was an issue with the set on boot scripts not working. supposedly that is fixed, i dont know for sure though, i haven't updated.
From what I'm gathering, in order to undervolt, you must have a kernel to su pport that, for example Setirons.
I'm not necessarily interested in overclocking, as it performs well as is. Of course there are arguments that overclocking may ultimately harm the phone, and arguments that by the time that happens, you'd be ready for a new phone. In any event, if I start getting slower, I may interest in overclocking.
Does anyone know if dramatic improvement in battery performance with underclocking?
I've noticed quite a bit of a difference, just pretty difficult to tune it precisely. (Coming from a person who enjoys overclocking computers a little too much). I just wish there was an app that would test each frequency and then let you know which one failed (without having to manually set it).
This is a question for those who have overclocked their Xoom. How much is overclocking to 1.5Ghz affecting battery life?
Overclocking would be the only reason I would root right now, and I am trying to make up my mind on whether to do it.
My battery life is better after using setcpu to overclock. The reason is that the tegra2 chipset scales the performance based on whether it's needed(IE, when you're using your xoom) with setCPU you are extending the top end of how fast the CPU can go. The clever bit is you can also tell your xoom to slow itself down and go very efficient when the screen is off or if the chipset gets too hot (which it never has). If you do go for it I recommend using setcpu using interactive scaling (prioritising the user interface) and whack the max speed up to 1500 and the min speed down to 217 mhz
I wouldn't recommend setting screen-off profiles at the moment. It seems to lead to some strange issues once in a while.
That said, because you're only going to 1.5 GHz when needed, battery life doesn't really suffer. Additionally, at least in my usage, my screen uses ~70-85% of my battery. This is even during heaving gaming, where the Tegra 2 really has to work hard.
I wouldn't worry about its effects, personally.
MrGinger said:
The reason is that the tegra2 chipset scales the performance based on whether it's needed(IE, when you're using your xoom)
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All CPUs do this, not just Tegras.
Re scaling, never said otherwise I've never had a problem with screen off profile. Maybe just lucky
I read a lot of comments about the processor used by qualcomm being asymmetrical thus one core is doing the heavy lifting most of the time while the other is at a lower clock speed and it affects overall performance but enhances battery life. Now that this is a big factor on why the performance and benchmarks are lower than tegra and exynos because its running on one core most of the time.
NOW.... When we get s-off and are able to mess with the kernel, cpu speeds and such. Can there be the possibility where we can use a tool like setcpu to force both cores to run at the same clock speed always? This might level the playing field and show some drastic performance enhancements imo.
Theoretically... Is there a slightest chance something like this can be done? I suppose so since we can manipulate the cpu so easily with kernel access
Please input
nothing? lol
this might be harder than i thought...
mike21pr said:
nothing? lol
this might be harder than i thought...
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I don't think gingerbread has the capability even if the kernel was modified.
We can only wait and see
IMHO, with proper kernel, system will manage cores better and there will not be any lag. Asymmetrical core scaling will yield much better battery life then symmetrical one, just need better implementation.
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?
This is my third time typing this... (This website should really have an auto-save draft feature)
I recently installed the application "CPU Tuner" because I've always wanted to utilize my newly rooted phone. The phone is running Cyanogenmod 7.2 Stable, and currently overclocked at 1.5GHz. My main concern is overclocking my phone that high. Now, I didn't really choose that option, SetCPU automatically set it to that when it loaded a configuration. I'm a beginner to overclocking, and this is my first time doing it for anything. I've heard rumors of people melting their processors from overclocking it, so I want to know if it's okay if its overclocked to roughly twice the stock frequency of 800MHz. If it IS safe, then why isn't the phone automatically set to 1GHz to compare to it's twin, the Evo 4G? Or perhaps even 1.2GHz to surpass it? I would definitely be satisfied with 1.2GHz, but I wouldn't mind having 1.5GHz if it was stable and didn't drain the battery. On to the next question, would an OC this high cause instability and/or would it drain my battery? I only overclocked an hour ago, so I haven't experienced any problems whatsoever... yet. On to the profiles... I'd like some suggestions for improving my triggers. Right now, it set everything up to the highest frequency, but looking at the help, it said to not touch the frequency, but experiment with thresholds. In the Help, it doesn't tell you what the thresholds are, and what they do, and more importantly, how they work. It just shows that the highest is the most battery saving. I would have thought the lower the better, but... Anyway, if you could tell me, I'd be highly appreciated it. Finally, the battery temperature... It has an option to enable a setting to change profiles if the battery gets a certain temperature, but I'd like to know what would be considered "Overheating". I get paranoid when the battery temperature gets a little warm at around 36 Celsius... but the profile it switches to is supposed to really slow down the CPU to preserve battery, so I'd really rather not use it unless it's necessary. So, would 45 - 50 Celsius do, or should I set it a bit lower? My battery is 4000+ mV, if that'd help at all. If you know any sources that you can direct me to that would answer my questions, it'd be highly appreciated.
Wow ok . Well first off check out THIS thread. It will explain a lot about Governors, I/O Schedulers, and a bunch of the questions you have. As for people melting CPUs, I've never actually seen it happen, or know anyone who has had it happen on the Shift. That's not to say it's not possible. It may be, just not probable. The Shift processor compared to the OG EVO's is much better. The Shift even at the stock 800mHz out performs the EVO's processor at 1000mHz. That is in part because it is a 2nd Gen processor vs the EVO's 1st Gen Unit. The Battery Temp should try and always be kept below 115-120 Degrees Fahrenheit. I use SetCPU, and have a Profile that kicks in to lower the OC to around Stock should the Battery Temp every reach 110 Degrees Fahrenheit. My setting are 61mHz Min 1516mHz Max, Smartass V2 Governor, and SIO Scheduler. But every device is different, so your going to have to do a bit of experimenting till you find what works for you. If you get a lot of Random Reboots, lower your Max OC setting, or try a different Governor. BTW where did you get a 4000mAh Battery?
prboy1969 said:
Wow ok . Well first off check out THIS thread. It will explain a lot about Governors, I/O Schedulers, and a bunch of the questions you have. As for people melting CPUs, I've never actually seen it happen, or know anyone who has had it happen on the Shift. That's not to say it's not possible. It may be, just not probable. The Shift processor compared to the OG EVO's is much better. The Shift even at the stock 800mHz out performs the EVO's processor at 1000mHz. That is in part because it is a 2nd Gen processor vs the EVO's 1st Gen Unit. The Battery Temp should try and always be kept below 115-120 Degrees Fahrenheit. I use SetCPU, and have a Profile that kicks in to lower the OC to around Stock should the Battery Temp every reach 110 Degrees Fahrenheit. My setting are 61mHz Min 1516mHz Max, Smartass V2 Governor, and SIO Scheduler. But every device is different, so your going to have to do a bit of experimenting till you find what works for you. If you get a lot of Random Reboots, lower your Max OC setting, or try a different Governor. BTW where did you get a 4000mAh Battery?
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Thanks for the response. It's pretty late, so I've bookmarked the link to read tomorrow. Alright, so 45 degrees Celsius should the maximum then. I've been thinking of switching over to SetCPU, since there are more comprehensive guides than for CPU Tuner (In which no one seems to have heard about), and it doesn't seem that the settings it set will be ideal for the long run. Although, before I switch over to SetCPU, I want to at least give it a shot. I'll change my settings so that the frequency decreases depending on battery level. Also, I don't have much but the basic governors and configurations on CPU Tuner, so I've never heard of Smartass V2 (Prior to skimming through the link you posted). Also, the battery came with it, I knew it seemed a bit different from most other batteries (From what I've seen in searches, most of them had around 2000), but I didn't know it meant that much.
The Governor settings available will depend on the Kernel, not on the CPU Controller. I've always been partial to SetCPU, but that's just me. I would again suggest doing a bit of reading, and experimentation to find your best settings. But defiantly the closer to normal the Battery temperature is the better. When the Battery heats up to much it will in most cases also drain faster. If you can post a Pic of the Battery I would really like to see it. I've never come across a 400mAh Battery for the Shift.
When I first rooted my shift 2 years ago I was very concerned of over-heating. I constantly checked the temperature. After a while I realized it is quite hard to over heat and cause damage, especially with the newest kernels the devs have put out. Just experiment with different settings and see what works best for your phone
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