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[Q] Overclocking and battery life

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

[Q] CPU Setting Question

As the thread states, I obviously have a question about SetCPU and processor settings.
Is it better to have the processor underclocked and almost always using 100% to use programs, or it better off to overclock and have more processing power without using 100% or close to that mark.
And what would be more beneficial for battery life.
Edit: And if mods could move this to Q&A. Clicked the wrong forum.
Thanks,
Cyanide

Cyanidex00 said:
As the thread states, I obviously have a question about SetCPU and processor settings.
Is it better to have the processor underclocked and almost always using 100% to use programs, or it better off to overclock and have more processing power without using 100% or close to that mark.
And what would be more beneficial for battery life.
Edit: And if mods could move this to Q&A. Clicked the wrong forum.
Thanks,
Cyanide
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Click to collapse
Actually we could use some hard evidence regarding this. Theories are theories, but actual experience is golden. Maybe you could try some various processor settings are report back?

Well, before I posted this I was using 245/886 underclocked with 245/245 screen off profile. At the end of the day I had an average about 75-80% percent battery life with pretty moderate to heavy usage.
I'm current using 245/1574 overclocked and will report back, with same screen off profile.
And yes, I did wipe battery stats before I started this.

Cyanidex00 said:
Well, before I posted this I was using 245/886 underclocked with 245/245 screen off profile. At the end of the day I had an average about 75-80% percent battery life with pretty moderate to heavy usage.
I'm current using 245/1574 overclocked and will report back, with same screen off profile.
And yes, I did wipe battery stats before I started this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool, thanks for that info. Are you finding that forcing a 245 mhz screen off speed is impacting any apps running while your screen is off (e.g. music playing apps)? A couple of weeks ago I tried forcing the screen off at 122 mhz to see if that would help battery life, but I had big problems with music apps stuttering. I didn't play around with the speeds to see if raising the forced minimum to 245 would have fixed the problem. Some kernels advertise as a feature "Max speed - screen off 576MHz" or some other speed, but I don't know if it needs to be that high or not, for app stability.

I personally haven't tried any music or apps running while screen is off, I'll give it a whirl when I get home from work.
I know this obviously will vary from phone to phone, and how the user uses the phone. I'm pretty moderate to heavy usage daily. Hopefully maybe we can compile some data on what works for people.

I have my screen off profile set at 245 and have no problem streaming music from my SD card with the screen off. When streaming from the cloud, I sometimes get a very long pause between songs that isn't there with the screen on. I will try raising my screen off speed to see if that changes anything.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA Premium App

henrybravo said:
Cool, thanks for that info. Are you finding that forcing a 245 mhz screen off speed is impacting any apps running while your screen is off (e.g. music playing apps)? A couple of weeks ago I tried forcing the screen off at 122 mhz to see if that would help battery life, but I had big problems with music apps stuttering. I didn't play around with the speeds to see if raising the forced minimum to 245 would have fixed the problem. Some kernels advertise as a feature "Max speed - screen off 576MHz" or some other speed, but I don't know if it needs to be that high or not, for app stability.
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Click to collapse
I noticed this yesterday. My screen off is also 245. My music stuttered, but only once (and it was fairly brief).

I raised the screen off speed to 368 and have not had any sputtering or long pauses between songs, even when streaming from the cloud.
Sent from my Inspire 4G using the power of the dark side.

biglittlegato said:
I raised the screen off speed to 368 and have not had any sputtering or long pauses between songs, even when streaming from the cloud.
Sent from my Inspire 4G using the power of the dark side.
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Click to collapse
Good to know, thanks!

Cyanidex00 said:
As the thread states, I obviously have a question about SetCPU and processor settings.
Is it better to have the processor underclocked and almost always using 100% to use programs, or it better off to overclock and have more processing power without using 100% or close to that mark.
And what would be more beneficial for battery life.
Edit: And if mods could move this to Q&A. Clicked the wrong forum.
Thanks,
Cyanide
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use SetCPU at 460/1152 brazilianwax, screen off 122/537 conservative and have good battery life and no issues when playing music w/ screenoff....

Overclocking is almost guaranteed to worsen battery life compared to say if it was at stock 1 ghz or a little less.
With a governor like on demand, its gonna scale from the lowest to to highest allowed as soon as it gets some load on it, eg from 245mhz to whatever Max is (1017, 1075, or 1920 etc), without stopping in between.
Even conservative with fast scaling will probably scale close to Max clock speed pretty quickly under load, so theoretically this should be a /little/ better for battery than on demand, but will not seem as fast and could possibly make the phone seem more laggy. Smartass is very similiar to conservative as it scales depending on a preset % of CPU load. If its set to 70%, when CPU reaches 70% load, it scales to next frequency, when that frequently hits 70% load, its scales again. The version of the on demand governor most of us have in out kernels is the fastest scaling option, which goes from min CPU - straight to max

Using ROMs: Performance increase?

I am considering using a custom ROM on the transformer, but is it worth it, I am mainly after performance increases. I see on a few that there are higher benchmark results, but does this actually translate into a real world speed increase?
I remember some custom ROMs for the original i9000 Galaxy S doubled the benchmark performance, but that was more down to "cheating" the benchmark than anything else, although it certainly was noticeable at times.
One of the slight criticisms I have of the TF101 is a slight amount of lag / lack of responsiveness occasionally - not a deal breaker, but if it can be improved then why not? Obviously not at the cost of stability though.
I think the SGS2 has spoiled me a bit here!

apparently there is a big increase (mostly from overclocking). i had the standard firmware for 3 days only, so I can't really tell, but one of my co-workers has a locked B70 and was wow-ed by my TF, the smoothness and speed of it.

Yes, I'm waiting too, to root it and put a cutom ROM on. I read, heard and saw the performance difference. Mainly from the overclock, but also thanks to kernel tweaks and stuff. So If you can root, do it
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using xda premium

I've never been that keen on the idea of overclocking, as I prefer to have a bit of headroom, but I guess if it is safe and makes a big difference, then I would give it a shot. What would be a good middle ground for stability / speed ?

1.4 IMO is very stable and doesn't increase heat or use more battery but the real world performance is noticable. I have never run a benchmark so I can't give you any numbers. Just my normal use.

Cheers for the reply.
Is there any one ROM that stands out as being the best performing?

Contrary to what people think they all perform about the same. There is no source so everyone is building of the same stock rom. If you want the same look then go with Revolution. If you want a little tweaked then go with Prime (What I'm on). If you want the tweaks and a nice tools package then go with Revolver (What I was just running). All 3 devs are really responsive to problems
If you start from a clean base and don't restore any system data from other builds then they will all be fast. The real speed difference is in the kernel and those can be flashed seperately from the rom. Clemsyn is really putting out kernels this week. Some good. Some not so good. Go with whats right for you.
EDIT: I have actually installed all 3 roms in the last week and run them at stock and at 1.4 Ghz. They all performed exactly the same for me. They were all equally stable. I don't use benchmarks because they can be fudged.

I've used all three too. I notice huge improvements with webpage rendering. It's almost as fast as my laptop, where as before I avoided using the browser if possible. The ability to hide the status bar is a really nice addition to the latest version of revolver.
Edit: autorotate is also alot faster.
Sent from my Sensation using XDA Premium App

tameracingdriver said:
What would be a good middle ground for stability / speed ?
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Click to collapse
There is no such thing as an overclocking "middle ground" when dealing with mobile chipsets such as the Tegra. It's not like overclocking a desktop computer where the CPU will constantly run at the specified speed; mobile chipsets are pre-configured to utilize only as much power as necessary. For that reason I always ramp up my tablet to the max clock speed it can reliably handle, because then the governor will handle balancing between speed, stability, and battery life. My clock speed can range from 216Mhz to 1624Mhz, and on the interactive governor I can still achieve a good 8 hours of battery life from a single charge.
Of course that's not to say that you couldn't constantly run at 1624Mhz all the time, and I do sometimes lock it to that speed for games. But for much of the OS interaction, it's not necessary to run at full speed all the time, and you won't notice a difference even if it is locked at full speed. It just comes in handy every once in a while for things like loading apps, loading web pages, and playing games.

Performance mode

I've been searching around for a bit and cant find a definitive answer on the affects of performance mode on the infinity (Not rooted, running stock). I wanted to get everyone's opinion on how exactly it affects the OVERALL performance of the infinity.
Is the trade off worth the decreased battery life? Does it alleviate some of the lag we sometimes see in battery saving and balanced mode? What areas ( browsing, app draw animation, switching between home screens etc...) do you see the greatest increase in performance?
Also i don't really care about the different benchmark scores that are out there. I want opinions on EVERYDAY USAGE, not benchmark results. Thanks in advance guys!
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T

running stock deodexed rom in performance mode,
set cpu with on demand governor and minimum clock bumped up to around 240,
browser to ram installed along with system tuner tweeks I couldn't be happier.
Battery life is still great and I get really good performance with Dolphin and good performance with Chrome.

lafester said:
running stock deodexed rom in performance mode,
set cpu with on demand governor and minimum clock bumped up to around 240,
browser to ram installed along with system tuner tweeks I couldn't be happier.
Battery life is still great and I get really good performance with Dolphin and good performance with Chrome.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Like i said, looking for info on COMPLETE stock, not rooted... running the performance mode option on the inifinity.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T

Good question...
I don't see much difference tween performance and balanced.
Gaming is a tad better in performance maybe because it pushes the GPU a bit.
As far as everyday use and battery life not much more speed in performance.
Just another button to push versus a root tweak.

Hmmm, OP - why not just try it yourself and see?? Who would be a better judge than you, on your own device, using the apps that you use??
Everyone uses these tablets differently and just because someone else gets better results with their setup, doesn't mean that you would see the same results...
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

I use Power Saving for everything except Gaming, works nicely with upto 9 hours of screen time.

jtrosky said:
Hmmm, OP - why not just try it yourself and see?? Who would be a better judge than you, on your own device, using the apps that you use??
Everyone uses these tablets differently and just because someone else gets better results with their setup, doesn't mean that you would see the same results...
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2
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Click to collapse
I have tried it, but obviously im not the only one who owns a tf700, nor is my use of the tablet the same as everyone else. Also there have been obvious differences in individual tablet performance regardless of performance mode. Hence why im asking everyone's opinion. That way i can compare my results to those of everyone else and see if there is a correlation. Cant do that by just looking at my own individual results
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T

hiemanshu said:
I use Power Saving for everything except Gaming, works nicely with upto 9 hours of screen time.
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Click to collapse
ok...but how does your tab perform in performance mode as compared to battery saving? Not really getting alot of info from that post. Thanks for responding though!
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T

pierrekid said:
I have tried it, but obviously im not the only one who owns a tf700, nor is my use of the tablet the same as everyone else. Also there have been obvious differences in individual tablet performance regardless of performance mode. Hence why im asking everyone's opinion. That way i can compare my results to those of everyone else and see if there is a correlation. Cant do that by just looking at my own individual results
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess I misunderstood your post - I thought you were trying to determine if you should use performance mode or not...
So, what were your conclusions when you tried it?
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

jtrosky said:
I guess I misunderstood your post - I thought you were trying to determine if you should use performance mode or not...
So, what were your conclusions when you tried it?
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2
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Click to collapse
Honestly no real difference. Seems like a lot of wasted power for no gain and decreased battery life. But i might be wrong.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T

pierrekid said:
Like i said, looking for info on COMPLETE stock, not rooted... running the performance mode option on the inifinity.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T
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Click to collapse
If you want good performance you need to at least root your device.

as far as cpu speed goes, all performance mode does is kick up the max from 1.5GHz to 1.7GHz. in power saving mode the max is 1GHz. not sure about gpu changes.
i tend to use power saving mode unless im playing a resource intensive game, which honestly doesn't happen all that often. i don't really see a difference between the modes as far as changing between home screens, launcher drawer, etc.

lafester said:
If you want good performance you need to at least root your device.
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Click to collapse
Understandable, but that's not what im asking. If i wanted to know the what rom to use and how that specific rom performed on performance mode, then i would ask that. But im not asking that. Thanks anyways.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T

urrlyx said:
as far as cpu speed goes, all performance mode does is kick up the max from 1.5GHz to 1.7GHz. in power saving mode the max is 1GHz. not sure about gpu changes.
i tend to use power saving mode unless im playing a resource intensive game, which honestly doesn't happen all that often. i don't really see a difference between the modes as far as changing between home screens, launcher drawer, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I appreciate the response. Very informative. What do you usually use your tab for?
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T

If its like the 201 which I assume it is then:
Performance mode has higher maximum speed and is more aggressive with powergating. It also has higher contrast and I think faster bus link speed. 3d speed is best at this setting.
Balanced will scale to quad core but will be more hesitant to hit high speed and ungate cores compared to performance mode. The net is a slight stutter. The contrast is lower. 2d balanced performance is the same as performance and powersave is about half the 2d speed.
Powersave is more conservative with speeds and gating. Is good for video playback if you can get over the dynamic contrast which is higher in this mode.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda app-developers app

tf201 said:
If its like the 201 which I assume it is then:
Performance mode has higher maximum speed and is more aggressive with powergating. It also has higher contrast and I think faster bus link speed. 3d speed is best at this setting.
Balanced will scale to quad core but will be more hesitant to hit high speed and ungate cores compared to performance mode. The net is a slight stutter. The contrast is lower. 2d balanced performance is the same as performance and powersave is about half the 2d speed.
Powersave is more conservative with speeds and gating. Is good for video playback if you can get over the dynamic contrast which is higher in this mode.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great post thanks man
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T

hiemanshu said:
I use Power Saving for everything except Gaming, works nicely with upto 9 hours of screen time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really? My Infinity is incredibly slow in PS Mode. Running stock ROM, not rooted.

pierrekid said:
Honestly no real difference. Seems like a lot of wasted power for no gain and decreased battery life. But i might be wrong.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've had noticeable lag in balanced mode while watching 1080P video. I get zero lag with performance mode. I also notice the graphics frame rate is smoother and higher on performance mode as well. Especially when you play games that totally utilize the tegra 3 chip set.

pierrekid said:
I appreciate the response. Very informative. What do you usually use your tab for?
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most of the time I've spent with the tablet so far has been flashing roms (stock based and cm10 testing which tends to be very time consuming lol) and tweaking stuff. When I do actually USE it, it has been for media consumption most of the time (displaying photos for friends that are over, reading ebooks, looking up something on the web, reading XDA, etc). Nothing really resource intensive.

Stock, non-rooted, not unlocked, no tweaks, turned off most bloatware. Running a Live Wallpaper (Steampunk Droid). Have had it since about a week before the release. (yes yes, the store cheated.)
My everyday use is mainly: checking mail, typing documents (books), watching videos (tvshows, films), working in Photoshop Painter and Sketchbook, reading pdf magazines, playing (non-casual) games, reading 9gag, vlc remote, design presentations, playing music, webtesting layouts.
From what I've noticed:
Power Saving:
Delay in loading apps, changing screens, scrolling and swiping (4-5 seconds to load the icons on homescreen). Typing (120wpm) on the dock keyboard drives it completely insane, I have to wait about two minutes for it to finish catching up, and it usually ends up as complete gibberish; Highly amusing, but not very useful. Videos of any size pretty much won't render properly at all. Websites take quite a while to load. Saves the most battery in sleep mode (+-1% loss over 10h wifi off)
Balanced:
Smooth screen transition, appscreen loads (almost) instantly. Lags slightly during intensive use (typing with keyboard, video loading, heavy games, multiple browsing tabs). Videos work alright, anything over 720p won't work properly, Tegra3 games lag (fps of about 5). Ordinary games run fine.
Performance:
Bit more snap-responsive than Balanced, by a fraction of a second. Not vital, still noticable if you're looking for it. Blurays run (more or less) smoothly (ICS isn't designed for it) (tested with Timescapes 4K bluray 1080p mp4 in VLC Béta, it ran the video for 8 hours on high brightness&ips+ with dock connected.). Heavy games (MW3, NOVA3) run fine. No delay between swiping, switching screens or launching apps.
There is no difference in screen contrast or brightness between Balanced and Perfomance as far as I can see.
Personally, I use Battery Saving when I put the device to sleep or on idle (the occasional email it can handle just fine). For normal use, I go for Balanced mode. If I notice it is a bit sluggish in games and videos, I switch to performance for the duration and then just swap back once I'm done. Using performance for anything other than when it has trouble rendering is a waste of battery and power.
Hope this helps.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T 64GB

Galaxy Tab 2 heat problem

My Tab is clocked to 1.2 Ghz. It gets hot when using my tablet for about 10 minutes. It hasent re booted or anything. Is there anyway to cool it down withought going back to my stock clock (1008 Mhz)? ■_■
Sent from my GT-P5113 using xda app-developers app

How high is your screen brightness and how intensive is the apps your using? also what are your governor and I/O scheduler set to? mine rarely gets more then lukewarm and I've got the 7" and overclocked.

I'm running mine at stock speeds, in an Otterbox case. I have run it for hours on end and haven't noticed the slightest bit of heat buildup. And that's inside a pretty well sealed case with very little ventilation / air circulation. Personally, I'd go back to stock speeds if it's getting this hot. IMO, there isn't much benefit from only a 200Mhz increase. To me, the cons outweigh the pros and isn't worth the risk of damage.

daniel644 said:
How high is your screen brightness and how intensive is the apps your using? also what are your governor and I/O scheduler set to? mine rarely gets more then lukewarm and I've got the 7" and overclocked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My screen brightness is ¼ full. It gets hot after 10 mins of just watching videos on YouTube and browsing the web. Governor: Performance. I/O: cfq.
By the way, how much did you overclock it? i only OCed my one 200 Mhz more :S. If you need to know what ROM i am using, it is called Zap Blaster.

You said you have your governer set to performance, that means your cpu is pegged at 1200 megahertz the whole time. Thats your problem. Use on demand or interactive.
Sent from my GT-P5113 using xda premium

jasonpantuliano said:
You said you have your governer set to performance, that means your cpu is pegged at 1200 megahertz the whole time. Thats your problem. Use on demand or interactive.
Sent from my GT-P5113 using xda premium
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Click to collapse
Ok, thanks so much! i hope this will keep my Tab cool. I will test it on 1.3Ghz too! ^^ Thanks a bunch!!

jasonpantuliano said:
You said you have your governer set to performance, that means your cpu is pegged at 1200 megahertz the whole time. Thats your problem. Use on demand or interactive.
Sent from my GT-P5113 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What about the I/O Scheduler? Should i change that to something?

NexTech00 said:
My screen brightness is ¼ full. It gets hot after 10 mins of just watching videos on YouTube and browsing the web. Governor: Performance. I/O: cfq.
By the way, how much did you overclock it? i only OCed my one 200 Mhz more :S. If you need to know what ROM i am using, it is called Zap Blaster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have clock cpu up to 1.480ghz stock roms, kk boot kernel,
Try watching YouTube, play gta game and nfs mw, while charging for 10 minutes
Ya table so hot, I checked the temperature on setcpu app, 49c°
Smelling plastic burn in a back,
Try your self...
Send From nokia n9 QUAD BOOT : Maemo, Meego, NITDroid, and Kubuntu.

iskandarizzz said:
I have clock cpu up to 1.480ghz stock roms, kk boot kernel,
Try watching YouTube, play gta game and nfs mw, while charging for 10 minutes
Ya table so hot, I checked the temperature on setcpu app, 49c°
Smelling plastic burn in a back,
Try your self...
Send From nokia n9 QUAD BOOT : Maemo, Meego, NITDroid, and Kubuntu.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi I have one tab 2 p3100 too and I listen about kk boat but not understand well what is kk boat. it's kernel?
Enviado de meu GT-P3100 usando o Tapatalk 2

NexTech00 said:
My screen brightness is ¼ full. It gets hot after 10 mins of just watching videos on YouTube and browsing the web. Governor: Performance. I/O: cfq.
By the way, how much did you overclock it? i only OCed my one 200 Mhz more :S. If you need to know what ROM i am using, it is called Zap Blaster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hotplug Governor and Deadline I/O overclocked at 1.3GHz. ZERO heat issues, EXCELLENT battery life (hotplug, disables the second core when not needed).

Battery Temp. Range Between...
Hello,
I just got myself a Tab 2 7.0 about 10 days ago. After using it for a while i found that it's back gets heat while putting on charge.
Even though it holds a battery like around 9.5 hours of On Screen time and 2 Days of stand by with WIFI and Carrier signal ON. Also i've notice that putting tab under power saving mode and under charge catches heat faster then regular charging mode.
So my question is, Battery performs well? Or it's faulty? What normal range of temp. for Tab 2 P3100 while on charge. Let me know if anyone has anything to advise with.
Tab 2 7.0 still under warranty around half a year.Also forgot to mention, Tab is Running Stock 4.1.2 JB
Thanks.