Heya,
I've heard of this SetCPU program, and figured it has some solid potential of saving battery power.
My question is - does it work? I've read several post claiming that SetCPU doesn't work on HTC phones.
If it does - will using the "Mix \ Max frequency" mode will save battery during stand by and normal usage, or just slow down the phone?
Using Rooted Desire, LeeDroid 2.2d.
Its primary use is to overclock the CPU, its secondary use is to create profiles and reduce the clock or change the governor. This will improve battery life slightly but also decrease responsiveness, depending on how far you go.
You'll need root if you want to use it.
To really increase battery life you have to use a custom ROM with an undervolted kernel.
So you're saying that the saving in battery life is insignificant considering the slowdown in performance?
yes, you use LeeDroid which is undervolted, thus perfect conditions.
It also uses a custom governor 'Smartass' which gives you best performance while using it and limits the max. clock while sleeping. That's the most common method to increase battery life with SetCPU while maintaining performance. So no, you don't need SetCPU, LeeDroid handles everything perfectly already.
However, the Desire has a very powerful CPU, compared with other Smartphones. So you can use SetCPU to limit the clock to maybe 700MHz or 800MHz. This will increase the battery life but also reduce the processing power. If you don't play games, don't do a lot of simultaneous things or browsing huge websites, don't use heavy loaded homescreens, it's possible that you don't notice the reduced processing power.
Thanks again
I guess there is no damage to the SnapDragon if I lower clock speeds a bit...
But, if I want to do some overclocking - how far is it safe to go?
When I OC'ed my Q6600 CPU I used the TheremalRight Extreme 120 with two Slip Stream fans to cool it off.. So, will heat damage be a constant threat to an overclocked Desire?
I currently live in Israel, and it's hot as hell even on stock speeds
CoreOxide said:
Thanks again
I guess there is no damage to the SnapDragon if I lower clock speeds a bit...
But, if I want to do some overclocking - how far is it safe to go?
When I OC'ed my Q6600 CPU I used the TheremalRight Extreme 120 with two Slip Stream fans to cool it off.. So, will heat damage be a constant threat to an overclocked Desire?
I currently live in Israel, and it's hot as hell even on stock speeds
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I for one has chosen to disable the default powersave in Auraxt sense, and then using SetCPU to control it, i get a day of power easily, and still goes to bed wit 50% power, that is with stock clocks on normal usage, but with minimum power (245) on screen off
Re overclocking:
To reach high clock speeds you also increase the voltage on your PC, else you can't increase the frequency that drastically.
Because you can't improve the cooling on the desire you have to keep stock voltages but also can't overclock that much.
The overclocking methods on the desire keep the voltage at stock values or even lower (defrost rom).
I don't know the voltage values for LeeDroid.
I it shouldn't get warmer. In the worst case it will crash and reboot until you reduce the clock speed.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Related
I was wondering what were "optimum" SetCPU settings while running cyanogenmod 7?
Optimum for what? battery life? performance?
Of course, you could just keep it overclocked, as high as 1.8ghz I think depending on your kernel. But your battery life won't be that great.
You can also keep it at the stock 800mhz.
Most people I bet keep it around 1ghz, and have SetCPU profiles set up to lower CPU speed as battery levels get lower and lower.
I personally (not on CM7) set mine up to lower CPU a tad at 40%, even lower at 20%, and drastically lower at 10%.
I guess optimum for performance while saving battery life. I'm new to the whole overclocking and I'm not sure what profiles to set up
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App
Well the thing is its really all personal preference when it comes down to it. Just tweak with your settings and check out your results.
I mean optimal performance with maximizing battery life would follow a few basic profiles:
Screen off: 245min/245max
When <10%: 245min/~500max (my personal preference)
And if you're trying to keep your battery pretty decent, I would recommend keeping your clock speed at 1ghz or lower maximum. Anything higher you're gonna start seeing negative battery life.
There are many other things to do to lengthen battery life that aren't SetCPU related, such as managing your radios and networks.
i have used the search and not found any solid info
what are the benefits of it if any
I haven't heard of people undervolting their fone, although i haven't looked to much.
This would mean though reducing the power that the CPU gets. I would imagine this increases battery life among other things.
Your right about what it is, but almost every custom rom/ kernel is undervolted in development section.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Undervolting means, the CPU (or hardware in the phone) gets lower voltages, thus saving more battery & not loosing performance.
Undervolting is a process which reduces the excess "voltage" given to the CPU using a software. This is widely used as a cooling solution and in my opinion more effective than any other cooling solution available (thermal paste, cooling pad, etc) at NO cost. Undervolting will NOT compromise performance at all. Underclocking and Overclocking (clock speeds) is whats responsible in regards to performance. Benchmarks will also prove that performance remains the same.
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Not excess voltage but fully, manufacturer guaranteed, stable Core voltage to lower guesswork voltages which may or may not work and may or may not cause data loss/corruption.
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- Sent via HTC Desire -
A cpu needs power for every 'clock cycle'. 1Ghz means there are a billion per second. IF you lower the voltage, there is less power used. But if you lower it too much, the cpu wo'nt be able to 'cycle its clock'...
So undervolting doesn't affect performance, since the cpu remains on 1Ghz. It decreases the power used, so you get better battery life.
Every single cpu is different, so HTC has chosen a default voltage that (shoud) work on all phones they sell. But your particular cpu could be able to work at a lower voltage. It's just a matter of trail and error. Decrease the voltage until the cpu stops working, then higher it a bit. That way you've undervolted your cpu so it uses the least power.
koenvbeek said:
A cpu needs power for every 'clock cycle'. 1Ghz means there are a billion per second. IF you lower the voltage, there is less power used. But if you lower it too much, the cpu wo'nt be able to 'cycle its clock'...
So undervolting doesn't affect performance, since the cpu remains on 1Ghz. It decreases the power used, so you get better battery life.
Every single cpu is different, so HTC has chosen a default voltage that (shoud) work on all phones they sell. But your particular cpu could be able to work at a lower voltage. It's just a matter of trail and error. Decrease the voltage until the cpu stops working, then higher it a bit. That way you've undervolted your cpu so it uses the least power.
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Very sensible answer..Thanks
koenvbeek said:
A cpu needs power for every 'clock cycle'. 1Ghz means there are a billion per second. IF you lower the voltage, there is less power used. But if you lower it too much, the cpu wo'nt be able to 'cycle its clock'...
So undervolting doesn't affect performance, since the cpu remains on 1Ghz. It decreases the power used, so you get better battery life.
Every single cpu is different, so HTC has chosen a default voltage that (shoud) work on all phones they sell. But your particular cpu could be able to work at a lower voltage. It's just a matter of trail and error. Decrease the voltage until the cpu stops working, then higher it a bit. That way you've undervolted your cpu so it uses the least power.
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How would one go about under volting .i have tried everything suggested to me and nothing really seems to make a difference
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Most kernels are undervolted and unless you can compile the kernel for yourself you are stuck with the values given by the creator. There are two exceptions for this, HAVS kernels which automaticly chose a voltage depending on temperature and some other stuff and SVS kernels with snq-'s volt selection interface (found in Leedroid and maybe some other kernels/roms).
So what exactly have you tried and what did you expect to see? Because the difference won't be that noticeable.
TheGhost1233 said:
Most kernels are undervolted and unless you can compile the kernel for yourself you are stuck with the values given by the creator. There are two exceptions for this, HAVS kernels which automaticly chose a voltage depending on temperature and some other stuff and SVS kernels with snq-'s volt selection interface (found in Leedroid and maybe some other kernels/roms).
So what exactly have you tried and what did you expect to see? Because the difference won't be that noticeable.
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I have tried battery calibration, using app watch dog to let me know which apps are using excessive CPU. Putting my brightness down to 10%, making sure not everything is synced, the only thing synced is beautiful widgets every 4 hours. And just about everything else that has been put forward to me. Here's another example I just taken my phone off charge at 100% and wrote this and I'm now at 73 %. And its only taken2 mins to write
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
adz63 said:
I have tried battery calibration, using app watch dog to let me know which apps are using excessive CPU. Putting my brightness down to 10%, making sure not everything is synced, the only thing synced is beautiful widgets every 4 hours. And just about everything else that has been put forward to me. Here's another example I just taken my phone off charge at 100% and wrote this and I'm now at 73 %.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
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So in short you havent tried any kernel with undervolting at all!
Well that all has nothing to do with undervolting, but (extra) undervolting will not fix the drain problem you have.
Do you use setCPU cause your sig says you run at 1113MHz, which cause higher consumption. Also did you set your wifi sleep policy to never(setting-wireless and network-wifi settings-press menu-advanced-wifi sleep police).
At the moment I have the havs kernel that comes with oxygen 2.0 rc6. I have posted another topic about is the kendal good for battery life etc and no1 has told that another kendal would make anything better
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
TheGhost1233 said:
Well that all has nothing to do with undervolting, but (extra) undervolting will not fix the drain problem you have.
Do you use setCPU cause your sig says you run at 1113MHz, which cause higher consumption. Also did you set your wifi sleep policy to never(setting-wireless and network-wifi settings-press menu-advanced-wifi sleep police).
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@TheGhost1233, how exactly does one decide which kernel suits us best..
Eg: I see two undervolted kernels (I think) at 875 and 925 mV. I have no idea how to decide. Trial and error?
Froyo Kernel [email protected] min
Froyo Kernel [email protected] min
@droidzone Yes trial and error. The mentioned voltage is the lowest the cpu will get at 245MHz. Not all devices are stable with 875mV (you will know if your phone freezes up) so then you move up to the 925mV min. Other than the voltage there is no difference between 875mV or 925mV.
With the HAVS kernels it can take a while before you notice the freezes cause the voltage is dynamic, so be careful if you need your phone as a alarm clock.
I am new to android phones. And i have no experience about overclock.
Will my cpu easily break down due to keep overclocking?..
Honestly, i seldom change my cell phone model, i want my defy can stay a life at least 1.5yr.
i think overclocking can't really damage your phone, voltage can. so i suggest you keep the voltage around [email protected] (default is [email protected], so this should be fine), and if the phone doesn't hang or reboot, you're good to go but you could try lowering vsels, you know, the lower the voltage, the lower the power consumption, the heat and the chance to fry your cpu but i'm not sure!
Yep, 1 GHz is safe, I'm using [email protected] as well, and the CPU is capable to run easily at [email protected] continuously. The leaked Gingerbread ROM from Motorola uses 1GHz as well, so don't worry, you just have to find the safe vsel settings.
thanks for replying, i m currently using 1GHz @ 58 .. Everything is alright
Should I make the voltage as low as possible?
yeah, just to lower the power consumption and temperature, but it isn't necessary.
Can you share your voltage setting please..?
I do the stability test and it gets successful run for 5min then this means the setting is okay?
i don't overclock, just undervolt, here are my settings (with setvsel):
800MHz - 45vsel
600MHz - 30vsel
300MHz - 18vsel
up_threshold: 90%
actually if you wanna make absolutely sure your device is stable, you should run it like for an hour. but if it runs for 5 minutes without error that's quite okay, you shouldn't have problems with those settings
Thanks so much, i m trying to lower my voltage setting.
Besides, i want to ask about the battery temperature, what is the maximum temperature before getting damage to the cell? I usually goes up to 37~39 degree celsius.. is it normal?
mine is usually around 29-32 °C, but i have it undervolted, so idk. but 37-39 seems a bit high, that means the cpu temp is way over 40 degrees, you should check it out!
EDIT: tried stress testing for 20 minutes with [email protected], it went up to 35°C, so you should definitely find out what's wrong with your device!
I actually underclocked to 600MHz, since I couldn't see a big difference even at 1200MHz in normal usage. A Pentium3 at 4Ghz will still not perform as well as a slower clocked new CPU for example, CPU design is more important - what instructions it supports.
Battery life is more imprtant to me and heat is very bad for Li-ion batteries too.
Also I found changing the CPU governor to "interactive" made a difference in GUI responsiveness and I have had less stuttering.
nisamtetreb said:
I actually underclocked to 600MHz, since I couldn't see a big difference even at 1200MHz in normal usage. A Pentium3 at 4Ghz will still not perform as well as a slower clocked new CPU for example, CPU design is more important - what instructions it supports.
Battery life is more imprtant to me and heat is very bad for Li-ion batteries too.
Also I found changing the CPU governor to "interactive" made a difference in GUI responsiveness and I have had less stuttering.
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so, what's your standby lifetime after underclocked cpu?
I can see the performance improved when i was watching flash video on browser. But honestly, i dont think there are anymore huge difference after overclocking..
But as the battery life still remains quite well, i will still keep overclocking to 1GHz.. Isn't it a good idea?
nisamtetreb said:
I actually underclocked to 600MHz, since I couldn't see a big difference even at 1200MHz in normal usage. A Pentium3 at 4Ghz will still not perform as well as a slower clocked new CPU for example, CPU design is more important - what instructions it supports.
Battery life is more imprtant to me and heat is very bad for Li-ion batteries too.
Also I found changing the CPU governor to "interactive" made a difference in GUI responsiveness and I have had less stuttering.
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lol... What happend to HD and THD games... Did u try playing them at 600mhz??
Overclocking to 1 GHz with the right voltage values seems to be absolutely no problem for Defy.
BTW, does anyone know whether it's possible to set scaling governor to "Interactive" mode under Froyo? Gingerbread kernel let me set it, but I haven't found the way under Froyo.
Battery life was a little bit better, the display and 3G always draw a lot of power.
Standby time got better, but I don't use very low vsel any more due to errors in YouTube and dropped connection of radio streams.
Before I used 300-600-800 at 20-30-48, this was very stable in stability test, but for example Youtube would start showing "error playing video". After I increased vsel, it went away.
I mostly did it to lower temperature, optimal temperature for li-ion is around 25°C according to Wikipedia I think.
I don't play 3d games, they would benefit the most from overclock I believe.
Angry birds RIO for example would stutter for a second or two after a level loaded, but it would become as smooth as at higher clocks, when I wait for a second.
I hope flash gets better, when hardware acceleration gets enabled in Quarx's CM7.
I was running [email protected] for a month straight. No issues at all. The highest my temp reached was 112F after playing games for about an hour straight. I now just run it at [email protected], and it's plenty fast for me. I did some "testing" with all the options in SetVsel. It's not science sound, but if you use the Gingerbread Icon in the notification bar, and are running at stock (800 speed) you will notice when the CPU maxes out it doesn't even reach full capacity. I found Words with Friends to really use the CPU, and at 800 it pings the meter in the orange (The notification icon shows green, orange, and red for "zones"). If I overclock it at 1000 or above then the meter goes into the red. I don't know the exact number it switches from orange to red, but being at stock 800 is well below what the chip can really do since it doesn't even max out the meter. I hope I didn't confuse anyone. It makes sense to me.
weird...my cpu at any game reach the 800mhz
yet even in normal situations like browsing through the files on the phone it reaches 800mhz
and also despite the values i use in setvsel are not high(which is:
24 @ 300
34 @ 600
48 @ 800
)
the phone still reaches maximum 38C when i play games and if i set the value in the third vsel the games starts to hang!!
seems like i am the only one who have these problems..but why
anyone have any idea
im running stock arabic froyo btw
if someone can confirm to me that i can keep Arabic language if i installed another rom using custom restore in nandroid then i would be using prays or official 2.3 but no one answered me about that
anyway the important thing is anyone knows why my cpu temp is always high?
Well ambient temperature is important too. If it is 30°C where you live and your phone's temperature is at 35°C I'd say you are good. If the outside temperature is 10°C and your phone is dat 40°C I'd say there is something wrong (unless you were playing games or watching a movie).
in my opinion, it is definitely safe that you overclocking to the leaked moto level.
however, the voltage is still a mystery.
there's no constant conclusion about this.
i'm using [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], and it works fine for me
I'm getting really annoyed. No problems clocking up to 1100mhz with stock voltage (58). But changing the voltage settings, even slightly, makes the phone more or less unstable.
Hey guys, I'm just wondering what settings do you have on your setcpu for the best performance and battery life? I'm totally new to this lol
Sanks
kazemagic said:
Hey guys, I'm just wondering what settings do you have on your setcpu for the best performance and battery life? I'm totally new to this lol
Sanks
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i i think that ondemand is the best for daily using... i'm using cm10 rom and i have some music problem so i'm using interactive and it's ok. if you don't use games or heavy apps, you can underclock it to 1ghz or even less and put on powersave.. but you have to try and find the best for you
My setup is a little complicated. I use the ondemand governor, then for the profiles I make it use powersave and under 760mhz between 1am and 8:30am which seems to really help during the night. Also set it to use 760mhz max when the screen is off.
When charging or above 40% battery I allow it to run full speed, but only when the screen is on, therefore helping charge times. On charge or above 80% I set the governor to performance.
In call I set the clock to max 1000mhz and conservative to try and allow calls on low-battery to work properly without lag but also without killing the battery.
I have a couple of other options set for very low battery ( < 12% ) too, but those are only to extend the battery if it's dying.
I wouldn't say all this is necessary... but I need my phone to keep working at all times as I use it for receiving business calls.
It's just a matter of playing around really... depends what you use the phone for. For the most part tell it to use lower clock speeds when you don't need them so much (when phone is off, during the night, during call etc) but you will really notice the speed difference if it's underclocked while you use it, so I tend to allow it to use full whack when screen is on, unless the battery is low.
I also set up profiles to make things like Bloons TD4 run in performance mode and min of 1000mhz, to keep them smooth . Drains the battery though!
lol setcpu does a really good job at battery saving. When using ondemand, my phone can last more than 2 days (if it's on standby)
Have you guys tried under-vaulting? What does it rlly do?
kazemagic said:
lol setcpu does a really good job at battery saving. When using ondemand, my phone can last more than 2 days (if it's on standby)
Have you guys tried under-vaulting? What does it rlly do?
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If you mean decreasing the voltage on the CPU, no I haven't. From my experience in desktop PCs however, if the CPU voltage is too low it can lead to hardware issues and instability.
If something needs a certain amount of power, and you give it less, it will either try and draw more amps which increases heat and can fry components, or won't work properly. You could probably "under-volt" the CPU at the same time as reducing the clock speed however, but your performance will suffer. When the processor is set to be ondemand it underclocks itself when not in use anyway
The biggest battery drain is screen and radios, concentrate on using them less. Underclocking the CPU will make the phone last longer when in use, but usability will suffer and turn your super fast smart phone into a sluggish one. I only make mine stay underclocked when the screen is off, during a call, or on low battery. During general use I let it do its thing .
UV(Under volt) is actually not to bad. Don't ever set those values at boot, else when they are too low, it will cause BOOTLOOPS. It just reduces the amount of power allowed for the cpu to use, thus it won't use more than required. You can't really ask a person for his/her uv values, as no 2 chips are created equal.
People stating that they UC(underclock) their device is not quite right. We don't have much control over our cpu's to be honest. If you run tegra stats whilst using you're phone, you'll see what I mean. It will sometimes(happens quite often) just bump up to higher frequencies to which you UC them. Also as soon as the screen is locked and unlocked the max cpu frequency set by the governor will just return(for example: say stock is 1500mhz, and you set it to 1400mhz, it will return to 1500mhz after an unlock). Ondemand is very very good for battery and performance. But remember you have to tweak those values individually in order to optain the best possible performace for the given task you want. Whether it is for battery or performance.
It's actually also a lot better to just tweak those values as to TRY and uc. Uv will stick, UC not!
Here is a small example as to battery saving and performance values for ondemand governor:
sampling rate:---------60 000 ----- 30 000
up threshold:--------------95 ----- 60
sampling down factor:-------2 ----- 8
powersave bios: ------------3 ----- 0
ignore nice load:------------0 ----- 0
io is busy:------------------0 ----- 0
So I tried to underclock my One X to around 640 MHz and it was running VERY smoothly and stable with only 2 cores active. I was using the ViperX 2.2.1 ROM and the Kernel was the no OC NCX 0.99a. The battery life wasn't bad, but has anyone tried underclocking to 1 GHz or lower? If so, how is the battery life and what kernel and ROM did you use?
With SetCPU you can change the max. CPU, but why should you? When the phone doesn't need much processor power, it just scales down by itself.
So, it already has the best underclocker there is.
Mayby you could try undervolting to save even more battery, but that means the CPU can be somewhat less steady.
im trying to get my head around UVing / UCing my HOX. is there any guide around? im trying to search through the forum but still no luck.
ricopoetra said:
im trying to get my head around UVing / UCing my HOX. is there any guide around? im trying to search through the forum but still no luck.
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underclocking means the CPU runs slower so should use less battery but slower CPU speeds also means to takes longer to preform tasks which could use more battery, check on google most places say its not worth it as that battery saved is tiny and not worth the drop in CPU performance.
undervolting however lowers the voltage that CPU uses while working this does save power and also lowers heat (less voltage less heat) but if you lower it to much then the CPU becomes unstable due to lack of power and well crashes and restarts the phone in most cases.
to get the best out of undervolting you need to lock the max CPU speed to each step (CPU speed, 300mhz, 600mhz and so on) and slower the voltage and then run a bench mark (like antutu) and see if its stable, if it is you lower the voltage again and repeat until it crashes at which point you have found the lowest voltage that the clock speed can handle so you jump up a voltage then more on to the next speed.
it takes along time but that would get you the best undervolt your phone and hardware could handle.
or you can just use the global to lower the voltage for every speed, this is much faster and much less time consuming but you don't get the most out of it.
for this you basically drop the voltage then use your phone for different things; browsing, games, benchmark and see if it crashes if not lower again till it does then go back up a step.
thanks for explaining. I'm getting some of the points that I missed Awhile ago. I guess I'm going to try the longer way of doing it.
Sent from my White HOX JB PA 2.10