Develop Bugs

[Q] setvsel cpu damage

hey guys, just wondering will using a lower vsel damage my cpu and/or battery?
i have previously beein using milestone overclock on 1ghz and 60 vsel and am adding setvsel into the mix, also any ideas on starter settings? thanks
also could someone just give me a heads up on what vsel actually IS

I don't believe there are any studies that show effects of long term use of lowering the voltage, which is what you are doing with vsel in order to save battery juice...or you could increase the voltage but that defeats the purpose and also heats up the battery which leads to shorter life span. Many use it without reporting any damage to battery or cpu, I believe it's safe (however, if you are overheating you might fry the battery or cpu, so you'll need to moniter and play with settings to get the desired effect without any overheating issues).
With regards to setvsel, there are reported issues from users with different roms...from what I've read (and you can do your own research to see if this is what you are seeing...this is the conclusion that I've come to by reading a lot of threads), it is better to use milestone to overclock and setcpu to lower the vsel.
With that being said, I've used them all and like setvsel so keep going back to it...but I've been having some issues lately so I've removed setvsel to see if that is what is causing some problems (too early to tell).
Oh, and as for settings...pop on the overclocking/undervolting thread in the development section to see a lot of different settings and remember that what works for one user might not work for you...you'll have to experiment a bit to find your ideal setting.

oh okay i think i might go back to my old settings with milestone overclock and setcpu and just lower the vsel! i was under the impression for some reason that lowering the vsel would heat the battery. Thanks!

I'm no expert to be honest, I'm more of a research kinda person. From what I've researched, undervolting can help keep temps down, and may particularly help when you overclock (as overclocking is stressing the cpu to go beyond it's normal operating design hence it may heat up...supplying it with less power, or voltage, is what helps keep the temps down.
Of course, this is given you find the optimal setting for your phone, and as it seems from reading through these forums, many users have experienced completely different results using the same settings (i.e., one user will have a stable setting without any problems while another user on the same rom using the same settings will have crashes and/or issues like overheating). Doesn't seem right, but it is what it is

yeah ive read through most of that stuff too, i went down to 1ghz at 51 vsel, seeming stable, but i decided to go with 54 anyway

1.1 GHz @ Stock vsel for over a month without any issues...I hope it lasts.
Sent from my MB525 using XDA App

Hi,
I've also read a lot regarding the underclocking 'dangers' but couldn't find anything to prove that there is such an issue. I think that it is an urban myth spread everywhere by people asking if there is a danger with low vsel [but that are never getting a positive answer on it].
The only thing I found using setvSel is that I had to first install Milestone Overclock and load its module prior to start setvsel. There is a way around it, but requires you to copy files in the system folders and change their permissions. I find that my way is much easier.
As far as over-heating goes, it's an overclocking thing; not underclocking.
My Defy is set at 900Mhz and really, I don't see the point of going much higher: everything runs smooth and lag free already.
vsel: 21/300; 32/600; 43/900 - 90% up_threshold
Been like that for about a month now and never experienced any problem at all.
The underclocking is great for saving battery; no exact numbers to give here but it feels like my battery now last 2 times longer. I can easily get 4 days between charges with low/moderate usage and would get to 6+ days "IF" I could stay away from games and having the screen ON for long sessions of browsing/video watching.
I tried SetCpu before but I didn't like the interface; the simplicity of SetvSel is really nice.

i use setcpu for scaling and profiles, and run 18/300, 36/600, 50/1000 stable and smooth as

Undervolting is not a bad thing at all. It means less Watts consumed for running (Watts = Voltage x Amperage), less of your battery consumed.
Ussually companies test a large batch of components and how they react on different voltages and freqvencies, and then they decide for a voltage that works with all components and that is safe for all cases. Eg. when they have different CPU speeds and thus different options for CPU's this is one way to decide which one work at 3GHz and which one at 2.7 GHz (the other one is demand for components).
Phisically you will not have any problems and you can't damage your phone by undervolting, so no problem here, only possible software problems if you go too low.
Advantages :
+ Lower processor temperature
+ Lower phone temperature
+ Longer battery time
+ Longer components life
Disadvantages
- Stability issues (freeze, artefacts, slowness)

maxi2mc said:
Disadvantages
- Stability issues (freeze, artefacts, slowness)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You know, I was recording a video and when playing back noticed that there were squiggly lines that went through the video a couple of times (in a two minute clip). This was the first time I saw this...and have recently lowered vsel by 2 on vsel3...could that be the artifacts that you are mentioning?
I just figured it perhaps I was too bouncy with the phone while recording making it glitch...but now that I see this post I'm thinking maybe I undervolted too much...what do you think?
My settings: 54/1000 44/700 28/300

I know what people mean by same settings don't work for every phone even if it's the exact same model. My Defy won't underclock as much as others. I'm using SetVesel, and I've been able to drop 5 points from each, and that's about it before it reboots itself. I only tested undervolting, but I mainly overclock to get as much speed as I can, and give it enough juice to run super fast. I'm current running [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Threshold at 75%. The highest the temp ever got was 112F, and that was after playing a game for about an hour. Usually it stays below 90F for normal use. I get around 17-20 hours out of it with screen on time at about 3 hours @ 50% brightness. I've been running these settings about a month, and have not had any issues.

If you put something like 100vsel will the phone accept and then burn? Is there any protection? Does anyone know what's the highest acceptable vsel?
Just for curiosity...

im pretty sure 80 is the highest you should EVER use and that'll significantly increase the chances of your phone burning out. @bobbyphoenix you should be able to lower your vsels a fair bit or your really unlucky! i run a lower vsel for 1ghz than u do for 700mhz smooth and stable

stewi21 said:
im pretty sure 80 is the highest you should EVER use and that'll significantly increase the chances of your phone burning out. @bobbyphoenix you should be able to lower your vsels a fair bit or your really unlucky! i run a lower vsel for 1ghz than u do for 700mhz smooth and stable
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CM7, rather non-technical person here. I seem to have a very happy phone at setvsel settings of [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], 86%. Been running this for the month or so since I rooted and the phone feels like it was made for this config. I've never seen the temp above ~32c. My 2¢.

[Q] Is it really safe to keep overclocking to 1GHz?

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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.

Underclocking and Battery life?

hi,
I am running stock jellybean with franco kernel. just wondering what is the optimal CPU setup that doesnt sacrifice too much performance while increasing battery life. Im not too concerned about games as I rarely play them. I ussualy use the phone for music, calls, text, email, and webbrowsing.
I am using the Franco updater app. I have 1228 max, 230 min
and screen off max is 384.
I also noticed in cpu spy that my highest two frequencies 1036, 1228 are combined less than 10%.
with all that information, what do you suggest?

hshaikh said:
hi,
I am running stock jellybean with franco kernel. just wondering what is the optimal CPU setup that doesnt sacrifice too much performance while increasing battery life. Im not too concerned about games as I rarely play them. I ussualy use the phone for music, calls, text, email, and webbrowsing.
I am using the Franco updater app. I have 1228 max, 230 min
and screen off max is 384.
I also noticed in cpu spy that my highest two frequencies 1036, 1228 are combined less than 10%.
with all that information, what do you suggest?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I suggest to decrease your max CPU until you feel it affects performance too much. You can also try switching to a governor less aggressive than interactive (try ondemand).
Don't expect magic though. I've played with decreasing max CPU clock, max CPU screen off, governor settings etc with three different kernels. Gathered stats for at least one week each time. Never noticed a difference large enough to actually matter to me. For maximizing battery life, you can gain more by hunting apps that cause a lot of (partial) wakelocks and alarms, and use low screen brightness.

hshaikh said:
and screen off max is 384.
with all that information, what do you suggest?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
don't limit screen off cpu speed to 384. it will take longer to perform operations under wakelock, thus killing of more battery than it actually saves.
it would be nice if listening to music, since it's not an intensive task and it requires constant cpu usage. still, you'll most likely have stuff syncing in the background so i don't think you're doing any good by limiting it to 384 on screen off.

power isnt going to be conserved with lower clock speed. lower clock speed means it takes longer to finish the task. to conserve power, your phone has to do less. for example, lower brightness, no sound, less/no syncing.

Darunion said:
power isnt going to be conserved with lower clock speed. lower clock speed means it takes longer to finish the task. to conserve power, your phone has to do less. for example, lower brightness, no sound, less/no syncing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, there is an optimum somewhere. Higher CPU speed means tasks are executed more quickly, but higher clock speeds also draw more current from the battery. I agree that tweaking this has little effect on battery life though.

Petrovski80 said:
Well, there is an optimum somewhere. Higher CPU speed means tasks are executed more quickly, but higher clock speeds also draw more current from the battery. I agree that tweaking this has little effect on battery life though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you are correct. there is a magic middle ground because power consumption doesnt scale in a linear way. but finding that spot would take massive testing and even getting to the center, would still probably only gain about 10-15mins average use on a battery charge :/

bk201doesntexist said:
don't limit screen off cpu speed to 384. it will take longer to perform operations under wakelock, thus killing of more battery than it actually saves.
it would be nice if listening to music, since it's not an intensive task and it requires constant cpu usage. still, you'll most likely have stuff syncing in the background so i don't think you're doing any good by limiting it to 384 on screen off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what speed show i set to max when screen is off.

did you read anything that Darunion and Petrovski80 wrote? I keep mine at it's max, i don't care, i don't live in the woods with no electricity.

thanks for your inputs. i have experimented and I found out that changing the cpu speeds has minimal effect of battery life. the clock speed is not killing the battery the screen is. no matter what cpu settings i use i get 3-4 hours screen on time.
if i dont use the phone alot that day (like 1 hour screen on time) the battery will still be 40% after a day.

hshaikh said:
thanks for your inputs. i have experimented and I found out that changing the cpu speeds has minimal effect of battery life. the clock speed is not killing the battery the screen is. no matter what cpu settings i use i get 3-4 hours screen on time.
if i dont use the phone alot that day (like 1 hour screen on time) the battery will still be 40% after a day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly. I get similar performance.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

How to undervolt and get better battery life. Please post your results and how to.

Hey all, this is a thread I saw on different forum and think it is would be good for noobs like myself to benefit from. How to undervolt your CPU and also post your Galaxy Note 2 specific results. I have tried these next steps, and so far I'm doing okay (can't give an accurate results on battery life yet). Like I said (I'm not ashamed to say I'm a noob) but if others can throw their two cents in, we can all learn and this thread can be useful. The next part was cut and paste d from other forum. And I deleted the url for the kernel and root
Prerequisites:
1. Must be rooted and recommended kernel
2. Download and install System Tuner
3. Download and install Stability Test
Steps:
1. Open System Tuner and select CPU
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
2. Drag the slider shown in the picture to overclock or underclock CPU. In this picture we are overclocking to 1.8ghz
3. Select Voltage at the top to get to CPU voltage settings.
4. Ok, here select the buttons as they are in the picture.
a. Select the Green circled button to save current stock default settings.
b. Select the Yellow circled button 4 times exactly to reduce the millivolts by 100.
Stability Testing:
Now we really should make sure that it can handle it under load right? :silly:
1. Open Stability Test and select CPU+GPU Stability Test.
2. Select Full Details - Proceed.
3. The app will now start stressing your cores. I waited until at least 10 cpu passes before quiting the app...
Cliffnotes:
-By default, your settings will revert back after you restart your phone. You can set them to load at boot, but don't do this unless your absolutely sure that they're stable!
Open System Tuner - CPU - Menu key - Settings - Active Tweaks - Reapply CPU Settings - On Boot Completed
-Whenever i tried to lower the mv more than 100 below stock at 1.8ghz, my phone rebooted
-I am in no way responsible for anything that might happen after performing the above, even if you start your sentence with the word "but"
-here's stock settings in case you need to revert
[/QUOTE]

This is an interesting project but I would think that the average user would not need this as battery life is pretty good. Speaking for myself, I am able to get through the whole day without any issues.
Of course there might be other reasons why someone would want to do this.
Doc

Thanks
Sent from my SGH-I777 using xda premium

DocEsq said:
This is an interesting project but I would think that the average user would not need this as battery life is pretty good. Speaking for myself, I am able to get through the whole day without any issues.
Of course there might be other reasons why someone would want to do this.
Doc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
from what i've read, undervolting save very little battery time as the processors are pretty efficient anyways. i don't have actual numbers, but i'd guess you'd get a few extra minutes - which some may really need.
it's that freaking gargantuan screen that sucks the most juice. there used to be a mod to undervolt displays. they had it working on an OG galaxy tab. i never really seen it used anywhere else.

I have an international version of galaxy note 2. I'm currently using AllianceROM and Perseus kernel. And my stock voltage is way way higher than yours. Like 1400mV mine, 913mV yours. Can I undervolt my note 2 to same specifications like yours? Thanks.

This is interesting but setcpu when I had it on my last phone worked awesome and was very easy to use.
Sent from my Amazing Galaxy Note 2!

rjisanandres said:
I have an international version of galaxy note 2. I'm currently using AllianceROM and Perseus kernel. And my stock voltage is way way higher than yours. Like 1400mV mine, 913mV yours. Can I undervolt my note 2 to same specifications like yours? Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You is 1400 mV on 200 MHz? It's probabky 1400 on 1.6 ghz.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium

I also have Perseus kernel overclocked but still have great battery life. Thanks for the tip though might try it and compare the difference just in case.

I agree with DocEsq.. It is interesting indeed, but is it really necessary?
Can you overclock it?

My note 2 seems to be charging forever after undervolting. I'm talking for about 6-7hrs charging time here. What seems to be the problem? I'm using Perseus kernel. TIA!
Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2

I once conducted a test with my evo3d. I basically ran an amp meter inline with the battery. Measuring the exact power consumption. I dont remember the exact specs, but undervolting and underclocking my phone compared to stock made a very minute difference in actual power consumption. A difference of about 8-15ma. This was during a CPU full load scenario for about 10 seconds. Even loading the CPU with the screen off to take as many variables out as possible it was very little difference. During normal operarion the power consumed was virtually identical.
So the 2 to 3% of the day (overall time) your phone is actually under HEAVY load, it won't make much difference. It did make a performance impact. So not much benefit, just reduced performance.
Now overclocking and/or overvolting did make a larger difference in consumption at high constant load.
Want to ACTUALLY make a large impact on your battery life? Make sure you don't have any apps preventing your phone from sleeping and run the absolute lowest screen brightness you can stand.
YMMV.
Sent from my Galaxy Note 2 using Tapatalk 2

The benefit I found from undervolting isn't better battery life, it's reduced heat which in heavy use provides better performance due to no cpu throttling. I'm running 1800mhz using less battery than 1600mhz and with same temps as stock. Very stable, been running this for a month now at least.

Action B said:
The benefit I found from undervolting isn't better battery life, it's reduced heat which in heavy use provides better performance due to no cpu throttling. I'm running 1800mhz using less battery than 1600mhz and with same temps as stock. Very stable, been running this for a month now at least.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What app did you use to undervolt?
Sent from my Amazing Galaxy Note 2!

yankees45us said:
What app did you use to undervolt?
Sent from my Amazing Galaxy Note 2!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using the stweaks app that comes with perseus kernel.. I've undervolted quite a bit and I get better battery life.. Still not quite as good as I had stock, but definitely a lot better for being over clocked.. I just reduce each level to the level below it and run for a few to check stability and keep going from there.. So far I have had no trouble at all with undervolting.. Certainly nothing like I did with my elte.. Here's where I've been for almost a week as well as today's battery results so far with Pandora playing over 3 hours straight and moderate use..
Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk 2

Yeah, just to let you know that there certainly isn't a linear correlation between undervolting and underclocking and power usage. That might have been the case in simpler times, but with modern multi-core microprocessors, you might actually be decreasing battery life by screwing with your clock rate or voltage. Yes, the defaults err on the side of caution, but it's a whole lot of work for little to no gain.
For example, by reducing your phone's clock rate, you might actually be forcing your phone to be spending more time at load; thereby not allowing it to fallback to its sleep state. There is also something called the power wall, where an increase in operating frequency requires an exponential increase in power. However, the reverse is also true. It can be counter-intuitive to think of it this way, so a practical example is how on a 100 mile trip, a 25 mpg sedan saves 4 gallons of gasoline over a 12.5 mpg SUV. However, over the same distance a 50 mpg hybrid saves only 2 gallons over the 25 mpg car. By that same logic, a mythical 100 mpg vehicle would only save 1 gallon of fuel. It's the law of diminishing returns. Then of course, there are the stability issues that you should take into account.
There is a lot that happens behind the scenes regarding power management. Your phone is capable of intelligently scaling it's processors, voltages, and frequencies up or down all based on current and expected demand. There are people who spend a lot more time doing this for a living, and the idea that you can do it better is probably a falsehood. If you want MOAR POWER, by all means overclock/overvolt it (just don't fry it), but trying to get an extra couple minutes of run time is likely a waste of some hard work. It's the software that kills your battery, not the hardware.
Talking about computer architecture can be complicated and boring, but start with searches on "rise time" and "logic level transitions" if you want to want more background.

Action B said:
The benefit I found from undervolting isn't better battery life, it's reduced heat which in heavy use provides better performance due to no cpu throttling. I'm running 1800mhz using less battery than 1600mhz and with same temps as stock. Very stable, been running this for a month now at least.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting... whenever I'm dling using a torrent client my phone gets a nasty fever and I've gotta set it down somewhere as it will literally make me sweat, lol. I do b there think I'll be undervolting just for that specific circumstance but that is a very interesting concept...
anishannayya said:
Yeah, just to let you know that there certainly isn't a linear correlation between undervolting and underclocking and power usage. That might have been the case in simpler times, but with modern multi-core microprocessors, you might actually be decreasing battery life by screwing with your clock rate or voltage. Yes, the defaults err on the side of caution, but it's a whole lot of work for little to no gain.
For example, by reducing your phone's clock rate, you might actually be forcing your phone to be spending more time at load; thereby not allowing it to fallback to its sleep state. There is also something called the power wall, where an increase in operating frequency requires an exponential increase in power. However, the reverse is also true. It can be counter-intuitive to think of it this way, so a practical example is how on a 100 mile trip, a 25 mpg sedan saves 4 gallons of gasoline over a 12.5 mpg SUV. However, over the same distance a 50 mpg hybrid saves only 2 gallons over the 25 mpg car. By that same logic, a mythical 100 mpg vehicle would only save 1 gallon of fuel. It's the law of diminishing returns. Then of course, there are the stability issues that you should take into account.
There is a lot that happens behind the scenes regarding power management. Your phone is capable of intelligently scaling it's processors, voltages, and frequencies up or down all based on current and expected demand. There are people who spend a lot more time doing this for a living, and the idea that you can do it better is probably a falsehood. If you want MOAR POWER, by all means overclock/overvolt it (just don't fry it), but trying to get an extra couple minutes of run time is likely a waste of some hard work. It's the software that kills your battery, not the hardware.
Talking about computer architecture can be complicated and boring, but start with searches on "rise time" and "logic level transitions" if you want to want more background.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Like the way you put that. Good analogies there it just seems like the other day that undervolting was the hip thing to do. Technology just moves at such a wonderful pace though. Just one little FYI though, since i do like you analogy i would like to point out that the law of diminishing returns actually refers to something else entirely. I know, I know, nitpicking, but it's just that everyone is always off the mark with that one and, well I guess I'm just an anal ahole (and an economics major, ,which I guess just overall makes me an a hole, ,lol)

If you have ever pulled apart a laptop and saw how much thermal paste the engineers at the factory "designed" for their to be on there, or seen the air/fuel ratio most cars roll off the lot with, or ever replaced an intake in a vehicle with a high performance unit I'm not sure you would feel the same way about you yourself not being to do a better job.
I get the point, and I believe often there is validity to that point, but sometime things just aren't that simple. This is where power gains come from in tuning a car (which i do). This is where efficiency is raised by removing restrictive components in a vehicle (intake, exhaust, etc) and where cooling performance is increased on a CPU with the proper application of a quality thermal paste.
Whenever time is money, and you are deciding between your bottom line and something that works and something that works as well as it can, shortcuts are made and corners are cut. Perhaps they could have spent another 200 hours for the team to absolutely optimize the processor for each device, but the cost would have been an additional $20,000 dollars. This is not always the case, but with processors I think it is. I will undervolt everytime and I do take objective measures for battery and I agree gains are relatively small. For cooling, I found the difference to be very significant at 1800, mhzI didn't check at 1600mhz, however. I can run a full Antutu benchmark as much as I want at room temperature and never exceed the throttling point (70 C if i remember correctly). Now, I am in no way saying these are facts, these are opinions, so I could be wrong of course.
Psychotic-Cerebellum said:
Interesting... whenever I'm dling using a torrent client my phone gets a nasty fever and I've gotta set it down somewhere as it will literally make me sweat, lol. I do b there think I'll be undervolting just for that specific circumstance but that is a very interesting concept...
Like the way you put that. Good analogies there it just seems like the other day that undervolting was the hip thing to do. Technology just moves at such a wonderful pace though. Just one little FYI though, since i do like you analogy i would like to point out that the law of diminishing returns actually refers to something else entirely. I know, I know, nitpicking, but it's just that everyone is always off the mark with that one and, well I guess I'm just an anal ahole (and an economics major, ,which I guess just overall makes me an a hole, ,lol)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

The TIM wasn't put on there by the engineers who designed the chips; they are put there by workers being paid next to nothing.
Your phone doesn't have a CPU, it doesn't even use thermal paste; it's usually just a rubber contact patch and passive heat dissipation. This actually brings another point where overclocking can sometimes reduce performance due to throttling by thermal constraints (why our phone has such a low GPU rate than what it is capable of in other phones with better thermal envelopes).
You aren't replacing the SoC, you are changing the software that determines how to set the voltage/clock multiplier. The car analogy isn't valid.
And I stand corrected regarding the Law of Diminishing Returns; never paid attention in macro-econ. I think was because my prof. was more interested in forcing his political ideology upon us than actually teaching the subject. :silly:
EDIT: Keep in mind, the engineers rarely get what they want. The product the consumer ends up getting is usually dictated through a collaboration of what the business and marketing teams want. The engineer might request a large cooler clamp with a perfectly lapped surface and a carbon-based TIM. In reality, the consumer gets a dinky fan with melt-on TIM and retention springs. Money talks.

anishannayya said:
The TIM wasn't put on there by the engineers who designed the chips; they are put there by workers being paid next to nothing.
Your phone doesn't have a CPU, it doesn't even use thermal paste; it's usually just a rubber contact patch and passive heat dissipation. This actually brings another point where overclocking can sometimes reduce performance due to throttling by thermal constraints (why our phone has such a low GPU rate than what it is capable of in other phones with better thermal envelopes).
You aren't replacing the SoC, you are changing the software that determines how to set the voltage/clock multiplier. The car analogy isn't valid.
And I stand corrected regarding the Law of Diminishing Returns; never paid attention in macro-econ. I think was because my prof. was more interested in forcing his political ideology upon us than actually teaching the subject. :silly:
EDIT: Keep in mind, the engineers rarely get what they want. The product the consumer ends up getting is usually dictated through a collaboration of what the business and marketing teams want. The engineer might request a large cooler clamp with a perfectly lapped surface and a carbon-based TIM. In reality, the consumer gets a dinky fan with melt-on TIM and retention springs. Money talks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. The voltages are set by an engineer, that is what I was referring to.
2. The CPU thing was an analogy as was the car. Not a direct comparison. The analogy is referring to how there is set fuel and timing tables just like there is set voltage tables, both might not be the most efficient from the factory, tweaking them can improve things. How is this completely not valid?

Fix Exynos 990 battery drain and Overheating Issues -[ It works ]

I have the exynos 990 version of the S20 FE and as we all know, the 990 is a little bit of a hot mess. However it has quite a lot to give if limited correctly.I'm running One UI 3.1 on android 11. I rooted my FE with magisk and installed Franco kernel manager. The steps below will give you good battery life and performance.
Step 1: Straight up disable the M5 mongoose cores. They are Samsung's biggest undoing.
Step2 : Limit all clock speed to 2Ghz. Trust me, the IPC on the 990 is really damn good and you don't need to worry about performance loss. Forget the benchmarks, everything just works. Getting the last 2.7ghz or 2.5ghz usually requires a significant voltage bump and you mostly wont need the speed.
Step3 : The GPU is actually just fine as is. Try to set the max clock to 370mhz, which sounds ridiculously low, but the 990's GPU was made for 1440p screens, so the UI still remains smooth even at 120Hz. I played Riptide Renegade with this setting and it was very smooth as well. You can play with this number according to how much you game, I, for the most part, don't.
My hypothesis, based on my usage of about 2 months (yeah, i rooted this bad boi about a week from purchase, screw warranty, i'm gonna be alone for life :-( ) is given below >>>>>>
Thermal throttling seems to be due to the M5 cores clocking up like crazy while doing basically nothing. This is probably mostly because Samsung uses their own "energy_step" CPU governor which still needs some work. You can try changing this to schedutil ( which is basically EAS ) and see how it fares. The GPU also ends up underclocking because the GPU has a " joint " governor ( basically ramps up and down with CPU speed to some extent, not entirely sure about this, i may be completely wrong).
I have also have put a battery charge limiter in place at 90% but that doesn't really make a difference. I use my phone quite heavily and at 120Hz but still get about 18 - 20 hours of usage (not 20h screen on time!)if on FULL CHARGE
In fact if you even disable the "BIG" i.g A77 cores, and use only the four A55 "little" ones, it's still good for daily usage. Processing time on the camera takes a bit of a hit, but you can always create a custom profile for that to enable all cores for the camera app. I have my phone skinned with the AOSP-R day/night hex installer theme.
Also huge reasons for rooting :
Tasker > for some insane automation profiles i made
Naptime, Servicely > Free extra battery life
The battery charge limiter to preserve my long term battery life.
Also a GCAM update, the scan3d APKs of BSG are getting rather good. We need to get together an tune the hell out of this sensor to get it to par with the stock camera tho, especially during night. Also no telephoto support, AFAIK. One S20FE confing shall be in the works.
Unrelated shameless self plug : https://www.youtube.com/c/siddharthlh please visit my youtube channel. It does contain some interesting tutorials for tech heads

I'm going to share this thread over on reddit with the army of disgruntled Exytoast users. if this works they will love you as a living god

3mel said:
I'm going to share this thread over on reddit with the army of disgruntled Exytoast users. if this works they will love you as a living god
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Maybe tag me in the post or something I'm siddharth_lh on reddit. I can help out there itself

done...
https://www.reddit.com/r/GalaxyS20FE/comments/ndnp0s

By "M5 mongoose cores" you mean the ones labeled as "Prime cores"? Just rooted and tried this. Will report back with results.

hectorviov said:
By "M5 mongoose cores" you mean the ones labeled as "Prime cores"? Just rooted and tried this. Will report back with results.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep

bipolar unbound said:
Yep
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you apply these settings?
How's performance and results been?

bipolar unbound said:
Step 1: Straight up disable the M5 mongoose cores. They are Samsung's biggest undoing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What does this do?
Also I dont wanna set the clock speed any lower is that fine?

Cheetah1020 said:
What does this do?
Also I dont wanna set the clock speed any lower is that fine?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you're changing the max frequency via a kernel tweaking app you can simply change it back if you don't like it.

hectorviov said:
By "M5 mongoose cores" you mean the ones labeled as "Prime cores"? Just rooted and tried this. Will report back with results.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did it go?

Cheetah1020 said:
How did it go?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's been about a week and just 2 days ago I started seeing better battery life. The first 4-5 days were the same as before. I straight up disabled the 2 "prime" cores and the performance is basically the same. Never noticed a hiccup or a slow down. Before I rooted and tried this I was getting about 2.5 hrs SOT before I had to charge and now I'm getting about 3-3.5 hours, just a little more. Seems like less overheating (haven't check temps, just the feeling of it). What I haven't figured out is how to make the change on the GPU frequencies stay, if I set a max, it doesn't cares about it and it still goes above the limit. I'm always using 120 hz on this changes, so I'd say it's worth it.

hectorviov said:
It's been about a week and just 2 days ago I started seeing better battery life. The first 4-5 days were the same as before. I straight up disabled the 2 "prime" cores and the performance is basically the same. Never noticed a hiccup or a slow down. Before I rooted and tried this I was getting about 2.5 hrs SOT before I had to charge and now I'm getting about 3-3.5 hours, just a little more. Seems like less overheating (haven't check temps, just the feeling of it). What I haven't figured out is how to make the change on the GPU frequencies stay, if I set a max, it doesn't cares about it and it still goes above the limit. I'm always using 120 hz on this changes, so I'd say it's worth it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think should wait for Android 12 to see if it gets better if not then I will do this process

Me too. Great tips!

Go to settings and search for "Limit CPU speed to 70%" and turn it on. Normally gives better battery life. Haven't seen any major bottleneck in performance.

adhikraman said:
Go to settings and search for "Limit CPU speed to 70%" and turn it on. Normally gives better battery life. Haven't seen any major bottleneck in performance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesnt it affect performance in games and stuff?

Cheetah1020 said:
Doesnt it affect performance in games and stuff?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haven't experienced any major performance hit in regular usage. Not a heavy gamer so your mileage might vary.

Guys...the last update for Exynos really worked? I've heard about changes in CPU governor that worked!

hectorviov said:
It's been about a week and just 2 days ago I started seeing better battery life. The first 4-5 days were the same as before. I straight up disabled the 2 "prime" cores and the performance is basically the same. Never noticed a hiccup or a slow down. Before I rooted and tried this I was getting about 2.5 hrs SOT before I had to charge and now I'm getting about 3-3.5 hours, just a little more. Seems like less overheating (haven't check temps, just the feeling of it). What I haven't figured out is how to make the change on the GPU frequencies stay, if I set a max, it doesn't cares about it and it still goes above the limit. I'm always using 120 hz on this changes, so I'd say it's worth it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Still that§s a really poor battery performance, and now without warranty... I will take my s20fe to samsung and if they wont repair or change it, I will be also forced to root my phone.

My experience rooting S20+ Exynos 990 following this thread:
TL;DR: Added 6-8 hours of standby battery life just from turning off prime and big cores, haven't checked on screen battery life since I don't use my phone much at work, but I wanted standby time improved.
Before turning off the prime and big cores, I got 11 hours tops on battery life. Seemingly out of nowhere the phone was always warm, despite just sitting at my desk with a very strong signal. I knew that at 12 pm, with 50% brightness, 120hz, and AOD I would expect at least 50% just gone even though I barely even used the damn thing. The straw that broke me, is that even though I was connected to wifi, I could only expect maybe at most, 3-4 hours of screen on time, which finally drove me insane. I checked out the thread sometime ago but was skeptical if it really was worth the trouble since it seemed a lengthy process. Take it from someone who hasn't rooted in a long time, just follow the guides and it all is pretty simple.
After turning off the prime and big cores, immediately thermals were so much better, after 3-5 minutes the phone was much cooler, about 5-8 degrees cooler on the chip area. Since the phone was reset, I couldn't really tell if battery was better. After the using my phone for a week rooted I can tell you, the battery difference is abysmal.
Before, I was struggling to end my day on 30-20%, now I can confidently end my day on 60-50%, depending on how much I used my phone. When idle the phone, barely sips battery, my estimate is that it went from 8-10% just idling, to 3-4% (need to check since I haven't turned on the prime cores ever since rooting). I wasn't willing to sacrifice 120hz so I always kept it on and battery life was good, however I will test with Max Hz on 96 hz, which should extend battery life.
Performance on the little cores is virtually the same, I haven't noticed any hiccups, lag or anything by that matter. I was concerned that on this thread it was mentioned that the camera took a hit, but on the S20+ nothing has changed, maybe the shutter is 0.3 seconds slower but I honestly don't notice or it doesn't bother me at all. Recording high resolution videos is no problem, and nothing really changed for me. Thermals are massively improved, if you're doing a heavy task, like recording, downloading or uploading, or something that you know requires heavy lifting, of course the phone will get warm, but not even close to how hot it would get just idling or doing the same tasks with the big or prime cores.
Since I don't play games I can't really say whether gaming has taking a hit or not, I would say that it depends on the game you're playing. You can always create a profile that enables the prime and big cores on FKM.
Overall I can say this, if you have an exynos 990 phone and getting real sucky battery life, rooting is the way to go. This phone just feels so much better with this extended battery life, and now rooting allows me to mod it as I want it or turn off things that weren't useful. Just be warned you will lose Google Pay and some apps from Samsung that use Knox, but for me what you get in return is so much valuable.
Please let me know if you have other questions from rooting the chip.