Develop Bugs

SetCPU saving power potential?

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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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

[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.

[Q] Power Consumption and Clock Speed...

Question: if the kernel will go into deep sleep whenever it has nothing to do, what is the benefit in regards to power consumption of pinning the clock speed real low when the screen is off?
I ask because common knowledge, at least from what I've seen around, is that the low-clock "screen off" profile is common sense. But today I tried not having that profile, and I see that the CPU goes into deep sleep a lot more time now, and my battery life is the same if not actually better than before.
True, ROMs and kernels are still changing so much that it's difficult to dedicate enough time to one configuration to actually determine it's efficiency over time, which is why I wanted to throw this out here, see if anyone with more knowledge can answer.
If the CPU is under a certain amount of load, I would imagine that, for instance, in an Ondemand governor with a very low Up Threshold, the CPU will spike to a high speed until it's done, then sleep the rest of the time until the next load. If constrained to a low clock speed, it'll work on it, slow but steady, until it's done.
Is the high voltage required for that spike offset by the voltage savings of going to sleep, and is the total voltage consumption at the end of the load lower than the alternative, that is, stick to a low clock cycle, consuming what I assume is lower voltage, but for a longer amount of time? Is voltage consumption as clock cycle speed increases linear, or exponential?
If the power consumption increases exponentially as clock speed increases linearly, then it might be better for power consumption to restrict the processor to lower speeds. But if power increase is linear, then it would be better, I believe, to let the CPU finish with it's load as fast as it can, so it can go to sleep faster.
Any thoughts, ideas?

To Quote from Wikipedia's Overclocking page:
Increasing the operation frequency of a component will usually increase its thermal output in a linear fashion, while an increase in voltage usually causes heat to
increase quadratically
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know nothing about the Galaxy S II specifically, but most Android phones scale both voltage and clock-speed together, leading to exponential power increases when clocking up. Thus, in theory, you should see better battery life with a lower CPU limit with screen-off.
If in your case you have constant voltages across the board, that would explain why you see no benefit from a screen-off profile.
Finally, if you do have constant voltages across clock-speeds, then you probably could lower your voltages at lower speeds and thus realize a benefit.
YMMV, of course

Yes but if you have processes running in the background like large file downloading then the phone won't be able to process any of them
Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda premium

Setcpu Profiles

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

minimum cpu speed question

Have a question regarding min CPU speed vs voltage. I run task's Roman with stock kernel. My phone is not stable unless I up the voltage on the CPU clock at both the 189 and 378 speeds to 925mv.
So here's the question... since both speeds use 925mv, wouldn't it make more sense just to leave the min CPU speed at 378? Seems to me the faster min speed would process faster allowing the phone to go into deep sleep faster and saving battery.
Thoughts?

192 and 384, you mean?
Personally, I prefer my min at 192 not cos of mV difference, but cos it keeps my phone lots cooler when at min speeds.

I asked a similar question with no response. mine goes down to 81mhz and stays stable but a higher clock speed uses the same voltage so I thought just run the higher one. unless deep sleep is consistent then it shouldnt matter. but for cases like bluetooth or music streaming the higher speed might seem better. but the more heat thing must cause more battery usage I would think

s384 said:
I asked a similar question with no response.....
....more heat thing must cause more battery usage I would think
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks like some thread lost with time...
More heat isn't good... heat is nothing but energy dissipated... and that means energy lost... So more heat is an indicator that you are kinda pushing your CPU to work hard and harder the work, more the battery utilized.

The voltage consumption of a CPU is calculated by f*V^2. So to answer the question, even if two frequencies share the same voltage, the lower frequency will still consume less power than the higher frequency.
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app