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How much does overclocking affect the battery?

This is probably a stupid question but I'll ask it anyway. I've noticed my phone draining lately (or maybe it's not, I'm not quite sure what the battery life used to be xD), and I recently overclocked my phone to 1.25 GHz (my profile on SetCPU is ondemand), does overclocking affect the battery that much?
I run Froyo (rooted with wifi fix and the 1.25 GHz kernal)

I'm using an ultra low voltage kernal at 1ghz and haven't noticed a difference, if anything it seems like it's better.
I guess it probably largely depends on what kernal.

I've been overclocked for 4+ months. The first month before I rooted, I was getting around 16-18 hours on a full charge at the stock 550 speed. After I rooted, a lot depended on the rom (lesser so) and the kernel (more so). I think the best performance I got was on ChevyNo1's SS rom (2.1) with one of his kernels ... 40+ hours overclocked conservatively at 800. My first shot some time back with CyanogenMod got me 3 hours with the early Bekit kernels but the past several versions up through 5.0.8 I was getting about 30 hours clocked at 800 with a jdlfg kernel. Now on Froyo I'm getting close to 30 hours again conservatively at 800-1000 ... which on a 2.2. rom is more like 1200+ since its faster.
So, in short, my battery life has significantly improved while running faster than stock. But no 2 Droids are identical in terms of how a rom and/or kernel perform. With 2.1 roms my Droid seems to like jdlfg's kernels, while on 2.2 the P3droid kernels do good. But that's what I found out via a lot of trial and error, not anyone's post saying "You must try ______'s kernel (or rom) as its da bomb!"

I would like to include that the post above by "cvhovey" provides some valuable information that might interest you and suggest anyone untreated in this thread to read that post.
Using an application like SetCPU you can throttle down the processor speed when the screen is off, this reducing heat and gaining better battery life. This doesn't mean you will get better battery life if you use your phone all day and never turn the screen off. But is totally worth it because u feel like I'm getting awesome battery life, plus an amazingly fast phone because SetCPU will overall me to my personal preference of 1100mhz on demand.
The answer to your actual question depends on how well you set up your phone preferences according to what benefits you the most, and what method of adjusting processor speed. I only mentioned one here, there are mire ways than just an APK.
Sent from my Droid using XDA App

PetRiLJoe said:
Using an application like SetCPU ...
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1+ on that. But how one uses SetCPU can also make big differences, such as which governor is selected. SetCPU at 400-1250 with the Performance governor will essentially run at its highest speed all of the time (if I'm correct), whereas with the Conservative governor will ramp up from 400 to 1250 at a slower pace, or at a faster face with Ondemand.
This thread can give you some helpful tips: Battery Saving Techniques - Theories in Test

Alright, thank you for your help ^^

i used SetCPU and my phone had continuously reboots...
I just had to uninstall it..

Were you using profiles in any way? A specific ROM? I've had similar a experience with certain ROMs (specifically UltimateDroid).
Best guess is that it just didn't play nice with the modded kernel.
Sent from my Droid using XDA App

[Q] Overclock question

I am using Setcpu on my motorola droid with rooted FRG22. Why wont it let me overclock it higher than 800mhz??? I'm kinda new to doing this and wondering if I'm doing anything wrong. Thank you

[A] Overclock answer
Yes you have SetCPU and your phone is rooted. However, you're missing one more piece to the puzzle. In order for you to clock over 800Hz you have to install a kernal cooresponding to the voltage and what you want to overclock it to. I recommend you googling(haha) p3designs and choose a kernal you want to try. Instructions are on the site as to how to install. I currently have a low voltage of 125Mhz overclocked at 1Ghz. Hope that helps

Question for you Stephen, with you running 1.2Ghz on your droid, has there been any istances of freezing thus far? I was tempted to go higher, though I stuck with 1Ghz to be safe.

M4r34d0 said:
Question for you Stephen, with you running 1.2Ghz on your droid, has there been any istances of freezing thus far? I was tempted to go higher, though I stuck with 1Ghz to be safe.
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The right approach to overclocking is not how fast can you go, but how low can you tolerate? Most Droids are stable to 1.2 ghz. Some can go higher, some can't. I'm running the "stock" 1ghz kernel that comes with Sapphire rom. However, I have it choked back to 800mhz. This gives me 36 hours of battery life on light-moderate use, (3G off, wifi on) but also lag-free performance.

This is chevys 1.25 medium voltage, only reboots were with watching movies online.
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

That was droid 1, lol barely get 1300 with my droid x
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

The links for the kernals over at p3designs don't seem to be working for me. Does anyone have some overclocking kernels they could post?

Barkleyfan said:
The right approach to overclocking is not how fast can you go, but how low can you tolerate? Most Droids are stable to 1.2 ghz. Some can go higher, some can't. I'm running the "stock" 1ghz kernel that comes with Sapphire rom. However, I have it choked back to 800mhz. This gives me 36 hours of battery life on light-moderate use, (3G off, wifi on) but also lag-free performance.
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I understand what you mean. I've done the trial between 800Mhz and 1Ghz. I have emulators now and I liked the performance on the 1Ghz more because of the speed, so I kept it on 1Ghz. I haven't had any battery drainage issue and all. I liked my low voltage 1Ghz kernal.

kclive said:
The links for the kernals over at p3designs don't seem to be working for me. Does anyone have some overclocking kernels they could post?
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http://p3designs.info/kernels/
Is this the site you tried accessing the kernals? I did a test and downloaded the kernal zip fine.

That does sound impressive. I'm curious to try that out even more so now.

Overclocking?

Hello,
I've seached as much as i can and i guess as a rookie i am still having a hard time understanding all of the benifits of overclocking other than speed. I am basically Autonootered 1.01, would it do me any good? If so which Kernel should i go with or is this for the more advanced?

Do you know what overclocking is? If not read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overclocking
After reading that you still don't understand how OCing will benefit you, and the dangers of it, I don't know what else to say.

As of 24 hours ago I purchased a nook color rooted it, applied the 1.1 update zip, and overclocked the nook Using the 1.1 ghz kernel honestly I haven't notice any speed increases because I did everything straight out the box but quadrant scores are very high
Sent from my Vanilla Tazz using XDA App

There are no other benefits of overclocking other than speed. That's the purpose of overclocking. Stability and battery life is usually the trade off. With the kernels from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=925451 I would say the risk of instability is very low. Especially since there are different levels of overclocking with those kernels. As for battery life, it doesn't feel like my battery is draining any quicker but I haven't compared my run time before and after overclocking.
I have had my NC since just after Xmas and I can tell you by my own experience that things were noticeably quicker when I went from an Autonootered 1.0.1 stock (800 MHz) to 1.1 GHz overclock. Before I overclocked I had been running stock for at 2-3 weeks. I mostly noticed the speed increase loading eBooks and websites (using Dolphin HD).
Personally, I would just go and try the 1.1 GHz kernel (kernel-1100mhz-omap3630.zip) within the link above. There a lot of people running on that kernel, including myself, that I don't hesitate recommending it. However, I would download all the kernels so you have them all handy just in case so you can flash to another kernel, such as stock, if for some bizarre reason you can't boot or have stability problems with the 1.1 GHz overclock.

nootered said:
Do you know what overclocking is? If not read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overclocking
After reading that you still don't understand how OCing will benefit you, and the dangers of it, I don't know what else to say.
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As I stated I wasnt sure of any other benifits, other than speed with overclocking. But I do understand what it is. The majority of the threads i found that people were discussing it were either Froyo or more advanced than autonootered. Just trying to do my homework.
Thanks for the help guys.

[Q] clocking cpu

i am fairly new to rooting phones. i just installed cyanogen 7 on my htc hero. works much faster than the stock. had heard that you can overclock the cpu. i downloaded CPUmaster free and lets me clock cpu to 768MHz. have been doing some research on this and have come across a few things. so really just one question; 1) what is the fastest you can clock the cpu with it still being stable?
help with this would be very much appreciated!

Depends on a variety of factors and every Hero is different. Depends on the ROM your running, kernel, etc. You can play around with capped and uncapped kernels but no one can really give you an exact # but you..u'll just have to try tinkering with the settings. If your wise you will just select one of the governors located in Cyanogenmod Settings. I prefer SmartassV2,min. 362 max 691 its efficient and takes care of everything while prolonging the life of your battery. Also remember that overclocking for an extended period of time will overheat your phone and could cause damage, so keep an eye on the core temp while playing with ur cpu settings.

1big_bear said:
i am fairly new to rooting phones. i just installed cyanogen 7 on my htc hero. works much faster than the stock. had heard that you can overclock the cpu. i downloaded CPUmaster free and lets me clock cpu to 768MHz. have been doing some research on this and have come across a few things. so really just one question; 1) what is the fastest you can clock the cpu with it still being stable?
help with this would be very much appreciated!
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Some phones can't take more than 691, some can handle 768. I have found, for my phone, that 245/710 works great for me. I can see a marked improvement in snappiness at 710 over 691, but not really much at higher frequencies.
I used to use OnDemand as my scheduler, but with the newer .35 kernel I have liked the SmartassV2; I don't have any issues with music cutting out like i would with smartass or interactive. CM7, or most any of the roms built off of that, have the option in CM Settings to adjust both the frequency and governor so you don't need to install a 3rd party app to do so (it's under the "performance" heading). I also like to go into the spare parts app and set my animations to fast; that's just me though. I think the new CM7 builds have Jaybob's .35 kernel now instead of the .29. I have not seen an uncapped kernel that goes beyond 768 in a long time. There was one that jasonmaloney compiled that did 806 (I think) but that was pulled by him as it isn't good for the phone. just test it out and see what you like with what you have installed on your phone. Every phone is different even though they are the same.

Undervolt/Overclock Captivate...

What kind of success/failure are people having with overclocking and undervolting?
I'm doing this through ROM Toolbox Pro. Is there a better way? I'm a n00b with some of this stuff.
I have the phone overclocked to 1200mhz and all cpu levels are undervolted by 100mV.
Im doing so to get more performance, and better battery life. Just wondering what settings everyone else is using.
Also I'm using CM 10.1, with the BlueMint Theme.
Sent from my Samsung Captivate/JB CM 10.1 via Tapatalk.

DR650SE said:
Just wondering what settings everyone else is using.
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Every phone has different limits. It's just like PC overclocking, no two CPU/MB/RAM combos are exactly the same. In general most of Captivates will handle 1200 step OC with default voltages. Not too many will handle 120% live OC though. It doesn't matter what tool you use to OC. All tools try to play with the same kernel settings. In my experience UV saves very little battery but increases significantly the chances to get stability issues. This is why I never play with UV. My particular phone can do 1400 step OC or 1200 live OC with 1350mV. I run it on 1200 step OC @ default. Also, keep in mind that different ROMs/kernels give different OC results.

RE: undervolt
I agree with Val D that undervolting will not show any significant benefits. Overvolting has helped me with stability while overclocking. I use the free Voltage Control app for voltages, or the free NStools app. Rom Toolbox is a great app too- I use it for many other things- stick with what works for you. Currently I am running at 1200Mhz step, at 120% Live OverClock to get CPU up to 1440Mhz, and ARM voltage of 1350mV at that 1200Mhz step. Rock solid. Battery life suffers a bit, but I run this way for gaming. Day-to-day regular usage I just set to 1400Mhz step and no Live OC, default voltages. I have run fine in the past at 1500Mhz, no Live OC. Overclocking the CPU tends to make my phone a bit snappier and more responsive. A big battery drain that affects my phone is an app such as Gmail running in the background, or leaving wifi enabled when not in use. Setting the phone to Airplane mode has been a big battery helper too (I do not make any voice calls on this phone anymore). Governor and scheduler setting can also have a big effect on battery life. I searched for this post I made a while back that linked to two great articles on studies of battery life and voltages, and ended up reading through them again:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=28141250&postcount=1194
Great information. Edit: just figured out how to link articles in my signature.

Thanks guys. I know each one over clocks differently. Just looking for some rough outlines. Thanks for the links. I'll be reading up on those. I have extensive computer over clocking experience, but on e phone its a whole new ball game. Basically trying to make this phone last longer.
I'll have to learn what live OCing is vs step OCing.
Thanks again!
Sent from my GT-P3113 using Tapatalk HD

I just do 1200mhz OC using CyanogenMod 10.1 - the option is in the performance menu. So far no problems.

PxGold said:
I just do 1200mhz OC using CyanogenMod 10.1 - the option is in the performance menu. So far no problems.
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Awesome. Didn't even realize that as there. I've been using ROM Toolbox to OC to 1200MHz.
Sent from my Samsung Captivate/JB CM 10.1 via Tapatalk.

overclocking to 1200 mhz will made any difference ?

Klitoni said:
overclocking to 1200 mhz will made any difference ?
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I really didn't notice much of a difference in speed or responsiveness using CM 10.1.