Database Develop

SetCPU usage/benefits?

I was thinking about installing SetCPU but I have heard stories of it not working very well on the Captivate. Does anyone use this, and if so what kind of battery life improvement are you seeing? Post config settings too please!

Its working just fine. I have a live background so my battery usage isnt very great so long as the screen is on. I had some trouble with the system being slow to respond every time I turned the screen back on when I had "screen off" profile set to max 200 and min 100. then it dawned on me that it would always just underclock to 100 I set it to max 200 and min 200 when the screen is off and also started using launcher pro and it is no longer sluggish at all.
This has saved me a gratuitous amount of battery life when the phone is idle.
Default profile
Max 1Ghz
Min 800Mhz
scaling Conservative
Charging/full profile
Same as default but scales on performance
Battery <50%
Max 800Mhz
Min 400Mhz
scaling Ondemand
screen off
Max 200
Min 200
Scale powersave

kenjindomini said:
Its working just fine. I have a live background so my battery usage isnt very great so long as the screen is on. I had some trouble with the system being slow to respond every time I turned the screen back on when I had "screen off" profile set to max 200 and min 100. then it dawned on me that it would always just underclock to 100 I set it to max 200 and min 200 when the screen is off and also started using launcher pro and it is no longer sluggish at all.
This has saved me a gratuitous amount of battery life when the phone is idle.
Default profile
Max 1Ghz
Min 800Mhz
scaling Conservative
Charging/full profile
Same as default but scales on performance
Battery <50%
Max 800Mhz
Min 400Mhz
scaling Ondemand
screen off
Max 200
Min 200
Scale powersave
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for these, I was looking for a some decent settings. Mine were close to that to start, but I had no idea what I was doing, haha

I had some stability problems with it that I am now fairly certain are related to adjusting the polling frequency in advanced settings. After disabling setting advanced settings on boot, and a reboot, it has not caused the phone to hang once. I am also fairly sure that the phone boots with the conservative governor enabled and min/max frequencies set to 100MHz and 1GHz, even without SetCPU - so the main benefit here is profiles to force lower clocks with screen off, or during overheat or low battery.

CPU throttles itself. Any effects of setCPU is placebo effect

Err if you set the clocks yourself, you can produce a difference depending on what it's catered towards. I'm sure if I set the max clock to 200 (assuming the app works) for all situations there will be a difference.

Does the stock ROM have a perflock like the EVO that we need to disable?
Also, does the stock ROM automatically underclock at times, or???

I've now verified after clearing user data, the stock firmware already sets the conservative governor and allows it the full range of frequencies supported by the CPU. Only benefit from SetCPU should be profiles - reduce max clock when hot or low battery, that sort of thing.
Sent from my Samsung Captivate

I was going to make a screen off profile of 200mhz, to save battery. Should I bother doing this?
Edit: Nevermind, I'm just going to uninstall it. It's locked up my phone twice already

Default Profile: 800 MHz
Profiles:
Temp > 46 C -- 400 Max 100 Min Conservative
Battery < 40 -- 400 Max 100 Min Conservative
Screen Off -- 400 Max 100 Min Conservative
This now gives my phone life of about 2 days with moderate use (1 hour calls, 1 hour browsing and another 30-45 mins of using apps that need screen on like games, etc)

brandonb81 said:
I was going to make a screen off profile of 200mhz, to save battery. Should I bother doing this?
Edit: Nevermind, I'm just going to uninstall it. It's locked up my phone twice already
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One thing u got to keep in mind, CPU scales up when woken from low speeds (like when u set for 200 n this takes a second or two). After some R&D i realized 400 MHz when sleeping is optimal with hardly noticeable lag.

Unhelpful said:
I had some stability problems with it that I am now fairly certain are related to adjusting the polling frequency in advanced settings. After disabling setting advanced settings on boot, and a reboot, it has not caused the phone to hang once. I am also fairly sure that the phone boots with the conservative governor enabled and min/max frequencies set to 100MHz and 1GHz, even without SetCPU - so the main benefit here is profiles to force lower clocks with screen off, or during overheat or low battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well, i have tried playing heavy games like asphalt 5, dungeon hunter, assasin's creed... these all games seemed to work with no lag even at 400 MHz when my battery was less than 40. Most apps I have or used or saw were very comfortable even at 400 MHz. But with multiple apps open, sometimes there was lag, so i set the max at 800 MHz, instead of 1 GHz.
Also, I set my connection to EDGE from 3G. This helped reduce phone from getting heated up with long calls.

I tried using this app myself but uninstalled it after a week. While I'm sure there was some underlying cause, it made my phone never wake up from sleep mode when it turned off.
Honestly thou, I know several android phone owners with s lot of phones That didn't see any real change in their battery life as s result. And based on my experiences, I'd say stay away from it.
Just my 2 cents thou
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

System Information

I'm looking at the sys info on quadrant and it shows my current freq: 800mhz.
any one know why it would be showing 800mhz and not 1ghz?

Yep, because it fluctuates.

ahhh... saver modes then... thanks for the info..
now if there's a way to make it static at 1ghz

Why do you want it to run at full power constantly? Why do you want it to suck more power then it needs to?
Believe it or not, your computer CPU does the same thing. It's frequency fluctuates depending on the task at hand. Take this for example: my Core 2 Duo isn't going to always run at it's 2.5Ghz. Intel has something called CPU stepping in it's instruction set and it's meant to decrease power usage, wear and tear, and energy drain when at idle or near idle. Same thing with your phone.

[Q] CPU speed and phone temperature

My specific issue involves SetCPU but I'm wondering about the larger scheme of how things work.
My phone gets hot in the car dock when running GPS, Navigation, and Bluetooth (I don't turn it on but I think my dock does it automatically). The general consensus is to underclock slightly when charging because charging generates heat, and I have a SetCPU profile to do that. Then comes the issue of heat generated from GPS and Bluetooth, and possibly processor load when running apps while docked, so I have two profiles for that: one to underclock a few steps down from the charging CPU speed when the temperature of the phone is at 40* C, another to clock down one more step when the temp hits 42* C, which I feel is at the point the phone gets a little too warm for use.
I've noticed that my phone doesn't necessarily stay cooler and in fact, sometimes it gets hotter than before I started using SetCPU. Over the past few days I've seen temps of near 45* C (113* F), toasty enough that I have to let my phone cool down before I can use it again.
So, my question is if underclocking too much is bad. For example, if I'm underclocking too much, does that strain the processor while it is trying to run apps and hardware? Is it better to let the system handle processor speed? I see this in driving a manual/standard transmission car - if I attack a hill in a high gear, I can eventually reach the top but with increased load on my engine. Maybe the processor speed works opposite - too low and it strains too much?
I used to be concerned about clock speed vs. battery life but now that I'm docking in my car more and noticing the heat, I'm more concerned about the heat. I'm currently using redstar's kernel but get the same results with that or the CM kernel that comes with the nightlies.
If it helps to troubleshoot, or if you want to critique me, here's my profile list.
Normal: 245 min, 998 max (default settings)
Priority 100 - temp > 42*C: 460 max, 245 min
P 90 - temp > 40*C: 499 max, 245 min
P 80 - screen off: 384 max, 245 min
P 70 - charging AC: 576 max, 245 min
(SetCPU related question, sorry if this is too far off forum topic) Are there better profile settings I could be using?
Also, I don't quite understand undervolting in terms of kernels. What effect does that have, if any?

Concept noob idea for a governor

Hello all !
I was bored in school today so I've written a governor concept idea for quad cores. I'm not a dev AT ALL (for now at least, i'm studying many different stuff, hardware / code related too).
I have no idea if this is possible or if this is clever but I wanted to share it anway. If it gives idea to a developer, that's totally worth it, otherwise, well... I had fun doing it
It's called Progressive.
Progressive
The name of the governor says all. The idea behind it is to be «*progressive*». It means it doesn't unleash the full power when it's not needed. It goes progressively higher in freq with more cores. This should make the phone cooler and the battery better. The delay (3 sec ) is just a number, not sure this is really nice. Also, I'm not sure how the S4 handles temperature.
Max freq 1.5 Ghz
Min freq 384 Mhz
Screen off
=> 384-918 Mhz // not too low frequency to avoid reboot
Screen on without touching since 3 sec // always check after 3 seconds for changing the state
=> 384-1134 Mhz only one core online
Screen on touched
=> 594-1134 Mhz two cores online // bump the min_freq to avoid keyboard lag and to add a bit of butter
Screen on touched with a medium load of task // not sure how quantify this
=> 594 Mhz – 1.5Ghz two cores online
Screen on touched with a high load of task // i.e. Games
=> 702 Mhz – 1.5 Mhz four cores online // max power
We also need a thermal protection to avoid any damage, this should do the trick
If the temp is >= 80°C
=> Two cores online max_freq 1134 Mhz until it reaches 70 °C // not sure about the temp, this can be adjusted
If the temps is >=70°C
=> Let 4 cores being possibly online but lower the max_freq to 1134 Mhz
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you guys think ? Is this even possible ? Good, bad idea ?
I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed to writte it

doesn't it do this already?

Fissurez said:
doesn't it do this already?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure how the ondemand governor on nexus 4 works. So I can't really answer, it's really a noob idea that poped into my head today

you pretty much described interactive with mpdecision enabled.
not exactly, but quite.
3 seconds is way too long for the CPU to ramp up (just a matter of tweaking, though). you'd get more lag than you save battery.
mpdecision ramps the cpu to its maximum frequency as soon as a touch input is detected (normally only 2 cores until a certain threshold is reached), so yours should save a bit of power during smaller workloads.
also, if the touch input is released, it clocks the active cores down to 1.02 GHz for a bit before disabling them when not needed.
after all, it seems like a more conservative interactive governor with active mpdecision. could be nice for saving battery while retaining good performance.
it could be a viable choice for those who go for battery life over performance. :good:

Nuu~ said:
you pretty much described interactive with mpdecision enabled.
not exactly, but quite.
3 seconds is way too long for the CPU to ramp up (just a matter of tweaking, though). you'd get more lag than you save battery.
mpdecision ramps the cpu to its maximum frequency as soon as a touch input is detected (normally only 2 cores until a certain threshold is reached), so yours should save a bit of power during smaller workloads.
also, if the touch input is released, it clocks the active cores down to 1.02 GHz for a bit before disabling them when not needed.
after all, it seems like a more conservative interactive governor with active mpdecision. could be nice for saving battery while retaining good performance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you Sir, I understand better how mpdecision works now
Glad to see i'm not completely stupid lol

[MOD] Thermal mod of T805/T800 boost performance by 150%

I have this tabled for a long time, but as i rarely used it i didn't bother with it much. From day one back in 2014 the tablet was sluggish and laggy, today is just unbearable even for browsing. So i have decided to take a look of what can i do.
I have installed the latest (10.26.2019) LineageOS-14.1-Deathly with gapps nano.
I have installed CPU Throttling Test from the play store and start testing to see what's going on. I saw that the CPU Throttle instantly (like in 10-15 sec max) from 1900mhz to 600mhz, and this is where the sluggishness comes from, the CPU is constantly throttled no matter that you are just looking at a simple web page.
I started playing with the Deathly Adiutor and under-voltage the cpu, set the max to 1400mhz and this is where it is stable as it is. At 1400mhz constant 100% CPU stress the CPU temps are around 90c (at 95 the cpu starts throttling). Anything above 1400mhz even with under voltages CPU results in throttling within 1-2 min, but even like that at 1400mhz and GPU set to be always used and at minimum of 480mhz (with setting in dev options to always use gpu for 2d composition) the performance was really much much better then the stock settings.
I have continued to play with it and noticed that if i apply pressure with my fingers on the back panel just below the camera where is the most hottest, the temps are dropping 10-15C, so i have opened it and i saw the issue.
The issue is that the metal shield radiators does not make a good contact with the thermal pad on the back panel, and thus can't dissipate the heat well. This may variety from user to user as some back panels will make better or worse contact, but its far from ideal.
Its good that i have some spare thermal pads around and i have applied them, and the result is perfect, drop in 12-17Cfrom stock setup under continues stress.
As a final result i have managed to bump the CPU from 1400mhz to 1600mhz with 1087mV voltage and at max 84C (down from around 90 at 1400mhz) at constant 100% CPU stress. The performance gains are around 100 to 150% (At around 42-47k GIPS up from 20-25k GIPS stock in CPU Throttling test). Additionally i have to say, its extremely easy to open the back cover panel.
Furthermore, i made an video to see how it runs and the settings i use.
https://youtu.be/_UJdjPDQB00
I'm attaching before and after the mod photos.

Quick followup, i have run 3D Mark benchmark and PCmark, see the screenshots below. Managed to achieve the world fastest Tab S, enjoy

Awesome.. I followed ur recommendations and set 1087mv at 1600mhz and its fasttttt

rihui said:
Awesome.. I followed ur recommendations and set 1087mv at 1600mhz and its fasttttt
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks mate. I'm glad it helps According to 3DMark, the performance now is slightly better then Galaxy Tab A 2019, it really bring new life to this tablet and its ready to rock another couple of years

how's your battery life with minimum CPU speed at 1600
Screen on & Standby time?

rihui said:
how's your battery life with minimum CPU speed at 1600
Screen on & Standby time?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its not the minimum CPU frequency that gives you the performance boost, its the maximum frequency limit at 1600mhz down from 1900mhz, as i explained, to gain the performance, you need to avoid CPU from overheating and throttle down itself to the ground. That's why the max frequency with the thermal pads and improved thermals is 300mhz below the stock 1900mhz, and without the pads my max stable frequency were 1400mhz (500mhz below stock).
The minimum frequency will only smooth out initial animations and things like that, but don't have much of an impact on the overall performance. With that said, increasing the minimum frequency ofc will eat more battery and you don't need it, you can safely set it to 650mhz (as low as it allows) and depending on your kernel governor policy should have the same or better battery life. As i said, the main gainer is preventing the CPU from overheating at 1900mhz and throttle down to 650mhz where it sits most of the time with stock settings.
In fact if you limit your max frequency to 1400 or 1600mhz depending on your stable thermal results, and set minimum to 650mhz, you will see the performance gain AND significantly increased battery life due to that CPU does not go to 1900mhz and does not eat that much power and voltage. You really need to fine tune it depending on your needs, but at stock CPU throttling down to 650mhz and staying there is an manufacturer (Samsung) failure, and if i were discovered this when i bought it, i would wanted refund, as they advertise 1900mhz CPU which almost never works at that frequency.
I tested this method on other tablets and phones, and while it happens on other devices to throttle down after 5-7 mins (not after 15 sec), i have never seen to throttle more then down to 80% of the advertised frequency, but the Tab S goes almost immediately down to 35% where it stays and cripple the device. Its really really bad engineering from Samsung.

Going to try this.
Thanks
A lot better .

What thickness of thermal pad should I buy? Probably will buy from Amazon unless I need to make a trip to Microcenter. Thanks for this suggestion @nauvho

osutx427 said:
What thickness of thermal pad should I buy? Probably will buy from Amazon unless I need to make a trip to Microcenter. Thanks for this suggestion @nauvho
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well as you can see on the picture, the CPU bed already has one black pad by Samsung by default which is around 0.2/0.3mm i think, but it does not make contact, so i put on the CPU radiator 1mm pad and on the other radiators i put 0.5mm to equalize in case my pad is too thick. Your guide should be how easy is to close the back-plate, if you need too much force you may need thinner. So i guess you can take 0.3, 0.5 and 1mm pads.

effing A

Wow
Applied the same settings that you show in the video and WOW! It's like a new tablet. I didn't even put thermal pads.

joelcool69 said:
Applied the same settings that you show in the video and WOW! It's like a new tablet. I didn't even put thermal pads.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nice

just rooted t800 with MM + trw + SU.
added some thermal pads like in the pics.
installed Deathly Adiutor ....which said that doesn't like the kernel..and doesn't let to change the cpu max speed, and the voltage page doesn't even exist
installed Kernel Adiutor from playstore with which I can lower the freq, and for 1600 it works 1-2min at 27-28000GIPS then starts to throttle

louis_alphons said:
just rooted t800 with MM + trw + SU.
added some thermal pads like in the pics.
installed Deathly Adiutor ....which said that doesn't like the kernel..and doesn't let to change the cpu max speed, and the voltage page doesn't even exist
installed Kernel Adiutor from playstore with which I can lower the freq, and for 1600 it works 1-2min at 27-28000GIPS then starts to throttle
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why are you using MM? Also, did you noticed that center pad is thicker and side ones are tinnier? what are your CPU temps? Also probably due to MM, but I'm getting around 42gpis (average) at 1.6, but you should really check your pads placement, thickness and temps, put the CPU under load note the temps before throttling down.

nauvho said:
Why are you using MM? Also, did you noticed that center pad is thicker and side ones are tinnier? what are your CPU temps? Also probably due to MM, but I'm getting around 42gpis (average) at 1.6, but you should really check your pads placement, thickness and temps, put the CPU under load note the temps before throttling down.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using MM since I don't know if it worth to upgrade; does this LineageOS work well...all features (cam, scanner, soud etc) works with it?
used 1mm pad over the cpu... 0.5 otherwise (china made); also removed the small factory pad and placed another pad patch there; the back cover heats well and I assume that the heat doesn't have where to go.
since it's not throttling at 1600MHZ (almost 100%, take a look at the pic)...from where to get more than 28GIPS?

louis_alphons said:
I'm using MM since I don't know if it worth to upgrade; does this LineageOS work well...all features (cam, scanner, soud etc) works with it?
used 1mm pad over the cpu... 0.5 otherwise (china made); also removed the small factory pad and placed another pad patch there; the back cover heats well and I assume that the heat doesn't have where to go.
since it's not throttling at 1600MHZ (almost 100%, take a look at the pic)...from where to get more than 28GIPS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think removing the stock black pad were a good idea, I did not removed mine, my pad is next to it. Also CPU throttle app is not reliable to monitor cpu temp (at least for me) , you should do it by starting the throttle test and then switch to deathly auditor and monitor the temp and clock there or other app like CPUz or Aida. Look at the video how I monitored the temp. The CPU will start throttle at 93-95c so your temp of 81 cannot be accurate if it throttle. Didn't you said that you throttle at 1.6 in your previous post?
Regarding the performance I think it might be eigher app difference between mm and 7.1 or due to MM itself. And yes everything is working perfectly for me with lineage, camera, fingerprint, everything is fine and it is mile better then MM imo.

installed 7.1
pcmark 4330 with your mods.
so the thermal pads doesn't matter on MM.
from my testings on 7.1 the boost in pcmark comes form setting max freq 1600 + undervoltage (3000->3500), and another boost...by setting the lower freq to 1600 (3500->4300)

louis_alphons said:
installed 7.1
pcmark 4330 with your mods.
so the thermal pads doesn't matter on MM.
from my testings on 7.1 the boost in pcmark comes form setting max freq 1600 + undervoltage (3000->3500), and another boost...by setting the lower freq to 1600 (3500->4300)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice.
About the pads, they matter only if the CPU temp under load drops when you apply pressure with fingers on the back cover as i explained in my first post, but idk if this apply to all tablets or just mine. The boost comes from not throttling the CPU down and being stable at maximum possible frequency. The CPU can go up to 1900mhz and beyond (2.1 by spec), but the cooling is not enough for that frequencies.
I think that adding an 0.5-1mm copper heat pipe thru radiators or copper heat pads similar to flagship phones might push it to 1.9, will order some someday and try it.

now it will be interesting ?% it's the termal mod in this boost, which means, performing the test in PCMARK only with steps 1+2:
1. LineageOS-14.1-Deathly
2. Deathly Adiutor (which requires step 1) + CPU max freq 1600 + undervoltage at that freq + CPU min freq 1600
3. Thermal pads added inside the box.
Since I started with thermal pads...I can say that in MM it doesn't matter.
-after upgrade to 7.1 as I said..PC...MArk around 3000 (thermal pads mounted)
-after setting max freq 1600 + undervoltage I got a boost in PCMark to 3600
-in addition, with min freq 1600...got another boost..to 4300; in this turbo state..the battery drains quickly, but the interface it's fast like the wind.
PCMark doesn't use CPU at 100%, it counts also how fast cand do certain short tasks...and this matters because if CPU it's in it's low power states..it loose time to rise its freq and do the calc at full power.

louis_alphons said:
now it will be interesting ?% it's the termal mod in this boost, which means, performing the test in PCMARK only with steps 1+2:
1. LineageOS-14.1-Deathly
2. Deathly Adiutor (which requires step 1) + CPU max freq 1600 + undervoltage at that freq + CPU min freq 1600
3. Thermal pads added inside the box.
Since I started with thermal pads...I can say that in MM it doesn't matter.
-after upgrade to 7.1 as I said..PC...MArk around 3000 (thermal pads mounted)
-after setting max freq 1600 + undervoltage I got a boost in PCMark to 3600
-in addition, with min freq 1600...got another boost..to 4300; in this turbo state..the battery drains quickly, but the interface it's fast like the wind.
PCMark doesn't use CPU at 100%, it counts also how fast cand do certain short tasks...and this matters because if CPU it's in it's low power states..it loose time to rise its freq and do the calc at full power.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thermal mode does matter alot, CPU thermals is everything, the lower temps are, the higher frequency you can push the CPU, more frequency = more performance. As i said, without the thermal pads i could not get 1.6ghz to be stable, only 1.4 were stable-ish.
In stock rom, CPU governor and states are set according to the temps with the stock cooling. But if you don't change settings it wont change much. However Samsung engineers did a terrible job with those default settings, so as i explained in my first post only doing the software changes had dramatic impact on the performance because you get the CPU stable even at 1.4, but the thermal mod push it further to 1.6
The true performance benchmark is the 3DMARK (my screenshots 3 and 4 for score "ice storm unlimited" test and "Sling Shot" test) this will push your CPU and GPU to the max, PCMark is more about daily use performance and also can be used to measure battery performance between different settings.
Yes leaving CPU with minimum of 1.6 will drain battery more quickly naturally, is using more power, i leave mine at 1.2 as minimum, but minimum speed should not matter much in benchmarks if you are using the same as mine CPU governor. CPU governor basically tells the CPU how to behave, like how quickly to rise the frequency, for how long and etc.