Poll: Do you think its possible to overclock the N900?!
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Do you think its possible to overclock the N900?!

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Flandry's Avatar
Posts: 1,559 | Thanked: 1,786 times | Joined on Oct 2009 @ Boston
#941
Originally Posted by Serge View Post
There is an official datasheet from TI (for omap3530 which is very similar to omap3430) with the information about the expected lifespan. Running the chip all the time at 600MHz vs. 500MHz already decreases lifespan twice, hence 600MHz is considered overdrive:
Code:
To avoid significant device degradation for commercial temperature OMAP3530/OMAP3525 devices (0°C
≤ Tj ≤ 90°C), the device power-on hours (POH) must be limited to one of the following:
• 100K total POH when operating across all OPPs and keeping the time spent at OPP5-OPP6 to less
than 23K POH.
• 50K total POH when operating at OPP5 - OPP6.
• 44K total POH with no restrictions to the proportion of these POH at operating points OPP1 - OPP6.
If this effect is exponential, then pushing the chip above 600MHz may reduce lifespan quite dramatically. I think that TI would sell chips labeled at 1GHz if they were sure that this clock frequency is safe, it is in their best interests after all, considering the tough competition.

Those who buy new smartphones each half a year may not care much, but I feel sorry for those who would buy a second hand N900, heavily worn out by some overclocker.
That was quoted a couple times and is indeed relevant, but just a quick point of correction: that's talking about operating voltages (OPP) rather than clock setting. They are connected, but don't necessarily have to be in the same way they are initially defined. Best case scenario for my purposes would be leave clocking more or less as-is and run at lower OPP for top scalings, if possible. That would increase battery life...
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Last edited by Flandry; 2010-04-05 at 14:03.
 
Stonik's Avatar
Posts: 129 | Thanked: 321 times | Joined on Apr 2010 @ Finland (Turku)
#942
Originally Posted by Serge View Post
If this effect is exponential, then pushing the chip above 600MHz may reduce lifespan quite dramatically. I think that TI would sell chips labeled at 1GHz if they were sure that this clock frequency is safe, it is in their best interests after all, considering the tough competition.
This is an interesting situation, and one thing that came into my mind is the advancement in fabrication processes. To put it simply - are the chips that we get in the year 2010 considerably better performing and cooler chips than the first TI OMAP3430 engineering samples?
 
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#943
Originally Posted by Serge View Post
It's 5 years only if you never clock it higher that 600MHz (or 720MHz for the latest omap3530 revisions). If each extra 100MHz decrease lifespan twice, you can do the math about how long it will last running at clock speeds up to 900-1000MHz.
Based on the clock premise for life, the 125mhz less for idle will help to offset the life span- assuming operational ceiling is not compromised (> 1ghz?).

I use my N900 about three hours a day, but it is idle for the rest of the time. Since most of the day I am 125mhz less than the stock clock, this should (to some degree) offset the 800mhz factor that would not even be all of the three hours I use it.

Based on the current assumptions, I will only see about one third the life at 800mhz (if clocked there always for the three hours):

44,000 x .33 = 14,520 / 3 = 4,840 days or 13 years (even if I am off by a magnitude with the .33, it would still be years of service).

This does not consider the 50% less clock (125mhz) I save at idle, which is most of the time the phone is on.

Caveat of course is the operational ceiling of the chipset. Based on Droid, it is at some point after 1.1 ghz. Even if we assume the N900 has less efficient heat dissipation, 800mhz should be nowhere near this point.

Edit:

I did not apply the 125mhz idle time to the life, so actual life would be about 11 years- not 13 years with 125mhz-800mhz, vs 250mhz-600mhz.

Last edited by Rushmore; 2010-04-05 at 14:16.
 

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#944
Oh man this got really out of hand. I bet nobody even reads the warnings about device wearing and other numerous problems that come with them.
 

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#945
I'm glad this is just a mobilecomputerphonethingie. If it dies then you get a new toy... imagine the day you overclock your n900 and the moment it starts melting the guy on tv is telling the world that we have approximately 84 minutes till the world is going to end. The choice is yours: Revert back and live at the safe zone like everyone else. Or take the smoothest 84 minutes
 
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#946
Originally Posted by Rushmore View Post
Based on the clock premise for life, the 125mhz less for idle will help to offset the life span- assuming operational ceiling is not compromised (> 1ghz?).

I use my N900 about three hours a day, but it is idle for the rest of the time. Since most of the day I am 125mhz less than the stock clock, this should (to some degree) offset the 800mhz factor that would not even be all of the three hours I use it).
That's not quite right, the device is actually in off mode most of the time (and not clocked at all), so it is neither running at 125MHz nor 250MHz. The lowest operating point helps to reduce battery drain when having some constant, but not CPU demanding activity like audio playback. So in reality 125MHz does not buy much.
 

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#947
Originally Posted by Lehto View Post
Oh man this got really out of hand. I bet nobody even reads the warnings about device wearing and other numerous problems that come with them.
Lol, I guess you're right. You are a legend, but you probably have to find a good place to hide, as bunch of Nokia agents in black suits are now on their way to get you.

And all we wanted to know was just if N900 would be able to run Crysis.
 

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#948
Originally Posted by Serge View Post
That's not quite right, the device is actually in off mode most of the time (and not clocked at all), so it is neither running at 125MHz nor 250MHz. The lowest operating point helps to reduce battery drain when having some constant, but not CPU demanding activity like audio playback. So in reality 125MHz does not buy much.

True!

My main point is that during operational periods, the device is not always clocked to max
 
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#949
Originally Posted by Serge View Post
It's 5 years only if you never clock it higher that 600MHz (or 720MHz for the latest omap3530 revisions). If each extra 100MHz decrease lifespan twice, you can do the math about how long it will last running at clock speeds up to 900-1000MHz.
It's 5 years only, when the cpu runs at 600Mhz (or 720) _all the time_ when it's running. But as the n900 switches clock - the math to calculate the lifespan goes far beyond basics.

Simple as that: we cannot say for sure how many days/months/years the lifespan will degrade. Absolutely sure seems to be, that there is _some_ sort of degradation *sing* - but I guess no one of us (hardcore-gamers excepted - they should've bought a psp in the first place *g*) will see a dying cpu the next few years.
 

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#950
Gosh, previously this thread is interesting and take many peoples minds off PR1.2 or makes the PR1.2 thread cooled down.
But now, I think, need PR1.2 to cool down this thread :P

Nonetheless, I believe there's always risk, but I notice something.
Having the clock speed at 600mhz max, the moment I go online, the clock speed hit 100% for quite some time, and it lags.
Seeing this situation, would OC actually helps and reduce the "load", and thus clocking less at max clock speed?
Example:
Let's say 600Mhz @ 10 seconds
When OC to 900Mhz, probably it only need to run for say 3~5 seconds?
Just a wild assumption.
If true, I think this actually helps rather than cause problems?

But on the other hand, if talking about running apps which constantly occupies high processing power. Thus, running @ 600Mhz VS @ 900Mhz for long period would be a different story.

Finally, I also wonder if one of the reason the limit of 600Mhz is also due to the reason of Battery? Since the N900 only comes with 1320mah battery and there's issue with how long can the battery last, possible that they try not to clock at higher speed so that the device is able to have longer operating hours per charge?
I think it could possibly be one reason?
 

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