Know Your Overclocking Options Part Two

Wow! We never expected overclocking articles would have gotten such a huge response in the webOS community! Due to high demand we had to do a follow up post.

In my previous post I told the story of my overclocking journey. Now, I will get a little more detailed about what a kernel is, what overclocking does to your hardware, and why I chose the path that I have. Keep in mind I am no expert on this matter! I am just an average webOS user like you all.

What is a kernel? I really didn’t know until I overclocked my Pre. A kernel is a bridge between applications and the actual data processing done at the hardware level according to Wikipedia. Of course the definition also goes on in much greater detail but the above definition is a good start to understanding what exactly a kernel is. So basically I like to think of a kernel as the “middle man” between software and hardware.

What is overclocking? The name “overclocking” only vaguely describes what is actually going on. Overclocking is the process of running a computer component at a higher clock rate (more clock cycles per second) than it was designed for or was specified by the manufacturer, once again taken from the Wikipedia definition, which is really difficult for most to understand. So lets simplify it to overclocking is speeding up our CPU.

So what does a kernel have to do with speeding up your CPU? Well if the kernel is the “middle man” between your hardware and software then overclocking would be the orders he would be barking at your CPU. Basically the kernel would be telling Mr. CPU to move his backside or he is fired ;-) And that, boys and girls, is overclocking in layman terms. Of course it is a lot more in depth than that but it’s the easiest I could describe it.

Now with all that understood keep in mind there are some possible negatives associated with overclocking. Don’t forget that the manufacturer rating on the Pre OMAP 3430 is 600MHz which Palm underclocks to 500MHz. So pushing the CPU past the manufacturer recommended 600MHz could cause premature failure of your CPU. For instance, you can’t slap a supercharger on your new car and then take it back to the dealer when you break the motor. Don’t be scared off though as I have yet to hear one report of someone’s Pre crapping out due to overclocking.

Now on to why I chose the the UberKernel/Govnah route. I originally tried this setup back when it was in the WebOS Internals testing feed because it was something new. Being the kind of guy I am, I like to experiment and this seemed like a fun new way to play with my phone. However, it is now available to anyone with Preware on their device. Anyhow, once I discovered that Govnah could control my CPU speed on the fly without the need to reboot my phone I was hooked. Just by tapping on governor in the Govnah app I had a lot of choices to play with my CPU speed. It’s a little intimidating at first but once you play with it for awhile you will find what works best for you. And for those that are less daring, WebOS Internals has included 4 of the most popular setups in the saved profiles.

A huge problem I had with overclocking in the past was battery consumption. See, before the Govnah/Uberkernel combo your phone was running at a constant setting. If you had the 720MHz ipk installed your phone was stuck at 720MHz even when you weren’t using it. If you were using Super Pre Kernel you were forced to uninstall the overclock kernel to go back to the factory setting of 500MHz. Either way, battery consumption was always a big issue for me due to constantly running overclocked. However, with Govnah you can knock your CPU speed all the way down to 125MHz! Meaning when not in use I can have the screenstate governor run my phone underclocked to conserve battery power. Using this the screenstate setting I have actually had my overclocked Pre survive 3/4 of the day till I had to charge it.

As I stated in my previous post, UberKernel has a CPU temp monitor written into it that can be monitored via Govnah. Why is this important? Well as you may know when you overclock a CPU it gets hotter as voltages and frequency increases. In a PC this can be handled with heatsinks, cooling fans, water cooling, etc.. However, with a phone we have no cooling options so keeping an eye on CPU temp is very important so we are not the first person to crap out their Pre. Before the CPU temp monitor was written into UberKernel the only way to monitor temperature was with a battery temperature patch. It was helpful but did not give the actual CPU temperature and battery temp can vary from the actual CPU temp.

In my last post I didn’t get into the drama of what actually went on in the land of homebrew. I also did not try to sway anybody to use a specific means to overclock their phone as I really wanted to remain a neutral party. I myself am not part of what went down but I did sit on the sidelines and see some of what happened between the two parties associated with UberKernel and Super Pre Kernel. If you all do enough digging you can uncover quite a bit of the drama and make your opinions of who was right and who was wrong but in the end it’s pointless. Pretty much when the dust settled Super Pre Kernel was left with no programmers to my knowledge. There is no longer anybody to modify the kernel after we have updates. So in essence Super Pre Kernel (SPK) is no more. Currently Super Pre Kernel is based off the 1.4.0 kernel. Being that 1.4.1.1 was a minor update SPK still runs fine with one exception! As all you Verizon Pre Plus owners know there was a double type issue that Palm fixed with the 1.4.1.1 update. Since Super Pre Kernel is based off of 1.4.0 those Pre Plus owners who continue to use SPK will still have double type issues as Palm obviously changed the kernel to compensate for a hardware issue. Things like this are going to happen more frequently as updates come so if you want to keep the improvements from future updates now would be a good time to familiarize your self with both Govnah and UberKernel. There’s no telling how long Super Pre Kernel will continue to work as updates come in the future so stop wasting time and get rid of it.

So in the end maybe I shouldn’t have named this post “Know your Overclocking Options” because in my eyes there really is only one option. I really just wanted to tell the tale of my overclocking journey and it became this huge thing that everyone was interested in and wanted further information on. I will take into consideration any further requests as I plan to keep you all posted on what developments are made in the future. So keep your eyes peeled for the latest and greatest news in the world of overclocking here at webOSroundup!