Easy Overclocking


Think this will be my final update on this topic.

I don't know what happened, I'm assuming maybe after MUCH playing of my GP with it's newfound overclocking abilities I maybe shook some graphite loose of the resistors I dont know, but after about two weeks of it running perfectly at 184mhz, yesterday it starte doing it's same old routine, playing for 5-10 mins and then locking or resetting. I don't want to spend another how many hours trying to redo the graphite application and get it just right to be just enough voltage to get me into the 180's. As many people have pointed out, I have started to question the usefullness of trying, as really the only thing that was taking real advantage of the increased clockspeed was some of the slower running games on DrMD and some Mame games. So I just opened it up and removed the graphite and put her back to stock. When I opened it up I think I confirmed my suspicion as to why the mod failed, on the inside of the back cover of the unit there was quite a layer of graphite dust, so some must have shaken off the resistors over time.


It's not an all sad story though... and I'm hoping someone might have a reasonable explanation for this next part.

Prior to doing the mod, my GP was really only stable to 160mhz, I could do 164mhz sometimes but I did have a lockup once or twice in Mame and DrMD at that speed, so considered 160 my top speed. But just for the heck of it last night I was playing GP Engine at 166mhz, some bomberman '94. Now, when I initially recieved my GP I was very anxious to see if it would do 166 and Bomberman '94 on GP Engine was the first thing I tried, and after about 15 mins it locked up on me. A couple other apps like ScummGP would also lock up on me in 10-15 mins at that speed, and I finally just gave up and accepted that my unit wasn't gonna do 166.

But last night, after undoing the pencil mod, I played for a full 30 mins straight in bomberman at 166mhz. I then tried Son Son II (if you haven't heard of or played this game, check my review in the reviews section, a GREAT castlevania style action platformer for the PC Engine!) at 166 for another 30 mins. I then switched over to DrMD and played Sonic 2 and some other games, 15-20 mins at a time at 166mhz... not one lockup. However, in DrMD if I increase the mhz even one increment (to 168 I think it is?) I get a frozen GP. But otherwise, my GP seems to have somehow 'modded itself' to be able to handle slightly more clock speed, and as far as I can tell with MUCH testing last night (first time I drained a fully charged set of batteries in one sitting! if you're wondering, I got just over 4 hours out of 2300mah nimh rechargeables on a blu + at a constant 166mhz), it is fully stable at 166 now. Really strange, but I'm not complaining!

I did open up the system and check very carefully that there was no graphite dust left and sprayed it with the air-in-a-can very thoroughly, and rubbed the hell out of the resistors with an eraser... all clean.

Question: would rubbing off the outside coating of the R52 possibly increase voltage at all? Apparently thru much drawing on and erasing off of graphite on the R52, the black 'cover' with the numbers on it has worn off slightly. Could this have anything to do with the GP's newfound ability to run 166mhz?
 
Graphite 'under' the resistor?
Resistor pressed closer to the pcb contacts?

And your sig needs updating ;)
 
hmmm I don't think it's any remaining graphite... just judging from the way the unit behaved with various amounts of graphite over the resistor, it'd take quite a lot 'stuck' under the resistor to even make any difference at all. Just like a few other guys I could apply two or three layers over the R52 and get NO change at all (still only able to go to 168mhz w/o instantly locking) then a fourth layer and WHAM I had 200mhz or more.

And I changed my sig... happy? :p
 
I'm not getting anything out of this at all. I can sit and meticulously mark both resistors or just scribble all over anything and I get no difference. Is there any particular way you're supposed to draw other than just drawing on top of each respective resistor?
 
bast525 posted on May 15 2005 at 05:51 AM said:
And I changed my sig... happy? :p

Extremely happy :D I hope you are to :D
 
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eh... I was happier at 184mhz :p but still that the unit somehow beefed itself up to handle 166mhz in it's stock form still has me pretty pleased as well.
 
Currently at 196... Though, going down. :p

Trying to find the max stable with Sonic one demonstration mode. Worked in 224... :p For few seconds, anyways... :(

Though, it does seem, that GP was killing my batteries, 196 seems to run nicely on ac-adapter, gonna try going higher.... :ph34r: (There was something about ac-adaptors giving better results, wasn't there?)



Any ideas how to make the graphite stick? Blue-stick? Lackuerel? (spelling?) Stuff you put over paint/wood to preserve it? Super-glue?
 
AC adapter should let you OC higher and remain more stable than alkalines it seems, and in my own experience, I found that alkalines ran MUCH more stably than my rechargeable nimh's.
 
Jarska333 posted on May 16 2005 at 07:04 AM said:
Any ideas how to make the graphite stick? Blue-stick? Lackuerel? (spelling?) Stuff you put over paint/wood to preserve it? Super-glue?

Before using anything permenant, I'd try something temporary, like scotch tape.
 
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Although... It seems there really isn't any use for overclocking, currently. Only thing I would be interested in, would be the SNES, and OSNES9xgp 03 does not work, neither do the overclocked snesgp's... And 0.1 only overclocks to 166, to my knowledge. Jerky beef. :(

So, untill someone picks up 0.3... :unsure:

AND if someone does pick it up, chances are, he will also optimize the code, and thus it'd need less oomph. :)
 
Jarska333 posted on May 16 2005 at 04:04 PM said:
Any ideas how to make the graphite stick? Blue-stick? Lackuerel? (spelling?) Stuff you put over paint/wood to preserve it? Super-glue?

Well I wouldn't use anything to stick the graphite, but if you decide to do so, make sure the glue etc isnt conductive itself; some glues are.
 
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GP40 posted on May 16 2005 at 06:36 PM said:
Jarska333 posted on May 16 2005 at 04:04 PM said:
Any ideas how to make the graphite stick? Blue-stick? Lackuerel? (spelling?) Stuff you put over paint/wood to preserve it? Super-glue?

Well I wouldn't use anything to stick the graphite, but if you decide to do so, make sure the glue etc isnt conductive itself; some glues are.

Ben speaks the truth :ph34r:
 
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Not just SNES, MAME also DEFINATELY benefits from the higher clockspeeds...

And sorry I know some of you consider DrMD to be 'perfect' but the fact remains that some of MY favorite games like Sonic 3, Sonic and Knuckles, Alien Soldier (friggin AWESOME action game if any of you haven't tried it), Ultimate Mortal Kombat and Vectorman still do run a high frameskip to keep these games running full speed... many of them dip to the low 30's or even low 20 frames per second which is very noticeable and does detract from the experience IMO. At 184mhz almost every game I have on my SMC runs at 40fps or more except Vectorman which stays in the 30's. So the higher speeds DO help out even in DrMD.
 
bast525 posted on May 16 2005 at 02:04 PM said:
eh... I was happier at 184mhz :p but still that the unit somehow beefed itself up to handle 166mhz in it's stock form still has me pretty pleased as well.

Incredibly, the same thing seems to have happened to me.

I fiddled last night for some time with the pencil trick but to no real avail. I could hit 166 - 190 for a couple minutes at best, and the graphics began to warp in Dr.MD. However, after I cleaned it back to stock, my previously 164mhz max GP32 now runs 166mhz ad infinitum. I played Sonic 3 and Knuckles this morning (usually a killer) for a good 40 minutes with no problem.

Result. :)
 
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heh really wierd....

Hopefully someone might be able to figure out why this is happening?

I even opened mine back up and cleaned it up some more and checked with a magnifying glass even, to see if there was ANY graphite left and nothing. I then used a can of compressed air to blow on the thing and make sure there was no dust left floating around in there...

Still my GP now runs perfectly stable at 166mhz whereas it could only run 160-164 before. The only app that does not run stably at 166 is Osnes. Before though, nothing would run 166 even... DrMD, ScummGP, and GP Engine would all lock up after about 5-15 mins.
 
Just to pitch in here, I just tried this (thought I'd wait and see if anyone really killed their GP).
It worked, I was getting 156 max out of my blu+ before, now I get 160 but no more than that. Had to remove some twice before it stabilised (at one point it wouldn't boot anything cleanly).
Doesn't take long to do, about a 5 minute turnaround per layer application.
Hasn't wowed me but I guess I'm unlucky enough to 'only' get 160. That'll do though, surpsisingly I do notice the difference.
Recommended.

Edit: Ooo, 300th topic post yippee!
 
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