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?
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?
