Overclocking

[Skop]

Right, for all you veteran's out there let's answer these questions once and for all for newbies etc.

1) what is the definition of overclocking?

2) How do you test high high your gp32 can overclock?

2a) How do you overclock?

3) What are the benefits?

4)What are the risks? (this has been answered too many times to care for but is suitable to finally get it over and done with)


Finally, over and done with.

 

[whodahell600]

1) overclocking is when you make your GP32's cpu work faster than it was made to. (i.e. 133mhz and above)

2)supposedly there was some test but i think it was false because some GP32s went shockingly high. the way i say is the best way to test is to simply go to an emu with an OC feature and put it at 156mhz then play it for awile. if it doesnt restart in at most a couple of minutes than it was meant to be. now try a higher speed.

3)the benifits are more powerful GP32 which means better speed on emus or games or whatever.

4)supposedly OCing cold ruin your gp32 but no one has said anything about their GP32 being ruined so i assume it hasnt happened. if you do go over the max your GP32 can do than it will either freeze and all you have to do is turn your GP32 off and back on and it should be fine, or it restarts.

hope this helps some newbs in the future.

 

[washo]

you should have a look around the forum
but :
1 = The CPU is running faster that it is supposed to go
2 = A small & usefull prog is available to test that (look aroung www.gp32x.de)
Overclock is done by soft
3 = the game/utilitie....is running smoother/faster...
4 = No risk because the GP32 will only reboot if too much is asked

All this is only about GP32
You can mess up you computer CPU by too much overclocking...
You can use at least the 133MHz without ant risks
Over 166MHz.....I dont think its good...but its yours B)
see you

 

[Skop]

This should be pinned!

 

[EdZ]

All the main dangers of overclocking come from the heat produced by a higher voltage running through the procesor. This is why you need extra cooling on an overclocked PC. The ARM9 in the GP32 has a very low heat output as it is, so overclocking is fairly safe. Maybe running solidly at 200mhz for 48 hours may heat it up sufficiantly for electyron tunneling (the process by which a processor is ruined where electons forge their own paths and effectively 'short out' one or more of the CPUs transistors) to occur. Other worries from it are the memory and LCD bus speeds, but I dont know how the bus is affected by overclocking. Is the bus changed or simply the clock multiplier? My gues is the multiplier, as the processor speed appears to go up in fixed increments (133->156-> 166)? Anyone have any more info on this?

 

[craigix]

The CPU is a 188mhz so don't worry about it burning out.

Its down to the parts your GP had put in it, GP obviously sometimes used cheaper parts randomly, and had decided on the 133mhz 'minimum speed' goal.

Some people can get upto 180mhz, but its all luck.

-Craig

www.gbax.com

 

[Skop]

I demand this gets Pinned!

it would stop people answering the same questions over and over again about overclocking. Might as well people have a definitive explaination and stop bugging people.

 

[generalnmx]

Robster found out how high your GP32 can overclock is mostly dependant on the amount of current it can handle coming from and to the CPU. Note that no 8MB GP32 can _really_ be overclocked beyond 166MHz, because that's the highest speed the RAM can handle. True, you can tell the CPU to set itself beyond 166MHz, but the result is that it defaults BACK to 166MHz.

There is a testing program in this thread which will give you a rough upper-bound. Right now, the CPU idles far too much to make it specifically accurate, but I can assure you that your GP32 will not be able to be overclocked beyond what the testing program reports.

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=5546

And thanks for the pin suggestion, but we've already pinned a topic with information about overclocking (link is in my sig), and people still ask the same questions over and over again. We're going to be updating the FAQ soon and posting it on the front page of the website, so hopefully that'll calm people a little bit.

 

[Azure]

You know what would be funny, Skop is one of those newbs asking those OCing questions :lol: He posted this so that people wouldn't get mad at him and so that he could get the answers! That'd be funny

 

[Skop]

Funny.................maybe

Terribly cunning....................YES!