Root Overclocking the Shine Plus?

[shutdo]

Hi everyone,

I am new to Android. This is my first smartphone...
Since Setcpu won't allow me to OC, I wonder if there is any method to enable overclocking of the CPU, I read that it need a custom kernel to do that.

How exactly am I gonna do that? Has anyone successfully OCed this phone?
my phone is rooted, and has been updated to 2.3.3

Thanks.

 

[jiilik]

Hi everyone,

I am new to Android. This is my first smartphone...
Since Setcpu won't allow me to OC, I wonder if there is any method to enable overclocking of the CPU, I read that it need a custom kernel to do that.

How exactly am I gonna do that? Has anyone successfully OCed this phone?
my phone is rooted, and has been updated to 2.3.3

Thanks.

Well, no one has released a patched kernel for this system of any kind, yet. If you can find a patch for some other phone which uses the same CPU (MSM 7x27 ... not quite sure what goes in the x yet...), I can probably build a custom kernel in a short time with the appropriate patch applied.

This might be what I need: https://github.com/freexperia/semc-kernel-msm7x27/commit/b214fa13fb1ffc3ae5ad1eebc8c9f40482b4016d

Will investigate more tomorrow. Sleepy time now.

 

[shutdo]

Well, no one has released a patched kernel for this system of any kind, yet. If you can find a patch for some other phone which uses the same CPU (MSM 7x27 ... not quite sure what goes in the x yet...)

Thanks for the reply, I thought the LG Ally is almost identical to Shine Plus(I assume they are using the same CPU), is it possible to build one based on that?

and I just can't believe LG is not fixing the Wifi issue(black screen) everyone is having after updating to 2.3.3

BTW, When using wifi, my phone doesn't have notifications when Email/IM comes in when screen is turned off even I set the wifi sleep policy to "never". Do you guys have this problem?Is that caused by very same wifi issue that caused the black screen?

 

[jiilik]

Well, no one has released a patched kernel for this system of any kind, yet. If you can find a patch for some other phone which uses the same CPU (MSM 7x27 ... not quite sure what goes in the x yet...), I can probably build a custom kernel in a short time with the appropriate patch applied.

This might be what I need: https://github.com/freexperia/semc-kernel-msm7x27/commit/b214fa13fb1ffc3ae5ad1eebc8c9f40482b4016d

Will investigate more tomorrow. Sleepy time now.

Alright, here's a build of an overclocked kernel with the following patch applied against the kernel (posting it here so people know what I've done!):

--- arch/arm/mach-msm/acpuclock.c       2011-11-22 10:52:56.218256050 -0600
+++ arch/arm/mach-msm/acpuclock.c-orig  2011-11-22 10:47:57.332256106 -0600
@@ -210,12 +210,6 @@
        { 0, 400000, ACPU_PLL_2, 2, 2, 133333, 2, 5, 122880 },
        { 1, 480000, ACPU_PLL_0, 4, 1, 160000, 2, 6, 122880 },
        { 1, 600000, ACPU_PLL_2, 2, 1, 200000, 2, 7, 122880 },
-       /* added by jiilik - based on http://androidforums.com/ally-all-things-root/135696-overclocking-ally.html#post1539708 */
-       { 1, 729600, ACPU_PLL_2, 2, 0, 182400, 3, 7, 122880 },
-       { 1, 748800, ACPU_PLL_2, 2, 0, 187200, 3, 7, 122880 },
-       { 1, 768000, ACPU_PLL_2, 2, 0, 192000, 3, 7, 122880 },
-       { 1, 787200, ACPU_PLL_2, 2, 0, 196800, 3, 7, 122880 },
-       /* end patch */
        { 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, {0, 0, 0}, {0, 0, 0} }
 };

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to boot. Will keep investigating.

 

[jiilik]

Can't seem to build an overclocked kernel that will boot. I tried modifying the initrd to set the cpu clock max to 600 MHz at boot time, but it appears to hang at boot regardless. That means that the patch that works for the Ally does not work for us.

The processors are slightly different - they have a MSM 7627 and we have a MSM 7227. These are more or less identical chips except one does GSM (the shine plus) and the Ally does CDMA.

(This explains why the radios are not compatible across phones...)

I've been searching for other overclock patches against the 7227 - found a few for various HTC phones. I haven't tried applying them yet. Learning far too much about this CPU though, which is kind of fun.

 

[shutdo]

I really appreciate your effort although it is not done yet, I read from another post that you are working on fixing the wifi issue, hope you could figure out how to work around and build a working custom kernel so everyone could fix the issue and overclock.

 

[jiilik]

I really appreciate your effort although it is not done yet, I read from another post that you are working on fixing the wifi issue, hope you could figure out how to work around and build a working custom kernel so everyone could fix the issue and overclock.

Update: successful overclocking. Will upload the rom and kernel patch later... There's still a few minor issues, and I haven't had it running long enough to see what speeds it's stable at.

YAY!

 

[jiilik]

Alright, here's a download link matching my previous rom, but now with the beta version overclocked kernel:
Multiupload.com - upload your files to multiple file hosting sites!
md5sum: d4d716a99401cf9fa6580e78ae792f9c alohag_signed_jiilik-v005.zip

WARNING: TESTERS who are willing to BREAK THEIR PHONE only.

Note: you need to have updated to v20a through the LG tools before flashing, or you will not have a functioning radio. Please make a nandroid backup before attempting to flash, and then wipe all the user data. If you don't know what any of this means, this is probably not the rom for you.

Lastly, I've set the rom to choose a default speed that's quite low for safety reasons - it may take a while to boot the first time. After booting, get and install SetCPU (Buy it in the app store for $2 or find a copy online... the guy gives it out for free for developers, but buying it is a way to support his development efforts.)

Once SetCPU is installed, try slowly setting the speed higher and then running your phone for a while to find out at what speeds it is stable. Please post your results.

 

[jiilik]

Here's the patch I applied to get this thing to overclock. It's based on patches against the ZTE Blade / ZTE V9 which shares the same CPU.

After the patch is applied, you need to modify the build instructions slightly from the ones given in the LG build instructions README. It should read:

(4) Execute make
- move to the kernel folder and execute make
$ cd kernel
$ make ARCH=arm alohag-pref_defconfig makeconfig
- find the section on setting MSM_CPU_FREQ_SET_MIN_MAX - turn this on
- enable MSM_CPU_FREQ_OVERCLOCK
- set a reasonable MSM_CPU_FREQ_MAX (the default freq at boot)
- save and exit
$ make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/<PATH of android working directory>/android/prebuilt/linux-x86/toolchain/arm-eabi-4.4.3/bin/arm-eabi- -j8
- If the kernel is built sucessfully, you will find the build images in this directory,
"kernel/arch/arm/boot/zImage"

Cheers folks

 

[jiilik]

Some unscientific benchmarks using the SetCPU long bench at various frequencies - lower is better.

604 MHz - 9626 ms (~baseline)
672 MHz - 8589 ms (~11% theoretical gain, benchmark shows ~12%)
748 MHz - 7486 ms
787 MHz - 7166 ms
806 MHz - 6935 ms (~33% theoretical gain, benchmark shows ~38%)
864 MHz - crash

Right now I'm running at 787 MHz to check long term stability. If it's good, I'll step up and repeat.

 

[jiilik]

Some unscientific benchmarks using the SetCPU long bench at various frequencies - lower is better.

604 MHz - 9626 ms (~baseline)
672 MHz - 8589 ms (~11% theoretical gain, benchmark shows ~12%)
748 MHz - 7486 ms
787 MHz - 7166 ms
806 MHz - 6935 ms (~33% theoretical gain, benchmark shows ~38%)
864 MHz - crash

Right now I'm running at 787 MHz to check long term stability. If it's good, I'll step up and repeat.

I installed angry birds to do some practical stability testing . It seems so far that the maximum that my phone is stable at 806 MHz. At 825 MHz, it freezes after a few levels of angry birds. At 844 MHz, it freezes during the intro screen. At 864 MHz, it freezes immediately.

I'm going to try one more overclocking tweak tonight that seems to work for the ZTE folks - aggressive overclocking of the system memory. It might be possible to double the memory speed without melting the sucker.

Also, because it scales down to a lower frequency when the CPU isn't too busy, it seems that overclocking hasn't seriously affected battery life. YAY!

More later.

 

[jiilik]

System memory overclock patch has been applied. This patch comes from the same source as before. It serves to double the AHB speed when the phone is running at 480 MHz or higher. Essentially, this means double speed system memory.

I have it running on my phone, at it seems as stable as it was before. The SetCPU long benchmark is reporting about the same numbers, but this only tests the CPU. The system feels a hell of a lot snappier than even the previous overclock patch.

In particular, when switching apps, this happens a lot faster. I have the phone running at 806 MHz, and it feels like I just got a brand new phone.

Full patches to the kernel attached - these are applied against the LG Kernel sources. See my custom ROM thread for a ready to use ROM that can be installed - this patch has been applied to v006 and later.

Cheers

 

[jiilik]

Some notes on stability.

It appears that processor is quite stable at high speeds, but the 3D GPU is not. I can run the phone at 806 MHz no problem, but if I try to run angry birds or anything else that uses the 3D processing (including the Gallery app), it will sooner (at 750+) or later (at 650+) crash the 3D processing. The phone will continue to work, but any apps requiring 3D will not.

Examples:
at 806, angry birds crashed during title screen.
at 787: crashed at first level
at 768: crashed at 5th level
at 748: crashed at first level
at 729: crashed at 6th level
at 710: crashed at 11th level
at 691: crashed at 10th level
at 672: crashed at 9th level
at 652: crashed at 7th level
at 633: crashed at 20st level
at 614: did not crash.

I'm going to try again later without the memory speed doubling to see if that is that cause.

 

[bb4srv]

Thanks jii for dev the overclock. Will you be kind enough to post a step by step guide?? Thanks

 

[shutdo]

Thanks jii for dev the overclock. Will you be kind enough to post a step by step guide?? Thanks

you can refer to this thread, the latest version is v007
[ROM] Jiilik's custom Shine Plus ROM's

 

[jiilik]

Wow! shutdo gets 844! Android Bob only gets 672. I didn't expect quite so large a variation. I run at 806 quite happily normally.

One thing that isn't clear about my overclocking patch is that the whole system is being clocked up. In the stock rom, the AHB (memory interface) runs at one third the CPU speed. So at 600 MHz CPU, the memory runs at 200 MHz. In my rom, I have the AHB set to run at one-half the CPU speed. The default speed in my rom is 604 MHz (closest one to stock), but the memory is running at 302 MHz, which is already significantly faster.

So while Android Bob gets a mere 12% speed increase on his CPU, he gets a 68% memory speed increase. I'm willing to bet his phone feels quite snappy compared to stock.

For us that can push into the 800+ range, our CPU's are getting 30-40%, but our memory speed is running over 100% faster Feels like a new phone.