Root [Virgin Mobile] InsanelyCool Kernel 2.1GHz! --Performance-OC-UV--(7-6-2014)

[insanelycool]

Update! I am stable with under-volted frequencies at 2.1Ghz (Huge thanks to rbheromax and JerryScript for their pioneering efforts in this area made it much easier to narrow down the needle in the haystack I was looking for!)

Kernel build success... ND4 is unlocked at last... one step closer to victory :thumbup:

USUAL WARNINGS -- I am not responsible for any damage, real or perceived...
...that may or may not arise do to the use of my kernel.
This Kernel is for ND4 only
make sure you are already on the ND4 Build and Baseband.​

Planned features:
Unlock to 1.5Ghz
Video player fix
Improved Power Management & Performance (ongoing)
Overclock max to 1.728GHz 2.1GHz!!!!
Undervolt
plus more... I might even take requests

Planned Versions:
-Unlocked Only...
-Performance...
-Battery Saver...

Current (Performance-OC-UV) Known Problems:
People with slow chips may not be able to boot. Need feedback from testers about performance and crashes. I can adjust the voltages for slower chips if necessary.

Release Notes:
Performance-OC-UV - 2.1GHz max, Under Volt, AVS (Need feedback from people with different chips about the voltages!)

Beta2 – *Unlocked CPU (1.5Ghz) *Enabled (APM) Advanced Power Management *Changed default scheduler from deadline to CFQ *Removed deadline scheduler *Changed default governor from performance to ondemand *Removed userspace and msm dcvs governors *Enabled AVS (Adaptive Voltage Scaling) *Fix for stock video player

Beta1 - *Unlocked CPU (1.5Ghz)

---------------------------------------
---------------------------------------
For their insightful posts and contributions... Without their posts, conversations, and files I would have given up on this project. Each one of these people have taught and helped me with the many things I needed to create this.
SPECIAL THANKS Goes out TO:
rbheromax
JerryScript
Jupiter
TeachMe
Interloper
G60Madman
Madbat
MoonKnightus
Nick_73
and everyone who contributed in the past and future...
...THANKS FOR TESTING!
---------------------------------------
---------------------------------------

This is just the beta build so please let me know how well its working or if you have any problems

Instructions:
1. Flash using TWRP
2. Wipe Cache/Dalvik

Current Downloads:
Performance-OC-UV
MAY NOT WORK FOR EVERYONE! I NEED FEEDBACK. Charged up my phone last night. Screen off so it should have been in lower freqs all night. My phone got super hot, I wonder if its just the battery getting old, as it should have charged to 100% but it was at 99% when I woke up.

Beware of overheating everyone! BE SAFE, THIS IS A TEST KERNEL! PLEASE BE EXTRA AWARE OF HEAT (ESPECIALLY WHILE CHARGING). THIS KERNEL IS HEAVILY OVERCLOCKED AND I DON'T WANT YOUR PHONE OR BATTERY TO EXPLODE! I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF IT DOES!

Video Fix (If Needed)

Stock ND4 Kernel

Old Downloads:
Insanelycool Kernel Beta2
Insanelycool Kernel Beta1


I will be writing a kernel building tutorial for anyone who wants to learn, but that comes after working on a few other tweaks to the kernel.

 

[Madbat]

Great to see some action on the victory. Remember that the stock video player is kernel supported and most custom kernels break it. There are two lib files you can add in to fix it though, I have them somewhere.

 

[insanelycool]

Great to see some action on the victory. Remember that the stock video player is kernel supported and most custom kernels break it. There are two lib files you can add in to fix it though, I have them somewhere.

Good call on that. If we need them I'll just put them all in one package. I don't ever use the built in video player, but this is exactly why I need beta testers.

I almost had beta2 ready last night, it's mostly a performance increase by disabling unnecessary extras, and adding in some power management features. It seemed a bit snappier, but I borked the wifi when I built it, so I'm gonna have to work on it more today.

 

[Madbat]

I found them if you want them https://app.box.com/s/338g5k08210kbrm5g8rg
I knew I had it somewhere.
I use the stock video player sometimes. When I'm home on my wifi , it has a nearby devices option that streams all the videos from my computer.

 

[insanelycool]

:vollkommenauf: A weekend gone, but a lot of progress made. BETA2 is released and OP has been updated with changes and link.

 

[Madbat]

Been running it since you put it up. Runs good. I'll watch battery today to see if there's any difference.

 

[insanelycool]

BETA 2 seems stable for me, no issues that I've noticed.

I installed everything I want on it and basically filled up the phone space (link2sd installed but no apps linked).
My latest benchmark brought me to 16985. I will post screens of it and some thoughts later on.

 

[insanelycool]

Update! I am stable with under-volted frequencies at 2.1Ghz (Huge thanks to rbheromax and JerryScript for their pioneering efforts in this area made it much easier to narrow down the needle in the haystack I was looking for!)

I will be posting this as the beta for the performance build of this kernel. If you plan to download it keep in mind that it might not work for you. As you can see from the screens above it works for me, and these are lowered voltages so that means I have a chip that can handle it. I might have to adjust the voltages for a wider audience, but I will see if I can incorporate the chip rating into determining an ideal range.

WARNING! THIS PROJECT IS BEING SPLIT INTO 4 BUILDS!

Each will be posted as I complete them:
1. Vanilla (UNCAP ONLY)
2. Battery Saver (Uncapped with UV and power saving tweaks)
3. Performance (Performance tweaks OC up to 2.1 [for fast chips]
4. Performance Saver (Performance settings with battery saving tweaks)


Update coming tonight... still running tests and plan to clean up some things in the kernel first... but everything is looking good so far!

 

[insanelycool]

Charged up my phone last night. Screen off so it should have been in lower freqs all night. My phone got super hot, I wonder if its just the battery getting old, as it should have charged to 100% but it was at 99% when I woke up.

Beware of overheating everyone! BE SAFE, THIS IS A TEST KERNEL! PLEASE BE EXTRA AWARE OF HEAT (ESPECIALLY WHILE CHARGING). THIS KERNEL IS HEAVILY OVERCLOCKED AND I DON'T WANT YOUR PHONE OR BATTERY TO EXPLODE! I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF IT DOES!

Edit: I think its my battery/charger. I've been having issues for some time now with the included charging cable, as it doesn't stick well in the charging slot. I think it came loose repeatedly last night which prevented the battery from getting to 100% and thus building up too much battery heat. The phone was running a sleep tracking app all night at 384Mhz according to logs. So I really think this is just my cord coming loose. I have a shorter cable from my old motorolla phone that snaps in well and doesn't get loose, so I will try to start using that for now.

 

[insanelycool]

Just wanted to post an update... Things have been going really well, been running my performance kernel beta since a day before I posted it. It works well. I see some room for adjustments from some of the feedback from the other forum I participate on. So I'm working on tightening things up and testing it pretty thoroughly.

Feel free to run it and post back with any ideas, problems, etc. I will be posting a new build before the weekend!

 

[HonestOtter]

Just wanted to post an update... Things have been going really well, been running my performance kernel beta since a day before I posted it. It works well. I see some room for adjustments from some of the feedback from the other forum I participate on. So I'm working on tightening things up and testing it pretty thoroughly.

Feel free to run it and post back with any ideas, problems, etc. I will be posting a new build before the weekend!

Awesome I look forward to trying this, sadly I can't get my TWRP to work right now, when I wipe my data twrp restarts. Same thing happens when I try to format the data, fix permissions on the data or restore when it gets to flashing the data.

 

[insanelycool]

Awesome I look forward to trying this, sadly I can't get my TWRP to work right now, when I wipe my data twrp restarts. Same thing happens when I try to format the data, fix permissions on the data or restore when it gets to flashing the data.

That is because you are on TWRP 2.7+ (which does not work for our current kernels (no SSELinux support). Flash back to 2.6.3 using odin and everything will work just fine...

Word of warning though, if you restore any backups made while you had 2.7 you might accidentally reflash TWRP 2.7... best bet is just to make a new backup on 2.6.3 and then get rid of any you made on 2.7.

 

[dishe]

Is this Kernel VM only? Or will it work on the Sprint side as well?

[EDIT, answered my own question- see below]

 

[dishe]

Just wanted to pipe in and confirm that this seems to work fine on the Sprint side.

I only tried the beta2 (unlocked to 1.5) because I didn't want to push my luck on the overclock, but maybe I'll give that a try next!

 

[insanelycool]

I was going to reply that I'm not sure if it would work... At first I was inclined to think that it might cause issues because I built the kernel from Samsung's VMU source. Though on second thought I'm not sure if the Kernel is really different at all from the SPR source though. (The source is Kernel and ROM, so it may just be that the ROM part is the only real difference, but I am not certain of this).

Let me know if you have problems at all... I could pretty easily download the SPR source and copy my changes to the kernel and compile that if necessary.
Maybe someone with more knowledge about this can chime in with something more definitive.

 

[dishe]

So far its been working pretty well with beta2. I haven't tried the 2.1ghz overclock yet, maybe sometime this coming week I'll give it a shot.

No problems at all, everything has been running smoothly. rbheromax actually told me that the previous VaeVictus was the same kernel for both VM and Sprint, so sounds like the Kernel has generally been accepted as the same for both.

 

[insanelycool]

So far its been working pretty well with beta2. I haven't tried the 2.1ghz overclock yet, maybe sometime this coming week I'll give it a shot.

No problems at all, everything has been running smoothly. rbheromax actually told me that the previous VaeVictus was the same kernel for both VM and Sprint, so sounds like the Kernel has generally been accepted as the same for both.

Awesome! Well if rbheromax says it is so, then I will place my bet on that!

I do have a request from you and anyone else trying out the overclock kernel...
Tell me the binning of your cpu... here are the instructions on how to do it:

To find out your CPU binning info (this is used to determine your voltage table [Higher or lower]):
1. Go into the settings of your phone and enable USB debugging in your developer options.
2. Install ADB if you haven't already. This one is super light weight and works great: 15 seconds ADB Installer.
3. Hook up your phone to the computer via a known good usb cable.
4. Reboot phone
5. Open a command line
6. As soon as the phone is accessible from the computer (can get to its files), type "adb shell". (The prompt will now say "shell@android:/ $")
7. Type "su"
8. Check phone and grant SU to adb shell
9. Type "dmesg | grep PVS"
10. Note the speed listed (slow, nominal, fast, f3). If the command didn't work, leave the cmd window open... and start over from step 3.

Currently I used the same voltages for every binning, so it will help me a lot to hear back from people with various binnings, how well its working. As you can see in my screenshot above, my cpu is binned as fast. I can adjust the voltages for each binning, but I am going to wait until I get some feedback from people before I change anything.

 

[dishe]

I don't have my USB cable here at work so I can't do this at the moment, but I'll try if you are still looking for feedback another day. I actually flashed the OC kernel by using a micro-SD reader on my desktop here to transfer, and so far its also been pretty smooth and stable.

To be honest, I'm not noticing that much of a performance difference compared to the 1.5ghz beta2. I AM noticing a difference from stock though.

 

[insanelycool]

Yeah, it's the diminishing return on the clock speeds due to the bottleneck in the memory subsystem. I've been looking into it, but not sure what else I can really do. Maybe I could come up with some way to OC the RAM, but I'm not really sure what I'd be looking for in the code to do that. Plus I've been super busy lately and haven't had time to work on this at all.