Overclocking
#11
(05-31-2016, 10:22 AM)GoZone Wrote:
(03-24-2016, 09:19 AM)Andrew2 Wrote:
(03-24-2016, 08:45 AM)GoZone Wrote: I was thinking to clock it to 1.5 GHz, you will NEED a heat sink for that, in the wiki said it is possible to overclock the CPU,GPU, and weirdly ram...

Well, there's already information available: http://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=389&page=5

Have fun with liquid cooling and trying to fry the A64 at 1.5V Wink

BTW: In the wiki there's just an image that might help you find heatsinks of appropriate size, there's nothing written about any limitations or what to do to ensure reliable operation. In the aforementioned thread you'll find a link to a Github issue where might be able to learn about the relationship between performance, heat, voltage and reliability. If you're not willing to try to understand that you should not even think about OC at all.

BTW: What's your use case for overclocking? Will you do number crunching? Tuning compiler settings and optimising code usually helps a lot more than stupid overclocking Smile

Trying to do some Android Gaming on it, Angry Birds 2 is just plain bad on the Pine64 with 10-15 FPS.

Having read all the info regarding cooling the board (heat sinks, fans etc) as well as powering it with a capable PSU (micro USB or preferably via Euler bus) I was wondering if there was a way to unlock 1.34Mhz clock speed on Android. 

The highest number I get with CPU-Z is 1.152Mhz. I mean, provided that I power the board via Euler bus and attach a good heat sink (and even a fan) would I be able to reach the top clock speed in all 4 cores?

Is there a limitation at 1.152 on Android build or the bottleneck here is amperage and temperature?
  Reply
#12
(06-05-2016, 03:07 PM)g_t_j Wrote:
(05-31-2016, 10:22 AM)GoZone Wrote:
(03-24-2016, 09:19 AM)Andrew2 Wrote:
(03-24-2016, 08:45 AM)GoZone Wrote: I was thinking to clock it to 1.5 GHz, you will NEED a heat sink for that, in the wiki said it is possible to overclock the CPU,GPU, and weirdly ram...

Well, there's already information available: http://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=389&page=5

Have fun with liquid cooling and trying to fry the A64 at 1.5V Wink

BTW: In the wiki there's just an image that might help you find heatsinks of appropriate size, there's nothing written about any limitations or what to do to ensure reliable operation. In the aforementioned thread you'll find a link to a Github issue where might be able to learn about the relationship between performance, heat, voltage and reliability. If you're not willing to try to understand that you should not even think about OC at all.

BTW: What's your use case for overclocking? Will you do number crunching? Tuning compiler settings and optimising code usually helps a lot more than stupid overclocking Smile

Trying to do some Android Gaming on it, Angry Birds 2 is just plain bad on the Pine64 with 10-15 FPS.

Having read all the info regarding cooling the board (heat sinks, fans etc) as well as powering it with a capable PSU (micro USB or preferably via Euler bus) I was wondering if there was a way to unlock 1.34Mhz clock speed on Android. 

The highest number I get with CPU-Z is 1.152Mhz. I mean, provided that I power the board via Euler bus and attach a good heat sink (and even a fan) would I be able to reach the top clock speed in all 4 cores?

Is there a limitation at 1.152 on Android build or the bottleneck here is amperage and temperature?

Due to teh tablet and smartphone nature, the Android build always very conservative on CPU power adjustment and make dynamic core adjustment. Changing the DT can make the Android runs faster.
  Reply
#13
(06-06-2016, 01:19 AM)tllim Wrote:
(06-05-2016, 03:07 PM)g_t_j Wrote:
(05-31-2016, 10:22 AM)GoZone Wrote:
(03-24-2016, 09:19 AM)Andrew2 Wrote:
(03-24-2016, 08:45 AM)GoZone Wrote: I was thinking to clock it to 1.5 GHz, you will NEED a heat sink for that, in the wiki said it is possible to overclock the CPU,GPU, and weirdly ram...

Well, there's already information available: http://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=389&page=5

Have fun with liquid cooling and trying to fry the A64 at 1.5V Wink

BTW: In the wiki there's just an image that might help you find heatsinks of appropriate size, there's nothing written about any limitations or what to do to ensure reliable operation. In the aforementioned thread you'll find a link to a Github issue where might be able to learn about the relationship between performance, heat, voltage and reliability. If you're not willing to try to understand that you should not even think about OC at all.

BTW: What's your use case for overclocking? Will you do number crunching? Tuning compiler settings and optimising code usually helps a lot more than stupid overclocking Smile

Trying to do some Android Gaming on it, Angry Birds 2 is just plain bad on the Pine64 with 10-15 FPS.

Having read all the info regarding cooling the board (heat sinks, fans etc) as well as powering it with a capable PSU (micro USB or preferably via Euler bus) I was wondering if there was a way to unlock 1.34Mhz clock speed on Android. 

The highest number I get with CPU-Z is 1.152Mhz. I mean, provided that I power the board via Euler bus and attach a good heat sink (and even a fan) would I be able to reach the top clock speed in all 4 cores?

Is there a limitation at 1.152 on Android build or the bottleneck here is amperage and temperature?

Due to teh tablet and smartphone nature, the Android build always very conservative on CPU power adjustment and make dynamic core adjustment. Changing the DT can make the Android runs faster.

Thanks for your message TL Lim.

I have tried ''Set CPU'' and another ''over-clocking'' app but I only got to set governor to ''performance'' setting. 
I'm not able to go over 1152MHz. ''Set CPU'' sees another 2 frequences (1.2 GHz and 1.4Ghz) but can't set any of those 2. On the contrary, I can set a low limit frequency and the board remembers the setting after reboot as well as the change in governor mode.

If I get to unlock 1.4Ghz it would be a real benefit for me as I just need a small push in performance right now. I have no worries for high temperatures as I use heat sink and fan and the temperature never goes over 60 degrees under full CPU load. 

I will now make a USB to 2-pin JST connector to power the board through Euler bus, hoping that the extra amperage will help the board to get a leap in performance. 

Probably a utility will help unlocking highest recommended frequency or even better, allow mild over-clocking. 

BTW, have you received my PM?
  Reply
#14
In case anyone's interested, I have installed a Northbridge type heat sink, the Enzotech CNB-S1
http://www.enzotechnology.com/cnb_s1.htm

Please see the album I created for detailed photos:
http://imgur.com/a/VCjJS

I applied it on the 3 chips with a double sided self adhesive thermal pad. I chose a 2mm thick thermal pad as I wanted to even the distance from the top plate of the acrylic enclosure.

This means that with 27.6mm height of the heatsink itself and 2mm thickness of the pad, the heat sink sits securely on chips and the top acrylic plate pushes it into place very slightly with a mild pressure. I have put 2 small copper heat sinks to the memory chips underneath the board.

This particular heat sink is not only secure and pleasing in the eye but I get barely 52 C degrees ,running IP webcam as a server while I had been reaching 70 without heat sink. This means a well 15-20 degrees benefit! It might not be cheap but I think it well worths its money I think.

I have since also experimented with installing a small 30mm x 30mm 5v fan blowing air towards the sink from the sides. Running tinycam monitor it doesn't get over 50 degrees! It ranges from 48 (!) to 52 max (very rarely under background mode - recording and server mode) This is truly amazing numbers. Monitoring the CPU-Z app I can see all 4 cores running at top 1152Mhz with the load ranging between 70-95%. I know it's quite high but with temperatures this low I don't think that there's anything to worry about. If I run IP Webcam with this setup I get temperatures in the early 40's or even n the late 30's.

Taking into account that the heat sink is paramount on A64 unless you use your boards for very basic things, the specific one is a great choice. Sure it comes with a price but fits like a glove to the board with only problem being it is quite heavy (over 80g) and I don't know what would happen if anyone tried to use the board in a vertical non-flat position. Probably the thermal pad wouldn't stand the weight of the heat sink. Unfortunately, you can't take advantage of the pins that comes with it to secure it onto the board.

All in all I'm very satisfied. I don't plan using the fan. I just put it it for the shake of experiment. The enzotech alone is perfectly adequate for my needs.

Next challenge is overclocking. I would really love to have been able to do a mild oveclocking (1.34 - 1.5 GHz). It would be really beneficial for my ''DVR'' board which works in high load all the time. These extra few Mhz would make a big difference in my case.

I have ordered good quality cable and hope I can make a usb to 2-pin PST lead to power the board through Euler.

Whoever has a clue or has achieved to overclock the board, I'm all eyes and ears! Smile
  Reply
#15
To over clock you need to rebuild the device tree. As one dt is inside the bootloader you also need to learn how to build that. Instructions and all are in the development forum together with links to the gear on GitHub.

Btw we had some trouble to increase the SoC voltage.
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#16
(06-10-2016, 10:58 PM)longsleep Wrote: To over clock you need to rebuild the device tree. As one dt is inside the bootloader you also need to learn how to build that. Instructions and all are in the development forum together with links to the gear on GitHub.

Btw we had some trouble to increase the SoC voltage.

Unfortunately, I am a complete noob in Linux, so not very familiar with these procedures. My only experience with Linux OS is when I played around a bit with Raspbian on a Raspberry Pi last year. However, I'd be keen on trying it even if it being quite complicated for my level of knowledge.

I was hoping for something plain simple and straightforward like a utility that would be able to over clock the board but it seems it is not something possible at present.

I suspected the underpower issue when I saw the photos by Thomas having attached 2 pairs of cables on Euler bus.
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#17
Well frankly speaking you should find forget about it if you do not want to become expert in all the related areas.
  Reply
#18
(06-11-2016, 06:12 AM)longsleep Wrote: Well frankly speaking you should find forget about it if you do not want to become expert in all the related areas.

This is not that I don't want but the fact that at present my level of knowledge is very limited. I'm also missing the proper ''tools''. If I only knew where to start from.

I have pledged for NexDock so, hopefully, I'll soon have a a combo of portable screen and keyboard to start with.
TV won't help and my PC monitor has DVI inputs on which Pine doesn't connect to.
  Reply
#19
If you need a screen you are already lost. Get familiar with UART first - there are no tools and non required.
  Reply
#20
(06-12-2016, 01:44 AM)longsleep Wrote: If you need a screen you are already lost. Get familiar with UART first - there are no tools and non required.

I will try it! Thank you very much for the encouragement  Cool
  Reply


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