2010-02-12 Update: Michael Huang ("CoolBho3000"), author of "SetCPU" for Android, explains how and why the "overclocking" hack written by Eugene373 *looks* like its overclocking....but can't possibly be overclocking. A ripping good yarn well worth reading. 


2010-02-10 UPDATE: The code produced by Eugene373 was improving performance, but it was not actually overclocking the phones. There was intense debate between people who were clearly seeing a speed boost and some devs who said it couldn't be possible because the code did not actually alter the "PLL" settings in the MSM7201A processor used in the phones. The debate can be followed here.


OP follows: 


********************************************************************  


Eugene373 at xda-developers' "G1 / Dream" (includes magic 32B) development forum spent several weeks working out how to overclock the "32B" class of phones. These are the HTC Dream / G1 sold by T-Mobile and Rogers and the HTC Sapphire in its Magic 32B (Vodafone global) and MyTouch3G (T-Mobile US and UK(?)) incarnations. 


His solution is now being incorporated into a variety of ROMs, including OpenEclair v1.1.5. OpenEclair is an "open" version of Android v2.1 built from the publicly released AOSP v2.1 source code. 

KingKlick has also included Eugene373's overclocking code in his latest KingKlick AOSP 2.1 v1.5 ROM. King has opted to use the "Overclocking widget" for setting CPU frequencies rather than Michael Huang's "SetCPU" app (so far preferred by the initial ROM builders / patched-kernel makers. 


I have to say the Live Wallpapers on the Eclair ROMs look awesome with the extra juice powering them. One modder has had his phone up to 975MHz.....but most aren't gamne to go that far. That said, running a set of frequencies allowing scaling up to 780MHz (if needed) seems to have little impact on the phone as far as heat or battery is concerned. 

A patched kernel supporting overclocking to 550MHz is also available for the latest Cyanogen Mod v4.2.14.1. 

Two Android v1.6 ROMs from benbuchacher (SuperD v1.8) and htcclay (Fasttest 2.2.9 and 2.3) now have easily flashable kernel patches enabling overclocking. I'm running Fasttest v2.3 on my main phone and scaling between 550MHz and 780MHz when in use...and falling back to 245MHz - 384MHz when on stand-by or charging. My battery has lasted all day no problems as it only goes really fast when I'm actively using it. The phone doesn't heat up more than a little. I have not seen the batery temp go over 40C. A cold battery in a phone just turned on and booted is 34C - for comparison.  

I've made a video of my HTC Magic phone running at 780MHz. You can see it here.


ASIDE: Anyone know if we can embed YouTube videos on Geekzone? I edited HTML and pasted the embed code in...and it looks OK in the editor....but the video gets deleted when I post it. Tried several times. I would have preferred to have it viewable right here rather than direct people elsewhere.