Overclocking the Nokia N900

[Traxex]

DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK !!!


Here's a guide how to overclock your Nokia N900 : (credits to jakiman from maemo.org)

Benefits of Overclocking:
- Faster loading of most apps.
- Faster bootup and shutdown.
- Faster / smoother transitions
- Faster game emulation (DrNokSnes, PSX4ALL etc etc)
- Faster camera focusing and image processing.
- Faster multi-tasking. Handle more apps.
- Faster web page rendering. Faster flash playback.
- Umm. Faster in just about everything that can be faster.

Downsides of Overclocking:
- If you put constant full load at maximum speed, it may overheat. Possibly HW damage.
- If cpu cannot handle the overclocked speed, phone will become unstable. (aps crash, file corruption etc)
- Possibly reduce the lifetime of the device. (This is just theory can cannot put a exact time on it)
- If max speed is used very frequently, it may use a bit more battery = less runtime. (but not by much still)

Jakiman's N900 Overclocking Summary:
1. Overclock is done by flashing the modified kernel using maemo flasher.
2. No setting or data gets changed/deleted. So it is a transparent flash.
3. In stock form, N900 scales between 250Mhz and 600Mhz dynamically.
4. With Lehto's kernel, it scales between 125Mhz and xxxMhz dynamically.
5. So in theory, during idle, it may actually even use less battery.
6. In most normal everyday use, I do not expect any extra battery usage.
7. Flashing takes literally about 1 second to do. Very quick and painless.
8. If something goes wrong after flashing, just reflash the [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] back.
9. So far, majority have reported theirs to work just fine up to 900Mhz.
10. 1ghz kernel is not available to public "yet" due to liability concerns. (seems Lehto pulled out 900Mhz also? as of my last update time of this post)
11. There are also kernels which overclock not just the CPU but the DSP.
12. The real-life benefits of DSP overclocking is not yet certain it seems.
13. When PR1.2 update comes out, I recommend you to reflash to the stock kernel (method below) before updating.
14. PR1.2 may have newer kernel so once you update to PR1.2, we may need Lehto to create newer version of modded kernels.
15. There is no cpu temperature monitoring app / widget / script currently available. (see my last update time of this post)
16. We currently have NO DATA to determine what short term or long term damage this will do to your N900.
17. What we do know is that it makes the N900 super duper fast and to most, that's all that matters it seems.
18. It stays idle at 500Mhz when charging from the USB cable via PC. (normal behaviour)
19. However, it will idle at 125Mhz when charging from AC adapter however.

Nokia Flasher
– [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Lehto's Kernel Download Links (may have different kernels in each site)
– [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
- [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]


There are 3 main methods:

Flashing using PC:
1. Power off the N900 completely.
2. Hold "u" on the N900's keyboard, while holding, connect it to the PC via USB cable.
3. You will see usb icon on top right of white Nokia screen.
4. Now you can let go of "u" on the keyboard.
5. Now use flasher utility with the kernel file located in the same directory.

flasher-3.5 -k image_file_name -f -R

6. It should take about 1-2 seconds then it'll say Done.
7. Now your N900 will show white Nokia screen. (reboot)
8. At this time, you can pull out the USB cable.
9. N900 should finish booting up if all goes well.
10. Test out your phone as usual. (Apps, browser, camera, phone etc etc)
11. If any abnormal events occur frequently (crash, hang, screen corruption etc), turn it off, flash it to a slower kernel and test again.
note: For Windows7 64bit users, you may need to use WindowsXP mode. (