Tutorial: Overclocking BJII

[Guest dsilver.us]

Overclocking Blackjack II with Tornado Power Control

I wrote this while trying to figure out how to overclock my BJII because I wanted to watch videos with Bluetooth headphones. Without Tornado Power Control, I'd get frequent video freezes; with it the videos were much smoother. Credit for most of this tutorial goes to Merwin, the author of TPC, and the XDA Developers forums. Enjoy but be careful, because...

•WARNING: OVERCLOCKING CAN IRREVERSIBLY DAMAGE YOUR PHONE!

-Read this WHOLE tutorial before you start trying to overclock

-CPUs in phones vary even among the same model; manufacturers choose the stock published speed for their CPUs based on the speed all good CPUs in a production run are able to reach. Some CPUs may not be able to overclock above stock speed at all; some can go much higher

-The only way to find out about your phone is to try overclocking IN SMALL INCREMENTS, a few MHz at a time. IIRC, on BJII TPC’s overclocking stepping goes in 12 MHz increments; i.e. you can enter any speed you want, but the phone will step to the nearest 12 MHz increment. The goal shouldn’t be to find the absolute max MHz your phone is able to run at, but to find an overclock that a previously slow, stuttering ap will run smoothly at. As a general rule of thumb, overclocking by more than 20% is asking for serious trouble

•Installing TPC also installs OMAPClock

-Both of these aps are required for continuous overclocking with CPU stepping. OMAPClock does the actual overclocking; TPC controls the stepping

-There’s no need to install both TPC and OMAPClock; TPC will install both

-Download from Modaco's smartphone freeware section: Modaco

-Install to the device, not a storage card

•TPC advantages

-By itself, OMAPClock reverts to stock CPU speed after the display wakes up from idle (when the phone has not been used for a while). The real usefulness of TPC is that it enables the phone to automatically resume overclocking when waking up from idle

-The phone can be automatically underclocked while the backlight is off to extend battery life and overclocked while using a CPU-heavy application

•TPC general information

-Latest version as of Sept. 2009 is 2.0 beta 4. There are significant changes in this version. Chances are, if you’ve Googled for information on TPC, you’ll see a lot about editing shortcuts to modify TPC startup behavior (show/hide, dim/bright). You don’t need to edit these for TPC 2.0 beta 4; they can be changed in the program’s settings.

-2.0 beta 4 REQUIRES .Net Compact Framework 2.0. Most newer Windows Mobile phones have this. It can be downloaded and used on older phones

-Most phones will need to be application unlocked to run TPC and OMAPClock

-Since large changes of CPU speed tend to lock phones up, TPC actually changes the CPU speed twice when a new speed is selected. First, the speed is changed to 180MHz, then it is changed to the selected speed. This provides additional stability

-The CPU speed displayed in the TPC window is a setting stored in the registry and may not be the actual CPU speed. To verify the actual CPU speed, run OmapClock

-Note that OMAPClock doesn’t seem to actively refresh the CPU speed as processor load drops; i.e. the MHz may be dropping, but OMAPClock may not show it. To see the new speed, reopen OMAPClock in the recent programs list

•Startup

-To make TPC run at startup, the TornadoPowerControl.lnk shortcut must be placed in the Windows/Startup folder

●Setting TPC startup behavior (This is the NEW method in TPC 2.0 beta 4, done via settings in TPC)

-Options to change whether TPC hides itself after startup, starts bright or dim. Choose bright because display is impossible to read in dim mode.

•Automatic CPU overclocking/underclocking (This is the NEW method in TPC 2.0 beta 4; done via settings in TPC and registry edits)

-TPC switches between clock speeds based on CPU load. The CPU load is polled up to 4 times per second when the display is on, and is not polled when the phone is in power saving mode (when display is completely off)

-The automatic CPU speed option is accessed in TPC via Settings/CPU Speed

-TPC is designed to step up very quickly, but step down slowly, with one step down every 10 seconds (if needed)

-The default automatic clock speeds in 2.0 beta 4 are:

116 MHz (used if the CPU load is under 33% for 10 seconds)

180 MHz (used if CPU load is between 33% and 66%)

228 MHz (used if CPU load is 66% or more)

-To customize the automatic clock speeds:

Set the clock speed to automatic in TPC

Open a registry editor (TPC can keep running)

Go to HKLM\Software\TornadoPowerControl

There you see CPUAuto1, 2 and 3

CPUAuto1 for idle speed (180 MHz works for my BJII)

CPUAuto2 for normal operating speed

CPUAuto3 for overclocked speed. Your results may vary. My BJII was completely stable at 276. I was able to watch videos in Coreplayer with Bluetooth headphones and the video was pretty smooth. 288 MHz seemed stable and I tried 300 MHz with no ill effects. However, since 276 MHz worked for videos and Bluetooth, there was no reason to push things too far.

Change the values to the desired clock speeds

Restart phone, open program that uses a lot of processor capacity, and open TPC. The changed clock speeds will be displayed

•Editing shortcuts for Windows Mobile to change TPC startup behavior. (This is the OLD method for earlier versions of TPC.)

-Shortcuts can be edited on the phone with Total Commander or created with a text editor on the desktop, then saved with a .lnk extension and copied to the phone

-Example 1 (starts TPC dim, hidden; this shortcut goes in Windows/Startup folder)

60#"\Program Files\TornadoPowerControl\TornadoPowerControl.exe" dim hide

-Example 2 (starts TPC bright, shown; alternative to Example 1; this shortcut goes in Windows/Startup folder)

60#"\Program Files\TornadoPowerControl\TornadoPowerControl.exe" bright show

-The number before the # is the total of the number of characters, including quotes and spaces, included after the #. The number does NOT include command line options (see below). Tip: this number can be checked in MS Word by going to Tools/Wordcount/Characters (with spaces)

-After the # is the path to the ap. This is enclosed in quotes because there are spaces present in this path; if there were no spaces the quotes could be eliminated

-Space-delimited command line options like bright or dim and show or hide can be added at the end of the shortcut to change TPC’s behavior

Bright setting keeps display at normal setting

Dim setting keeps display at low power mode. WARNING: Dim setting keeps the display at the 'BacklightOff' at all times. This can make the phone look like it is always turned off, even though it isn’t

•Automatic CPU overclocking/underclocking (This is the OLD method for earlier versions of TPC.)

-Event Shortcuts are started whenever the phone display changes modes. TPC calls these a “display event”

-The 3 display events TPC responds to via its stock shortcuts are Power_On, Power_BacklightOff, and Power_UserIdle

Power_On: display is at full brightness

Power_BacklightOff: display has dimmed after being idle for a period of time

Power_UserIdle: display has completely turned off

-The default shortcut files that are installed with the application are EMPTY AND MUST BE MODIFIED OR REPLACED WITH REAL LINKS BEFORE THEY WILL WORK

If the shortcut files do not exist or are empty, they will not be executed

-The 3 display event .lnk shortcuts must be placed in the same folder as TornadoPowerControl.exe

-Customizing display event shortcuts

Power_On

40#"\Program Files\OmapClock\OmapClock.exe" -clock ###

(where ### is the chosen clock speed in MHz while actively using phone; this is the overclocked setting)

Power_BacklightOff

40#"\Program Files\OmapClock\OmapClock.exe" -clock ###

(where ### is the chosen clock speed in MHz for backlight timeout; this can be an underclocked setting for battery savings)

Power_UserIdle

40#"\Program Files\OmapClock\OmapClock.exe" -clock ###

(where ### is the chosen clock speed in MHz for idle mode)