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    Overclocking discussion

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General Discussion and Gaming
    overclockingstable
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    • RionR
      Rion @Riverstorm
      last edited by Rion

      @riverstorm said in Overclocking discussion:

      The only way I see to improve the open case is a bigger heat sink because the gap between the chip heatsink and fan ( which is air) has a higher resistance vs. metal on the BIQU which has proven to be more effective. Even when the case is fully heated up and under load.

      I've been linking to this before but this is the best passive cooling solution i have seen so far.

      This modification with an acrylic sheet would've be possible to do on the official case and the nespi for example. But instead of using super glue you could attach the heatsink with epoxy to the sheet instead.

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      thelostsoulT 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • thelostsoulT
        thelostsoul @Rion
        last edited by thelostsoul

        @rion Looks massive. But is it better than BiQU, where the whole case is a heatsink, touching also the other two chips. Oh btw, I see I saw that video already and commented it.

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        • RiverstormR
          Riverstorm
          last edited by Riverstorm

          @rion said in Overclocking discussion:

          I've been linking to this before but this is the best passive cooling solution i have seen so far.

          That's impressive. I think he was only using thermal grease. I like how he made the sheet plastic shield to protect against shorting. Also the hot glue is smart. It holds it in place but very easy to remove.

          The no sink, small heatsink and copper plate were all close within a few degrees. Temps definitely scale with the size of the heatsink. 30C difference between none/small to large. It seems more important to remove it from the immediate chip and once on the heatsink/case the Pi just runs cooler.

          quicksilverQ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • quicksilverQ
            quicksilver @Riverstorm
            last edited by

            @riverstorm At some point though, I think some of these cooling setups start to get into overkill territory. I have seen people liquid cool their pi's, but what is the point exactly? Even at the max over voltage setting, I dont think you can heat your pi up enough to need something like that.

            thelostsoulT 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • thelostsoulT
              thelostsoul @quicksilver
              last edited by

              @quicksilver I think those guys are overclocking for science or like sports/hobby/fun or for their YouTube channels. There is no practical reason to do extreme overclocking with extreme cooling it. Same goes for desktop pc cpu and gpus.

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              RiverstormR 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • RiverstormR
                Riverstorm
                last edited by

                @quicksilver - I definitely agree and ask myself sometime why the hell am I sitting here doing this but as a hobby I enjoy it quite a bit. I know guys that spend crazy amounts of money and time hunting (guns, ammo, clothing, food, lodging, etc.), same as fishing, camping, RVs, etc. Sorry for the examples I grew doing mostly outdoor types of things but the point is because we can! ;) No actually probably no practical reason except enjoyment. Instead of pushing speed in cars we like to do it without wheels! ;)

                quicksilverQ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • RiverstormR
                  Riverstorm @thelostsoul
                  last edited by

                  @thelostsoul said in Overclocking discussion:

                  for science

                  Good point...science it is! ;)

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • quicksilverQ
                    quicksilver @Riverstorm
                    last edited by

                    @riverstorm I meant why bother with such crazy cooling methods. I understand why someone would do extreme overclocking, heck I am all for that. But once your cooling needs are met what is the point of further cooling?

                    My comment was more about the crazy stuff people do on youtube etc, not about the tests that you have been running (I have found those to be most interesting). There seems to be this misconception that a lot of people have that if you cool your pi enough you can overclock it further. And that is only partly true. The pi can only be overvolted up to a value of 6 (8 if you force turbo), so there is a limit to the max overclock you can achieve on your pi regardless of how much cooling you have.

                    RiverstormR 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • RiverstormR
                      Riverstorm @quicksilver
                      last edited by

                      @quicksilver said in Overclocking discussion:

                      There seems to be this misconception that a lot of people have that if you cool your pi enough you can overclock it further.

                      Yeah I agree the returns on cooling diminish to the point of pointless. Even running 60 to 70C is well below 90C where it would throttle and I am good with that. I can't imagine running at 50C is going to extend the life of the Pi by that much or if it does I prefer the simple case to an elaborate water cooling loop. I wouldn't be against trying it but I have so much Pi paraphernalia laying around and really need to just clean house.

                      thelostsoulT 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • thelostsoulT
                        thelostsoul @Riverstorm
                        last edited by thelostsoul

                        @riverstorm said in Overclocking discussion:

                        I can't imagine running at 50C is going to extend the life of the Pi by that much

                        Especially if you overvolt so much, then. Not sure whats worse, high voltage or high temperatures near the limit?

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                        RiverstormR quicksilverQ 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • RiverstormR
                          Riverstorm @thelostsoul
                          last edited by

                          @thelostsoul said in Overclocking discussion:

                          Especially if you overvolt so much, then. Not sure whats worse, high voltage or high temperatures near the limit?

                          Yeah it seems high temps are a killer and a by product of overvolting but once force turbo is in play all bets are off and you frying the board with voltage vs. temps is a possibility.

                          Probably why they flip the bit and void the warranty. The thing I find interesting about that is I have never heard of such a thing when it comes to CPU's and even then when a CPU is fried you can't boot it. I've blown a CPU or two over the years and Intel has never sent me a sorry buddy no can do letter. I always wondered how they pull that information or if it's smoke and mirrors. Especially if you did something like send it through a degausser. Pop and it's all done.

                          I am ok overvolting right up to 6 and leaving it there. I think I would be more concerned sitting around 90C vs. overvolt 6 but with force tubro bumped to 8. I don't know which I would find more concerning.

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                          • quicksilverQ
                            quicksilver @thelostsoul
                            last edited by

                            @thelostsoul Both can technically shorten the life of your pi. But the raspberry pi engineers designed the pi with limits in place to protect it. That is why by default you cannot over volt past a value of 6 and the pi is designed to throttle itself once it hits a certain temp. Even if the overall lifespan of my pi is shortened a little bit by overclocking I dont really care since it is a $35 computer that I will most likely replace due to obsolescence not equipment failure.

                            RiverstormR 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • RiverstormR
                              Riverstorm @quicksilver
                              last edited by

                              @quicksilver said in Overclocking discussion:

                              I dont really care since it is a $35 computer that I will most likely replace due to obsolescence not equipment failure.

                              I agree.

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                              • L
                                lachniet
                                last edited by

                                At what temperature should I be concerned about crashing?

                                RiverstormR quicksilverQ 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • RiverstormR
                                  Riverstorm @lachniet
                                  last edited by

                                  @lachniet said in Overclocking discussion:

                                  At what temperature should I be concerned about crashing?

                                  I don't think it will crash per se but it will throttle significantly at 90C to prevent overheating.

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                                  • quicksilverQ
                                    quicksilver @lachniet
                                    last edited by

                                    @lachniet if your pi is crashing and you've overclocked, then your current overclock settings are unstable. Your pi will throttle (down clock) itself if it gets too hot to protect itself. Throttling is counterproductive if you are overclocking and should be avoided, so be sure you have a good headsink and possibley a fan as well. A misconception a lot of people have is that heat is the reason overclocks are unstable, this is only partially true. There is a limit to how much overclock your pi will handle even if you keep it nice and cool.

                                    L 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • L
                                      lachniet @quicksilver
                                      last edited by

                                      @quicksilver I don't think the pi itself is crashing, since I continue seeing a picture. It may be that lr-mupen64plus is freezing...

                                      Tested on 007, with a pretty high overclock

                                      quicksilverQ RiverstormR 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • quicksilverQ
                                        quicksilver @lachniet
                                        last edited by quicksilver

                                        @lachniet yes, usually it's the emulator that will freeze or crash when the overclock is too aggressive. In most cases you should be able to ssh in and reboot safely.

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                                        • RiverstormR
                                          Riverstorm @lachniet
                                          last edited by

                                          @lachniet said in Overclocking discussion:

                                          I don't think the pi itself is crashing, since I continue seeing a picture. It may be that lr-mupen64plus is freezing...

                                          It could still be overclocking. When I was Q3 overclock testing I had an incidence where the game was running but I lost my Putty session and I couldn't reestablish access even though I could see it playing. I had to pull the plug. Any overclock can make your Pi do funny things. Have you tried without overclocking, even if slow, to verify if it still freezes?

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • L
                                            lachniet
                                            last edited by

                                            I have only had it crash once with no overclocking, playing Mario Party 3 on lr-mupen64plus. However, that crash happened after about 30 minutes of playing. The crash on 007 happened within a few minutes.

                                            quicksilverQ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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