[Arm-netbook] Tegra2 OC-ing on Toshiba AC100

[lkcl luke]

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 7:09 PM, Gordan Bobic <gordan at bobich.net> wrote:
> On 12/31/2011 06:54 PM, lkcl luke wrote:
>> On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 6:36 PM, Gordan Bobic<gordan at bobich.net>  wrote:
>>> I expect this may be of interest to some people on the lists:
>>>
>>> http://www.altechnative.net/?p=332
>>>
>>> It covers the hardware mod to improve the cooling, and includes kernel
>>> patches for both unmodified 1200MHz and modified 1456MHz operation.
>>
>>   wild!
>
> They OC really well. Every single 1000MHz CPU I have hits 1200MHz with
> no problems. I only have one (out of 5) that won't do 1248MHz reliably
> without the cooling mod (it errored out twice in the 24-hour full load
> testing period, unlike the others), which is the only reason the patch
> for unmodified laptops is limited to 1200MHz. I have only modified 2 so
> far, but they both hit 1456 without any stability issues. The thermals
> will cause a problem when the GPU starts pumping out heat, too, but
> that's what nITRO is for - it throttles the CPU back to standard maximum
> clock speed of 1000MHz (or whatever you configure it to) once the
> temperature exceeds 90C (also configurable). The top clock speed is also
> configurable (OC speeds are 1200, 1248, 1352, 1404, 1456).

 very cool.  well, it's 40nm so hmmm where are those power stats on
ARM CPUs?   oo ouch, the site on arm.com says 1.5 watts @ 2ghz but 0.5
watts @800mz if power-optimised.  so yeah the GPU must be pushing out
quite a bit.

>>   btw turns out that the guy who did the nvidia desktop GPU
>> reverse-engineering took a quick cursory look at the tegra and found
>> it was "odd" but not seriously seriously different.
>
> Does that mean he might be prepared to look into reverse engineering the
> Tegra GPU in exchange for donations to the project?

 worth asking him.

> It would be nice to at least have OSS supportable GPU options other than
> the Volari Z11 - not that there are any GPU-less ARM boards that have a
> fully wired PCIe/m-PCIe slot... The only ARM board I have seen with a
> fully wired PCIe slot (alas, the AC100 only has USB lines wired up to
> the slot!) is the Compulab SBC-A510, but that has a Marvell Armada 510
> on it which already has a GPU of it's own.

 achh... *sigh* the other problem is that the tegra 2 doesn't have
SATA - the compulab machine managed to add SATA through a USB-to-SATA
converter.

 the tegra 3 on the other hand wooooow... :)  SATA-II, 4-lane PCI-e,
and more besides.  utterly cool.  oh, and developer boards were just
announced on the 18th dec a few days ago.

 l.