Is underclocking good for your phone?

[Ockie]

Hi guys. So I rooted my Meizu M2 Note that has got the option available right on the phone to do. I have underclocked my phone to go to a max of 442MHz and minimum 299MHz. No I know this should give better battery life. My question is, is it good for your CPU also seeing that it should run cooler and not work as hard? What do you guys do? Underclock or overclock. I have to say, the only difference in performance I have noticed is browsing is a bit slower. Pages seems to take a bit longer to load or render or whatever you call it. My other apps are working fine and launching a teeny tiny bit slower but not so that it really bothers me.

Your thoughts?

 

[faniebraai]

Underclocking should be fine. Can't see any harm that will come to it, but I'm not expert.

Not often that you see someone deliberately make something slower :wtf:

 

[SCHUMI-4-EVA]

I certainly don't see it causing harm (though that's with reference from PC Land, except that both under and overclock extremes generally cause system instability due to too much or too little voltage). But I'd go for a less drastic underclock, nothing lower than 800Mhz or even 1Ghz. With your current underclock you're turning a decent mid-high range phone into a lower than budget pile of crap. Say max 1.2 and min 800 would be much more reasonable.

 

[Ockie]

I certainly don't see it causing harm (though that's with reference from PC Land, except that both under and overclock extremes generally cause system instability due to too much or too little voltage). But I'd go for a less drastic underclock, nothing lower than 800Mhz or even 1Ghz. With your current underclock you're turning a decent mid-high range phone into a lower than budget pile of crap. Say max 1.2 and min 800 would be much more reasonable.

Ok...have set it now to 819MHZ for min and max. That ok?

 

[SCHUMI-4-EVA]

Certainly more reasonable. What's the stock clock again? 1.6?

 

[Ockie]

Certainly more reasonable. What's the stock clock again? 1.6?

App shows max is 1.3

 

[AntennaMan]

On my old Samsung Galaxy S3 with CM10 (i think???) I underclocked the CPU by about 10-20%.

Since I don't do ridiculous things like gaming on my phone, there wasn't a noticeable difference in general performance. Sure, some apps took 2-3 seconds longer to open up, but my ageing battery could easily do 2 full days on one charge.

Interestingly enough, on my OnePlus One I can't seem to underclock the CPU at all, this is with the COS12s. Maybe I should go back to CM...

 

[SCHUMI-4-EVA]

App shows max is 1.3

Oh. So I guess that means stock is 1.2. Then yes, 800 is more reasonable and should be just right providing it's not so slow that you want to throw it against the wall now. 400 was simply a bit too drastic. Min of 600 should still be ok.

 

[Ockie]

Oh. So I guess that means stock is 1.2. Then yes, 800 is more reasonable and should be just right providing it's not so slow that you want to throw it against the wall now. 400 was simply a bit too drastic. Min of 600 should still be ok.

So I should set the max to 800 and he min to 600? If I set the max and min to 800 then it will constatly run @ 800 is that right, which defeats the purpose? Could drain the battery even more before I underclocked it?

 

[SCHUMI-4-EVA]

It could because I'm not sure what the min allowance was at stock clocks. But I'd be guessing a bit lower than 800, so 600, maybe even 400 but 600 seems most reasonable. Max will most likely just reduce battery during use and min will most likely just reduce during standby, but if your min is higher than it was before it would actually increase standby usage.

 

[Ockie]

It could because I'm not sure what the min allowance was at stock clocks. But I'd be guessing a bit lower than 800, so 600, maybe even 400 but 600 seems most reasonable. Max will most likely just reduce battery during use and min will most likely just reduce during standby, but if your min is higher than it was before it would actually increase standby usage.

Dankie meneer. When I loaded the app the min was set as default @ 299MHz and Max @ 1.3MHz, so I am guessing that is what the system defaults was that hte app read from the OS?

 

[SCHUMI-4-EVA]

Yes. So then the only reasonable change would be to move Max to 800MHz or maybe 600 if you really really want to and leave Min untouched (at stock 299). Any lower is pathetically weak (although I don't think it would cause instability on a smartphone which deals with far less power than PC components, nor does it look as if that app exposes anything unsafe, but I'd still prefer to keep the max at least around 50% of stock).

 

[Ockie]

Been on 4G all day.