Patches enable Palm Pre CPU scaling, power savings 140
Mon, 23 Nov 2009 4:25 pm EST 
While every update to webOS has brought speed improvements in the form of cleaned up code, Palm Pre phones across the globe have been limited to running at 500 MHz. That is in spite of the fact that that these phones pack a beefy Texas Instruments OMAP3430 processor rated at 600 MHz. What gives? Mostly it’s power management, running at the full 600 MHz will drain batteries darned fast. Over at WebOS Internals they’ve whipped up a group of new patches that not only promise to boost your Pre’s speed, but also to save battery life at the same time. How do they do it? CPU scaling and dynamic voltage reduction.
Before we go any further, these patches carry more risk to them than the standard patch application. As it would turn out, the TI OMAP3430 CPU was purposefully set to 500 MHz by Palm after TI realized that a some of the early chips couldn’t handle the full 600 MHz. These chips had their useful lifespans reduced to less than six months. While there aren’t a lot of these chips out there, Palm was the first manufacturer to use the chip, and it’s enough of a concern that they’ve chosen to not let it run at full bore (the chip is also used in the Motorola Droid and Nokia N900).
While most users will reap benefits from installing these patches, there is the chance that - like some members of the PreCentral forums - installing these patches may seriously brick your Pre. Also, one should not install more than one of these patches at a time, doing so will likely result in serious borkage. We are tinkering with the processor here, folks, so tread lightly.
All of that out of the way, here’s the scoop. There are four patches: Powersave Smartreflex 500MHz, Powersave Smartreflex 600MHz, Powersave CPU Scaling 500MHz, and Powersave CPU Scaling 600MHz.
The 500 MHz patches don’t set the Pre’s top clock speed any faster than it is now, limiting the chances of damage, while the 600 MHz patches unlock the CPU’s full potential. Running the Pre at 600 MHz will drain the battery faster than at 500 MHz.
The Smartreflex patches activate a technology built into the TI OMAP3430 chips that allows it to dynamically lower the voltage when not running at full throttle. Unless you’re running your Pre at full power at all times (and getting two hours battery life while you’re at it), this will result in significant battery life gains as the CPU’s power draw will drop when idle.
The CPU Scaling patches, however, run the processor at full voltage but instead dynamically scale the clock speed from 250 MHz up to your chosen maximum. These patches take advantage of the capabilities of the Linux core underlying webOS. Running the CPU at a lower clock speed will also result in notable battery life improvement. There can be some stability issues with CPU scaling, but most users have reported smooth sailing.
Before installing any of these patches, be sure to read the description - there are multiple versions of some; older versions specifically say obsolete.
Again, we need to emphasize that the TI OMAP3430 in your Pre may not be able to handle the 600 MHz patches. If you don’t feel like living on the edge but still want to reap the benefits of Smartreflex or CPU scaling, go with the 500 MHz patches. Also do not install more than one of these patches at a time, if you decide to change to a different patch, first uninstall and restart your Pre (not just Luna).
For what it’s worth, this blogger has installed the Powersave CPU Scaling 600MHz patch and has been humming along nicely. The phone overall feels much smoother and a touch faster, while apps like Photos and Music along with Universal Search are notably faster. Whether my Pre will be up to the task over the long haul remains to be seen, but for now I’m living on the edge in the bright shining land of CPU scaling. If you’re feeling up to the task, fire up your preferred patch installer and get patchin’.
140 Comments
My phone is a mission critical tool for my business, so I'm not going to jump on any risky patches a the moment. I am going to follow the developments of this closely. Do you think there is any chance an official patch will come down from Palm if these patches prove to be successful?
i took the risk and they worked great for me. it sims a little faster but on the power saving i still nid a lil more time but is great so far i notice tht everything opens faster.
@revyloution
ditto on the first statement. However, as a pc overclocker (watercool, vaporchill, etc) I know a bit about how chips function at the limit. Here's the scoop, Intel, AMD, Invidia, etc., *always* under-rate their chips as a matter of principle as when they are produced, the test bench rates their speed and they are packaged accordingly based on the result. For example Celeron cpu's were Pentiums that the on-die cache was faulty and they sold them as a lower tier product instead of trashing them.
in addition, chip mfr's usually rate them at least 30-50mhz below their benched speed. This is why over clocking is possible and mostly harmless in controlled doses. Extreme overclocking requires extra measure to protect the chips from heat but the circuit life is still reduced overall.
i did not knw the droid had the same ship as the pre
great patches!
Smartreflex all the way............
Too hot for me, not taking the bite ...
Which one would help save the most battery? Smartreflex or CPU Scaling?
too many warnings. makes me a little nervous
I know, I was excited when I read the headline, but after reading the whole story, no way.
I kind of what to try it because i want to get a new pre in case it does mess up lol...which one should i try first???? any ideas????
Make sure you dont have them both installed at the same time or it'll kill ur Pre.
I'm down to try, but I can't seem to find the patches in Preware
they are in the Dangerous catergory.
Category is Patches - Dangerous
Ahh yes overclocking the processor :) Now your talkin my language. Too bad cant run prime95 on them :)
Technically it's not overclocking if you're just setting the processor to run at its designated clock speed. Now, if we were to crack it up to anything over 600 MHz, then yes, we'd be overclocking, but I've heard that the OMAP3430 isn't even capable of overclocking.
So if the 500mhz patches have little or no possible detrimental impact, then why hasnt Palm issued these types of patches to increase battery life? Seems strange that they havent taken advantage of the downward scaling cpu abilities.
Isn't the pixi running at 600 mhz? I have tried all of these patches and really recommend the smartflex 600. It has greatly improved my battery and increased the speed of the os. When on the CPU Scaling 600 it does runs faster than the Smartflex in my opinion, but with Smartflex you do save a little more battery. I might go back to the CPU Scaling since I like a faster os, but if you are worried then I suggest you start of with the one of the 500 mhz one then try the 600 mhz. I am also running lowar swap treshhold and unthrottle download manager along with many other patches. I say if you received your pre 3 months ago then you should be fine.
I have an older Pre and tried the sf 500 (leaving town for a week and need my phone), no problems, have to use it awhile to see if there are any benefits.
Isn't the pixi running at 600 mhz? I have tried all of these patches and really recommend the smartflex 600. It has greatly improved my battery and increased the speed of the os. When on the CPU Scaling 600 it does runs faster than the Smartflex in my opinion, but with Smartflex you do save a little more battery. I might go back to the CPU Scaling since I like a faster os, but if you are worried then I suggest you start of with the one of the 500 mhz one then try the 600 mhz. I am also running lowar swap treshhold and unthrottle download manager along with many other patches. I say if you received your pre 3 months ago then you should be fine.
I installed the smartflex, not the CPU scaling and it is working totally fine, I opened photos and that was about it and definitely noticed a difference. As far as power saving we shall see, but if the article is correct I should be golden
Sadly it doesn't work on my GSM Pre. I'm impatiently waiting for an update of this patches, hoping it will come soon.
Can anyone else confirm/deny whether these can be used with a GSM Pre? I ask because the assumption I would have made was the GSM Pre not shipping with the early chips reducing the associated risks involved.
so if I kick it up to 600 when will it blow up? immediately or when I am running 10 cards of apps?
It's never going to blow up instantly. What overclocking
does is make the CPU run hotter and that shortens
its life. The shortened life may still be longer than
the effective lifetime of the device (lasts until
you replace it), or it may be cut in half, or whatever.
The chip is designed to handle 600Mhz, but it's also
in a compact package with limited heat dissipation
so hard to say.
It's not overclocking if you're increasing an underclocked CPU to its designated speed. If you went above 600MHz, then it'd be overclocking.
palm configures it to run at 500MHz, whether that be for power considerations, reliability or whatever. point is, palm sets it at 500, and 600 > 500. i'd say that's close enough to overclocking.
Got off to a rocky start.
Installed Smartreflex 600, rebooted, got to my desktop
and it froze solid. Had to pull the battery to
reboot. Wasn't expecting instability quite that quickly.
Second reboot seems ok.
Universal Search (which I use to launch *everything*)
is blazing fast.
Will use Battery Monitor to see what it looks like over
the long run, but my standby is already pretty efficient so
I'm guessing the increased drain while active, will
far outweigh the increased efficiency while idling.
So the articles mentions why Palm left the phone underclocked when it went out, but why is Smartreflex disabled? Considering how big of a deal battery life is in the industry currently, I can't imagine them leaving it off if they didn't have a reason...
I demand comparison videos.
+1
somebody here has two Pres, a camcorder and a youtube account. :)
Note that these patches are written by the patch authors identified in the Maintainer line in the description for each patch, not by WebOS Internals.
They affect the hardware of the device, and are therefore marked as Dangerous in Preware.
Hopefully the other patching tools will be updated to display the disclaimer in the description to the user before allowing them to install the patch (like Preware does).
Until such patches have been tested for a very long time, you have no way of knowing what the long-term effect on the hardware will be. Remember that the Pre circuitry is much more than just the processor, and the rest of the devices on the circuit board may not be rated to run with a processor running at 600MHz. At this point, I doubt anyone apart from Palm engineers can say whether these patches are safe or not.
Presenting such patches to a user for installation without the disclaimer would be a bad thing.
-- Rod
I know Palm's chimed in before. Any chance we can lure them to comment on this (unofficially)?
And nice work, all. Curious to see some long term benchmark and battery results.
Just installed the reflex 600. At first glance, things are working, and potentially faster, although Universal search is always much faster after reboot. Between FB/Palm/Google contacts, I have about 4500, so even a slight improvement in speed is a big deal.
wow scary stuff...i'll stay away...for now lol
Sounds good where do I sign up? :-D Just installed it... letting my battery charge to full to find out if i notice a difference in speed or battery life! :-D YAY FREAKIN' EXCITED!!!
so the flex smart 600 saves battery and the 600 cpu drains it or what excatly? and i guess its only avaiable to people withwebos 1.3.1? and the pixi runs on 600 so i guess it should be fine running it at 600 then.
It states it in the article but I guess it need repeating. The smartflex dynamically changes the voltage of the processor while the other dynamically changes the clockspeed. Both should result in approximately the same power savings.
Why is there no less extreme version, like 550 MHz? That would certainly reduce the risk considerably, while still giving some performance boost...
First off, decreasing the clockspeed adjustment by 50mhz will not "reduce the risk considerably", but if you want 550mhz, you should alter the script to do so. If you are incapable of adjusting the script, you should not be offering advice on how to avoid clockspeed adjustment risks.
Ok, I installed the CPU scale 600 and it works a bit faster, nothing too exciting. But here is the bad news, my battery is no longer charging when I connect my Pre to my laptop, has anyone noticed that?
Posted this in the forums just earlier today after installing Smartreflex 600, but I figured I'd post my experiences here too:
Installed the 600 mHz Powersave Smartreflex patch, powered down, took out the battery, waited a few minutes, and restarted.
No problems booting or freezing (so far anyways - knock on wood), and didnt have any issues with video playback (only tried YouTube though) or system hangs like some others on here have had.
Haven't used it long enough to make a definitive comment on battery life and OS seems only a little snappier, if at all, but I do notice some apps, especially the email and photo apps, are noticeably faster. All in all, seems like a good, if not groundbreaking, improvement.
Kudos again to the Homebrew community and devs. You guys are the best!
I don't suppose Palm would be able or willing to tell us which phones have the stable chips and which don't, say by serial number? They probably see it as a potential can of worms - everyone with a fragile CPU would want a replacement.
If only! I'm still running my original Pre from opening day and I don't want to find out the hard way if my Pre's processor was part of the unstable batch or not! Although, if you think about it, the engineers probably made this decision based off of the prototype's they had to work with - not the units we're now using. Still though... I don't think I'm going to risk it!
Installed the Smartreflex 600 patch on my Pre (refurbed 9/12/09).
Have noticed rendering is much faster.
Installed the smartreflex 600 on my Pre. Seems to be working fine and a bit quicker. I got my pre on the first launch date back in June and am still using the same one.
so does the patch somehwo excitest for webos 1.2.1 users?
Running the SmartFlex 600 patch since yesterday with no issues! Noticabely faster and bettery seems to be lasting a little bit longer. Still the phone could be MUCH faster. Hopefully enabling the GPU will give us the boost were all longing for.
I'm gonna leave this one to the pros, but would a newer phone have a processor more capable of handling the speed without dieing? I'm assuming the CPU manufacturer would have worked the early problems out by now.
Damn I want to try it but then again I don't.
These patches can be handy (my phone has been overclocked for months now), but users should really get on the command line and test how their phone will react before applying a patch that creates a startup file.
The danger is that some phones (at least mine) may not like the Ondemand scaling governor used in the scaling patch, and it locks up the second it is activated. So I can use SmartReflex all day long, but no scaling. If I applied that patch without knowing that, I'd have to WebOS Doctor the phone to recover.
Is there a way to determine the manufacture date of one's Pre? S/N ranges perhaps? And if so, what is the Pre's earliest manufacture date - Q2 2009?
This patch is what put me over the edge. I finally decided to go homebrew.
And once you go homebrew, you never go back! Heads up: Preware is a bit more involved to install, but it's well worth the time! Just follow the steps and you'll wonder how you ever limped along without patches/themes/homebrew apps. I was really slow to get into all the homebrew action, but now I can't believe I ever waited! I started with File Coaster (which is great) but just recently moved to Preware...it is AWESOME...Period!
I just installed the smarflex 500. Is there a way to know that the patch is running other than wait and see if the battery last longer?
Using the latest Preware, but I don't see any of these Patches...no dangerous category? What am I missing??
Make sure you go into the Preware menu and refresh your feeds. I have mine set to manually update and until I did so, I couldn't find them either. =)
I bought my Pre 6 weeks ago here in Germany.
Can i be sure that my cpu won't die if i use this patch or could it be that my Pre got that buggy CPU?
Its a gamble...
Can't be sure it wont die even if you don't.
I have just run some (unscientific) speed tests. I ran each test once, each a full restart from selecting restart to totally booted up. All patches had been installed and the phone rebooted for the patch to take effect, and the patch removed and restarted before running the next test.
Palm Pre control test 500MHz: 129 seconds
Powersave CPU Scaling 500MHz: 126 seconds
Powersave CPU Scaling 600MHz: 125 seconds
Powersave Smartflex 500MHz: 127 seconds
Powersave Smartflex 600MHz: 115 seconds
i have the same issue i dont see patches even after updating the preware and the feeds. no payches i guess u need 1.3.1 webos well i am sticking with 1.2.1 because i need wifi tether so ya
It only took about a minute for the 600-Flex patch to lock up my Pre during Universal Search. I was able to remove the battery and start up Preware to remove the patch and I'm back in action.
FWIW, I got my Pre on day 1 of the US release.
I can't find the patches anyone know where they are?
In Preware under the 'Dangerous' tag.
wht webos are you running mhowell
I'm running the most recent one. 1.3.1
I checked on the patches section on this site and they were not available. do you have the link?
Do you have Preware installed on your Pre?
Installed preware and the smartflex 500 seems to be working. thanks
No problems so far... I went with SmartFlex 600...
so far so good... you can look in /proc/cpuinfo and it does reflex the 600 speed...
It sounds like the only time you would ever have your CPU clocked at 600mhz is running every app you could possibly open though right? Even though its max speed is opened up to the CPU's top speed you may not run it at that speed very often correct?
Speed improvement is evident in the mail app for me... When I swipe delete an email item, its so much faster now... Universal search is faster too...
Launching apps does not seem too much faster... but overall working inside applications seems faster...
I don't know... My phone gets REALLY hot right now as it is!
My Preware just updated and now says all these patches are to be removed as they are now in the OBSOLETE section now rather than the MISC section.
As the patch author, I'll second Rod's post that patch installation tools other than Preware be updated to reflect the warnings.
Per Rod, there is no long term data on the effect of these patches have on the Pre/Pixi and how they will perform on any given device. Hence, they are marked DANGEROUS.
Disclaimer: I'm not responsible for any data loss, global warming or any other effects as a result of using these patches. Use these at your own risk and as always, YMMV.
Lastly, for those asking, this is only available on 1.3.1. I do not plan on backporting at this time.
Hehe nice disclaimer. I am enjoying the SF600 patch right now. Thanks for all your hard work.
Can someone tell me what the difference between the cpu & gpu is? I thought they were the same thing but now I'm not sure.
+1 for this. I also have a launch day pre and the patch went in smooth as melted butter. Couldnt ask for a better or easier patch.
The GPU is the graphics card.
The CPU (Central Processing Unit) and GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) are separate chips within modern computers (or your Pre).
Think of the CPU as the brain of your device. It is designed to execute instructions (including graphics processing). CPUs can only execute so many operations per cycle (draw a pixel, switch to another program - fetch an instruction and then execute - think Machine Code, 0 or 1). CPU clock speeds (600mhz, etc) become important because the higher the clock speed the more CPU cycles, the more operations that can be performed.
When a CPU or GPU runs at a higher clock speed it generates greater heat (more friction = bad). Also systems can become unstable due to instruction corruption, which occurs when the next instruction arrives before the CPU's current cycle has completed.
Graphics Processing Units are chips specifically designed to execute graphical operations. GPUs improve the performance of their host devices because they execute (handle) display operations, freeing the CPU from having to do this and allowing it to do more interesting things during that clock cycle.
When we enable the GPU on the Pre we will see a great overall speed increase to WebOS, as the GPU starts handling card flipping, drawing the screen, etc.
I have a june 6th (launch day) pre...I read about some of the issues people were having with the cpu scaling patch, so i went with the smartreflex 600 patch, have been running it since yesterday morning (Well upon waking up this morning had to uninstall obsolete patch and install new one)
I will say i have noticed significant speed increases, and less battery drain when my pre is idle. I highly recommend the smartreflex patch, to those interested.
If there proves to be truth to the whole 6 months less life argument (This article was the first legit source to mention it...yet no source of info given) Then so be it, i don't plan on keeping my pre for 2 years anyway. You know how outdated it will be by then?!?
Central processing unit
Graphics processing unit
Central does all at the moment but once Palm enables the GPU then the GPU will do all graphics and animation stuff, this will free up the CPU also making for a nice smooth bunch of graphics and quicker load times in the future.
So we're not looking at a maxed out Pre when we hit 600 mhz then. Good deal. Is it simply a small dedicated processor or a little more than that, do you know?
My guess is that Palm will leave the processor going at 500mhz to be safe and will likely perform like or better than the current 600 mhz (with patch) once the graphics burden is lifted by the GPU.
Oh and make sure to READ this.
http://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/CPU_Frequency_or_Voltage_Scaling
From the wiki, you can test the CPU scaling in a non-permanent fashion, if you have a terminal access to your Pre. (I installed the terminal app+plug in on the Pre) The settings will go away after a reboot, which sounds like a great thing.
CPU Scaling:
The first command sets the scaling ("on demand") function, the second sets the processor speed. The listed is for 500Mhz, use "echo 600000" for 600Mhz or some other custom number.
root@castle:/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq# echo ondemand > ./scaling_governor
root@castle:/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq# echo 500000 > ./scaling_max_freq
-----
SmartReflex Voltage adjustment:
Both of the commands need to be run to activate the smart reflex.
root@castle:/sys/power# echo -n 1 > ./sr_vdd1_autocomp
root@castle:/sys/power# echo -n 1 > ./sr_vdd2_autocomp
You can overclock in concert with smartreflex with:
root@castle:echo 600000 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_setspeed
I just wanted to clear things up for myself i have the powerflex 600. now does this stay at 600 all the time or only when i am useing it. thanks for whoever answers.
stay at 600 all the time, but will vary the voltage being utilized.
What effect will the enabled GPU have on handset temps? Also I had a question about utilizing the mic/ gpu. When Palm enables these things, will they be accessible thru our current html type programming, or will this likely be in Linux?
Those questions will be answered when Palm decides to implement the changes. Until then this is all just speculation.
The 600 Mhz scaling patch sorta-bricked my pre. It would freeze at the palm logo during boot. It did not even get to the flashing logo. I would not reccomend you try this, but I managed to fix it with some fast terminal-fu. I started novacomd on my linux laptop, then plugged in th phone while off and started the boot process. As soon as I saw the trace from novacomd that a phone was available I switched to a new terminal and ran novaterm, then IMMEDIATELY pasted 'mount -n -o remount,rw /;rm /etc/event.d/powersave*;sync' and prayed. It took me 8 or 9 phone reboots (take out battery, repeat) to get the command in before the OS hosed itself and novacom dropped the connection. THIS IS DANGEROUS! However, I know my phone can handle scaling, as for weeks I used ondemand/600mhz manuaaly through novaterm. I do not know why this patch hosed my phone but manuallyu playing with cpufreq did not.
Right. But that's what makes waiting enjoyable, right? :) Thanks 4 the insight!
I experienced freezing when I had my USB plugged in during reboots ... but if I don't have it plugged in then there is no problem so far... ultimately, I think this is definitely unstable... but will stick with it a little longer since there is certainly a good speed boost...
My Pre froze and webOS Doctor will not run to fix it. I tried installing CPU Scaling 600 on a june 6th pre. SOL?
Here's a poll for what people are using. Please go fill it out.
http://forums.precentral.net/webos-patches/216489-cpu-scaling-patch-you-...
I installed the flex 600 haven't noticed any adverse effects. Things seemto run a little faster.
CPU Scaling 600 bricked my Pre. Hangs during start up. Time to doctor! If not, time to swap at Best Buy!
Shoot. I have a later model (I hope) but I just don't like what I am seeing with some of the results. I think I am fine with the speed of my Pre.
a Patch/App wich is only for energy saving will be cool...
so maximum Mhz are the standard Mhz rate wich is delivered with the pre.
an minimum... 125Mhz or so for energy saving.. most time the Pre is be transportet... just standby and do nothing.. why 500Mhz ....
My Pre has become totally unstable now... random freezes... mostly on startup... Was using the Flex 600...
I am using the Flex 500 now and seems to be ok... for 12 hours... no freezes...
I really wish the paid app catalog was open to Canada!
Champions Online Resources
I installed Smartflex 600. No problems so far, except that the boot process was a little odd. I shut down once and turned it back on. After the throbbing Palm I got to a black screen. I couldn't power down without removing the battery, which I did. On the next boot, after about 20 seconds a normal "desktop" (or whatever it's called on a phone) appeared for a second or so, then the phone appeared to shut down and restart. The throbbing Palm stopped throbbing and froze. I pulled the battery again, held down the power to completely discharge the device, put the battery in and started it up. No problems. The boot process seemed pretty fast-- maybe a few percent?-- or maybe I'm just imagining. Anyway, more testing to do!
I tried to install the Smartreflex 600...Preware informed me that it required 2 updates before the patch could be installed. One was for "Diffstat" and the other for "GNU Patch" so I hit OK. Downloaded and said the 2 patches were updated. Then nothing happened...so I went and hit "Install" on the Smartreflex 600 again and it gave me an error. I rebooted and tried to install the patch again and it gives me the error:
Patch
Error Installing: See IPKG Log
And when I click on the IPKG Log it says a bunch of stuff then in it says:
-------------------------------------
Postinst
The next patch would create the file etc/event.d/powersave-smartreflex, which already exists! Assume -R [n]
Apply anyway? [n]
Skipping patch
1 out of 1 hunk ignored -- saving rejects to file etc/event.d/powersave-smartreflex.rej
Removing package org.webosinternals.patches.dangerous-powersave-smartreflex-600mhz from root...
Remove
No packages removed
Nothing to be done
Failed
ErrorGenericMethodException: Failure during post-install script execution
-------------------------------------
Does any one know what any of this means? How can I tell if the patch is installed? In the Preware Installed Packages it doesn't show any patches installed...so the patch is on the Pre but not installed and it won't let it download and overwrite the old file I'm assuming...
Can anyone help me?
Thanks!
In Preware, go to "Installed Packages" and remove the one you currently have installed.
Then you'll be able to install the other one.
Great! Trust Palm to sell phones with defective processors. Goes along with the defective OS. Sheesh!
are you kidding me?? Go away, please.
This is definitely not for the faint of heart. I have an early July Pre. Installed Smartreflex 600. Booted up fine. First thing I opened was the photo app, which is notoriously sluggish... so I figured a good test. It froze instantly before pulling in the thumbnails. Totally unresponsive. Pulled the battery, rebooted. This time opened the calculator app. Took way too long to load the app (thought it had frozen again). Finally opened... added a few figures, no problem. Opened photo app again. Worked OK this time but no observable difference in performance. When swiping between photos, there is still some significant sluggishness and stuttering; and a second or two where the photo is blurry before clearing up. No improvement at all. I did notice the calendar app scrolls between days a little faster. Too early to tell as far as battery life. If I see any more freezing or instability, I'm definitely going to remove this patch.
Hey guys. I'm using smartreflex because scaling disables my evdo card.
Ok. Last Night i installed smartreflex 600 and it worked fine. But as the usual tech-savvy-curious guy i am, i wanted to test all of them. (yeah, a lot of reboots here, lol) and today, i had to uninstall because my EVDO wont work with these patches. I'm wondering why. And no, im not doing anything wrong. That i know. I install and reboot, and then uninstall and reboot to install and reboot, etc. Just thought you guys should know that. Any tip or info about this will be very appreciated too.
I installed both of these last night (happened across them when browsing through Preware). Both of the 600 ones increase speed significantly (everything feels much snappier).
However, when I had CPU scaling enabled and watched videos, there was a lot of tearing and general video instability. I couldn't really deal with it, so I switched over the SmartReflex and have sailing smoothly ever since. Everything is still snappier and faster than usual and no tearing in videos.
Also, the battery drain has been SIGNIFICANTLY reduced. By this time in the morning, after just sitting in my pocket, my phone is usually down to about 93-94%. Today, it's still at 100% O_O.
WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stay away! I figure I would try the 500 and play it a little safer. Well Wrong! Now, after multi battery pulls and trying to get Web Doc to see it I cannot even get past the palm logo from the reboot.
Tried the SmartReflex 600 and had major problems. I have an early manufacturing date of 6/1 and got the phone refurb from Palm around 7/15. Mostly couldn't get past the reboot and when I didn't it would freeze shortly thereafter. Had to WebOS Doctor it. Fortunately 1.3.1 seems to do a better profile backup than earlier versions.
Given the issues that some people are reporting with these patches, I guess I can't unconditionally say that the results are worth the risk... but personally, I installed SmartReflex 600 yesterday, and after a bit of a rocky start (it took me three battery pulls to get the phone to fully boot after the initial reboot), I can say the improvements from the patch are quite noticeable.
The phone is, without question, faster in general. The UI responsiveness is definitely improved, which is a big plus for me.. Equally, if not more noteworthy is the VAST improvement in battery life when the phone is idle. Yes, it may kill some more juice when it's in use due to the increased clock speed, but my impression thus far is that the efficiency of the processor when idle easily makes up for it.
It does seem to screw with youtube video playback a bit. That is the only quirk I've run into so far.
Running the Smartreflex 600 - I'll see how it does over the next day or two. I was an early adopter and it's on my launch day Pre, so we'll see how I'm running a few hours from now. The OS is noticeably snappier at the moment.
I got my Pre around May 10th and I am running the Smartreflex 600 still with no issues. My Pre is a pre-launch device so it is possible that my phone would have an early processor. If it junks out I will post back.
Let me start from the beginning. I had an original june 6 pre, installed the 600 scaling and it bricked, yes bricked my pre. Took it to sprint and they couldnt do anything with it so they gave me new pre, well maybe refurbed but who cares. So I installed 600 scaling on my new pre and everything went ok until I went to charge the phone at night on the TS, let me also say that I use timepiece, Homebrew app (awesome) and I have it set to leave the screen on, no lock screen, and halfway through the night the phone froze with nothing on it just the backlight with a black screen. So i rebooted, yes in the middle of the night I use this as my alarm clock. I left the phone off of the TS the rest of the night and it was fine. When I got to work this morning I plugged the pre into the usb to charge with no apps open and within a few minutes the phone froze again with backlight on and blank screen. I have since switched to 600 smartreflex and everything is smooth sailing, charging now with usb.
One question with the cpu scaling, How and when does it call for max mhz? If a program like timepiece is open with no screenlock will it pull 600mhz or use a lesser 300mhz?
got my pre oct 1. installed the 600 flex. have had no problems at all, phone is running GREAT. much faster doing most things especially the music, photos, and email. scrolling and switching to landscape is smoother and more accurate also. the only problem i had was on the first reboot after installing the patch i got a black screen and had to remove the battery. no problems booting after that. i would suggest to anyone installing the 600 flex to shutdown the phone completely after install instead of just restarting and pull the battery for few seconds and then boot up.
got my pre oct 1. installed the 600 flex. have had no problems while the phone is on and being used, it's running GREAT. much faster doing most things especially the music, photos, and email. scrolling and switching to landscape is smoother and more accurate also. the problem i am having is on the reboots. after installing the patch i got a black screen and had to remove the battery. every time i try a restart it freezes up and i have to pull the battery. i would suggest to anyone installing the 600 flex to shutdown the phone completely after install instead of just restarting and pull the battery for few seconds and then boot up.
It looks like they pulled the SmartReflex 600 and CPU Scaling 600 due to stability issues.
I went to install today, Nov 25th, and these patches have been updated as of today to say they are obsolete or unstable. Should i NOT take the risk any longer? Has something changes since the article above and all your comments on the 23rd?
I want the 600 back! It worked great for me.
whats up i had no problem with the smartflex 600 should i uninstall as suggested? is it being tweaked to be more stable?
I want the 600 back! It worked great for me too!
why did you uninstall it if it worked. I still have it installed with no problems.
Any way to install this patch even though they are in the obsolete folder?
Well I installed the Smartreflex 600MHz, and am sorry to report that it was extremely unstable. within the first 5min of the device booting up with this patch enabled it locked up. I put up with it for about an hour, during which time the device froze approx 5 times, requiring a battery pull to recover.
Panic set in when on 3 consecutive attempts from a fresh boot the device locked before i could even get Preware loaded to uninstall the patch! I left the device off with the battery out for about 10min to cool (it was getting pretty warm at the bottom), then tried one last time, this time suceeding in disabling the patch.
Over the last 12hr the device has been fine again. for anyone thats interested, I'm using a GSM Pre purchased in the UK from o2 on launch day.
pR
I see "Phone Offline" intermittently, would this have something to so with smartreflex?
My smartflex 500 won't install... In the IPKG log it reads "failure during post-install script execution". does anyone have a fix - Thanks.
I installed the 500 CPU scaling I believe and I went to restart luna after installing some other patches and the device won't load past the boot screen. I let it sit at the boot screen for 15 minutes and still no luck.. any ideas on how to somehow get it off the device, even in the current state it's in? much appreciated.
My friend your phone may be BRICKED!
Dangerous Patches i.e scaling should not be advertised in preware period. The 500 MHz patch BRICKED my Pre. Is Palm using our phones as guinea pigs for testing? PALM needs to test patches on their test phones before downloading these test patches to the public. There should be nothing named DANGEROUS!!! In Preware. We should not be the test....PALM fix the poor battery life...
Thats ridiculous. It says dangerous because there is an inherent risk, which users agree to take when they download and install the patch. If you don't want to take the risk, then don't install it. And Palm doesn't make these patches, and Preware isn't made by Palm.
However, Palm should do something about the poor battery life. But then again, the Pre was the first WebOS phone, and that in itself means that when you buy one your kind of volunteering to be a guinea pig.
Does the Powersave Smartflex 500 still work in webOS 1.3.5? It really helped save my battery life before the upgrade.
By the way, I really appreciate all the help the developers give on this and other sites. You guys make the experience of owning and using a Pre much better. Thank you for your time and effort!
It'd be nice to show how to safely remove the patches. Also, how to adjust them because all the description mentions is, "/etc/event.d/powersave-smartreflex" for example. A screenshot of what to do there would be great!
Can someone show how to 'create a file called CPU_Scaling' as mentioned in several of the forums? I can root my pre, tethered it as a WIFI router, etc. but need to be clear on how to creat this file and what I need to do to edit it to run at 550 if I so choose.
So whats the deal with these?? Good or bad?
I just installed the reflex500 to see if it helps the battery life since upgrading to 1.4. I will keep everyone posted. I noticed that the 600 versions of both patches are no longer available?
So far so good.
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Why can we have this patches in preware thank you