Overclocking PI2

Help and Support Raspberry Pi
1

I use OSMC on a RPi2, which settings should I use for:

  • arm-freq (now 900)
  • sdram-freq (now 450)
  • core-freq (now 450)
  • init-turbo (now 0)
  • over-voltage (now 0)
  • sdram-over-voltage (now 0)
  • force-turbo (now off)
2

You should stick with the official OSMC presets

Sam

3

And don’t be disappointed if you can’t use Turbo, as the default “Normal” clock settings for the Pi 2 are effectively a medium overclock already. (Technically the standard clock speed for the chip is 700Mhz, and normal is already 900Mhz)

My Pi 2 even with the official Raspberry Pi power adaptor is not stable on Turbo overclock (1000Mhz) and will freeze after a few hours, but is 100% stable on normal overclock. (Both my original Pi 1’s can run at 1000Mhz) Unlike the original Pi the Pi 2 is more than fast enough at Normal so it’s not a big deal if you can’t get a stable system on Turbo and have to use Normal IMHO.

So my advice would be to try Turbo but if you have any unexplained system freezes drop back to Normal. There’s not really much need to customise it any further than that.

4

So I will not change anything in these settings.
Thank you both for the advice and explanation.

5

My Rpi2 runs 100% stable with the following settings in config.txt.
Just to be safe i mounted a heatsink on the cpu.

arm_freq=1100
sdram_freq=500
force_turbo=0
over_voltage_sdram=0
over_voltage=6
initial_turbo=0
core_freq=500

6

Hey thansen, my settings are

arm_freq=1000
sdram_freq=500
force_turbo=1
over_voltage_sdram=0
over_voltage=1
initial_turbo=0
core_freq=500

I’d like to run it at 1100Mhz like you do.
Do I really need over voltage at 6? What does it even mean? +6 Volt?
And why no force_turbo?

7

You will not gain much going from 1000 to 1100, if your Pi runs fine at that settings, i would leave it there.

Here are some info about overclocking the pi
http://elinux.org/RPiconfig#Overclocking_options

My Pi needs the over_voltage set to 6 for it to run stable at 1100Mhz.

I have not set the force_turbo because it disables the dynamic CPU frequency, and will leave it on 1100Mhz all the time, which is not necessary, and it might set the warranty bit (I really don’t care about the warranty, but other might)

8

Any further developments on this subject

I’ve just removed force turbo based on above as my streams pause / freeze a lot

9

Every Rpi is different, If your Pi freezes at a given frequency, it means that you have overclocked it to much, or perhaps you have a insufficient power supply. The higher clock rate, the more power the Pi draws.
What are your overclock settings in config.txt?

Mine runs stable at the following settings, but that does not mean every Pi does.

arm_freq=1100
sdram_freq=500
force_turbo=0
over_voltage_sdram=0
over_voltage=6
initial_turbo=0
core_freq=500

10

its been ok since the turbo was unticked last night, as for power I get no flashing icon ??

1050
500
500
0
6
0
OFF

11

You can easily have a bad power supply without having the flashing icon.
If it is stable after unticked the turbo, It indicates that you are on the limit for what your system can handle.
Adding a heat sink on the Soc could help, I have heat sinks on all of my Pi’s except my new Pi3, but they are ordered :wink:

1 Like
12

It’s not unstable as such, it could be my internet it just stops here and there with streaming sky HD+ more buffering ID guess than pi2 issues ?