Overclocking the TF330
Posted: 03 Nov 2019 16:56
I've been toying with this idea for a while now. The comment on the board states that 110mhz might be possible but for the life of me I cannot find a 110mhz crystal so instead I got 108 and 120mhz crystals.
108mhz works. At this speed the sysinfo score jumps to 10.45 mips up from 9.61mips. Now I know sysinfo isn't the most accurate benchmarking utility but it serves its purpose to show the speed boost. I've ran this speed for several hours with games, demos etc and its perfectly stable. I measured a temperature on the cpu at about 40oC so a bit of cooling maybe would help. This is using the supplied 40mhz EC 030. I've also recently been given a full 50mhz crystal (thanks to Supaduper). That chip is also stable with the 108mhz crystal and does run a bit cooler. After about 20-25minutes of the frontier intro on loop it was only at 23oC but I later recorded a temperature of about 36oC so again some cooling might not go amiss. I've ordered a small heat sink and a thermal pad to help. All temperatures were recorded with the top off the console so enclosed it would probably be hotter.
120mhz on the other hand doesn't work. The CD32 will post to its splash screen making me think the CPU and possibly the ram is fine at this speed but the IDE controller doesn't like it. In fact my CF card got corrupted. I tried the CF card and 2 IDE drives, none work.
So in conclusion 108mhz is fine, 120mhz doesn't work. There are multiple other speeds 110, 112, 114 etc which might work (if you can find them) but personally I'm happy with the 108mhz overclock. In reality the speed increase probably isn't noticeable in games but I thought you lot would like to know that it is possible.
One question though... There's a point on the TF330 labelled ground and 5v that I could attach pins to for a fan to help in the cooling. Would there be any issue in running a fan off this point?
108mhz works. At this speed the sysinfo score jumps to 10.45 mips up from 9.61mips. Now I know sysinfo isn't the most accurate benchmarking utility but it serves its purpose to show the speed boost. I've ran this speed for several hours with games, demos etc and its perfectly stable. I measured a temperature on the cpu at about 40oC so a bit of cooling maybe would help. This is using the supplied 40mhz EC 030. I've also recently been given a full 50mhz crystal (thanks to Supaduper). That chip is also stable with the 108mhz crystal and does run a bit cooler. After about 20-25minutes of the frontier intro on loop it was only at 23oC but I later recorded a temperature of about 36oC so again some cooling might not go amiss. I've ordered a small heat sink and a thermal pad to help. All temperatures were recorded with the top off the console so enclosed it would probably be hotter.
120mhz on the other hand doesn't work. The CD32 will post to its splash screen making me think the CPU and possibly the ram is fine at this speed but the IDE controller doesn't like it. In fact my CF card got corrupted. I tried the CF card and 2 IDE drives, none work.
So in conclusion 108mhz is fine, 120mhz doesn't work. There are multiple other speeds 110, 112, 114 etc which might work (if you can find them) but personally I'm happy with the 108mhz overclock. In reality the speed increase probably isn't noticeable in games but I thought you lot would like to know that it is possible.
One question though... There's a point on the TF330 labelled ground and 5v that I could attach pins to for a fan to help in the cooling. Would there be any issue in running a fan off this point?