How To Easily Overclock Your Nokia N900 In Under Two Minutes

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How To Easily Overclock Your Nokia N900 In Under Two Minutes

By - Vaibhav Sharma On 27 July 2010 27 Comments

The ability to overclock the N900 has existed for a long time now and we have covered it before. But overclocking the N900 has never been so easy, two simple installs from the Application Manager and a short command via the terminal is all it takes. If you have been wanting to try it out but were holding out because it seemed too complicated, this guide is for you.

How To Easily Overclock Your N900 In Under Two Minutes

However, please note that overclocking the N900 will void your warranty, although it is possible to the flash to the stock kernel/state if you no longer want to overclock your device. Apart from that you also risk damaging your device and losing data. Please continue at your own peril.

That said, lets get started.

The first thing you need to do is install ‘rootsh’ from the Application Manager, make sure you have the relevant repositories enabled.
Next install the ‘Enhanced linux kernel for power users‘ from the ‘System’ section in the Application Manager. It supports overclocking upto 1.15 Ghz.
Restart the device.
Now install ‘Enhanced kernel for power users (settings)‘.
Open the X-Terminal and enter the following command.

sudo gainroot
kernel-config load ideal

This will load the ideal profile which overclocks your phone to 850 MHz. At this point if you experience reboots or the phone seems to act funny, try using the ‘lv’ settings that uses slightly higher voltages than the ‘ideal’ profile. If it is still unstable try ‘ulv’. The various presets are ‘default’ – ‘lv’ – ‘ulv’ – ‘xlv’ – ‘ideal’ – ‘starving’.

sudo gainroot
kernel-config load lv
kernel-config limits 250 850

If the N900 seems stable, you can have these settings as a preset of your own.

sudo gainroot
kernel-config load lv
kernel-config limits 250 850
kernel-config save myideal

With the current configuration, the N900 will resort to the default 600 MHz state everytime it is rebooted. This is done to avoid letting the N900 get caught in a reboot loop. If you are happy with the N900′s performance and stability, you can then also set the N900 to overclock by default on startup. Use the following command:

sudo gainroot
kernel-config default ideal (whichever preset you want to set as default e.g. myideal)
kernel-config show (this will show you your current settings)

If you want to revert to the original settings, here is the procedure to follow. Jakiman over at talk.maemo.org has a very comprehensive guide as well, if you are looking for more information I suggest you give it a read.

Overclock N900 With QCPUFreq

One last thing, if you want to configure the N900′s overclocking setting with a visual UI and not the terminal, install QCPUFreq from the Application Manager. Then once you have installed the packages mentioned above all you will need to do is move the slider to overclock to the desired level. My suggestion is don’t go past the 850 MHz mark.

Before you do this, please keep in mind one thing ‘because it can be doesn’t mean, you have to do it!’

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27 Comments »

Magnus said:

Problem:

Unable to install ‘Enhanced Linux kernel for power users’
Conflict with application packages: fcam-drivers(1.0.5-2)

# 28 July 2010 at 2:31 am

Andy said:

@Magnus,

fcam, as far as I know, also uses a custom kernel. You’ll have to choose between one or the other.

# 28 July 2010 at 10:02 am

Chris said:

For me the levels “250 and 900″ work the best. The “ideal” profile reboots my device in less than 10s even if I decide to do nothing.

Mostly doing the overclock is pretty safe, though, because the settings revert to normal if the device reboots.

# 28 July 2010 at 2:29 pm

Ol'Grandpa said:

BTW, do you guys know how long is the device covered under the warranty?
I bought mine as soon as it came out.

I will be overclocking when the warranty is over.

# 29 July 2010 at 3:53 am

Chris said:

Ol’Gramps: its two years!

# 2 August 2010 at 2:08 am

Vijay V said:

Have you tried smart reflex ?
Is it stable ? Do you notice increased battery life with it ?

# 4 August 2010 at 3:24 pm

sak500 said:

Much easier to google for zimage files no need to get into terminal and do all the typing.

There are images avail from 650 all the way to 1000mhz-500dsp. I’m using this one which took like 10 secs if you know how to flash your n900 via XP/WIN7 using flasher3.5. Even if you reboot ur phone it will boot in the overclocked state and idle is 125mhz and now the battery lasts more than a day.

# 4 August 2010 at 8:32 pm

DaVidsob's said:

!!!!!!! After installing the kernel for Enhanced Power Users camera stopped working !!!!!!

# 3 February 2011 at 4:13 am

kenny nicol said:

just to tell ever 1 overclocking dunt void your warranty sent my n900 to nokai with a brocken chager port it was overclock to 1.2ghz and nokai gave me a new phone

# 11 February 2011 at 7:19 pm

Weaponizing the Nokia N900 – Part 3.5 - #!/zitstif.no-ip.org/ said:

[...] With the N900 being an old man, in terms of technology, one can spruce it up a bit via overclocking. I would highly suggest to check out: http://thehandheldblog.com/2010/07/27/how-to-easily-overclock-your-n900-in-under-two-minutes/ [...]

# 14 February 2011 at 9:42 am

dav said:

Tks 750MHz and runs Like a Charme !!

# 16 February 2011 at 6:45 pm

dav said:

CAmra dont work
please help

# 16 February 2011 at 7:45 pm

dino73n said:

Dav…I had a same problem…turn off the phone and put the battery out for few min..then put the battery in and leave the camera lens cover open and start the phone.Go to application menu and start camera from there.
This works for me,hope it works for you too.

Sorry about bad english hope you will understand.

# 18 February 2011 at 2:20 pm

Future Technology said:

Unable to install ‘Enhanced Linux kernel for power users’

# 22 February 2011 at 12:50 pm

NiceGuy said:

Hi Guys with kind heart pleas help your brother, I am lost here and i will appreciate your help, I am new to N900 but the battery sucks, while trying to install the enhanced linux kernel…… got error msg “unable to install enhanced linux kernel for power users…..conflicting application package, PLSSSSSSSSSSSS HELP ME

# 15 March 2011 at 5:32 am

sam said:

i m not able to use mobile hotspot,wat should i do?and im not able to install enhanced linux kernel power user ,it shows conflicting application packages, so what should i do? and how to use x terminal? plzzzz help me ,i m new to n900….

# 30 March 2011 at 4:07 pm

khaled said:

karnel config not found //// ??

and i couldnt find Enhanced kernel for power users,,, i found Enhanced kernel for power users (settings) when i installed it it installed Enhanced kernel for power users.
help ??

# 17 May 2011 at 4:47 am

haikal said:

Hi, I find that after doing all of the stuff mentioned above, I cant get my Camera to work. Can somebody please help? Thank you

# 18 May 2011 at 8:21 am

foreclosure home specialist said:

SWEET! This really worked and unlocked my Nokia n900 right away. You made my day here!

# 25 August 2011 at 8:43 pm

foreclosure Agent said:

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# 25 August 2011 at 8:53 pm

Bilal Bokhari said:

Loved your post… Overclocked my n900 to 850 … works perfectly.
thanks & Regards

Bilal Bokhari

Ce0
zer0byte.com

# 21 October 2011 at 12:28 am

Short Sale Realtor said:

Hey Viabhav, thanks alot for posting this. Just used on my Nokia and it definitely words well.

# 27 October 2011 at 10:33 pm

FlameBoy0319 said:

After i type in the command ‘kernel-config save myideal’
It says
‘saving to home/user/.kernel/myideal
/home/user#” Is that how it’s supposed to be?
Or should it say something after that.

# 31 December 2011 at 4:31 am