Hi, guys. Can the GameShell be overclocked?
The processor powering the GameShell is the “Allwinner R16-J”. I tried doing some quick searches on the R16 and other Allwinner SoC’s, but I haven’t found any solid documentation behind overclocking them.
So the answer is “maybe”, but without having the GameShell on-hand I cannot very easily tell you the “how”.
That being said, out-of-the-box it’s already at 1.2 GHz with 4 cores, which is nothing to scoff at given what it is.
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Stupid question, you don’t have it in hand, so why are you already thinking about overclocking? For which purpose?
I believe this is the purpose.
(btw, if you enjoy XKCD, you’ll enjoy the context of that image here)
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Dude if thats a stupid question then why are you here?
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If there was a misunderstanding to my comment, I apologize for that. At least from my experience, the intention for overclocking is to get the maximum amount of power from a given unit, hence the “what if we tried more power?”.
My intention behind my response wasn’t to insult anyone, but to point out that anyone wanting to overclock a system is typically wanting more power from it.
Again, I apologize if I came off as insulting.
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Its cool. Thanks and im sorry for misinterpreting that.
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It’s all good 
I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t negatively affecting the community or upsetting anyone.
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By the way, i was asking about overclocking because i wanted to know to what limit can the GameShell be pushed, thereby knowing what it can handle and what it can’t.
So i guess i shouldve worded my question better.
If you have / knew of the Nintendo NES Classic that was released last year, the GameShell has the same processor, so it can (at the very least) handle every game it was able to handle. As far as it’s limits, anything that requires more than a quad-core 1.2Ghz processor would be too much for the GameShell as-is.
Given that the R16 chip is only found in open hardware projects, it doesn’t appear to have much documentation with it aside from it specs, so it’s entirely possible it hasn’t been tested with overclocking (yet) and if so, was not publicly documented (at least in a way where I could find it).
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Thank you. I really appreciate it.
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There’s always room for a relevant XKCD.
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It’s likely that you CAN overclock it, however, it’s likely that it won’t be easy.
At the very least, it will require an understanding of what the CPUs frequency capabilities are, as well as the ability to rebuild the bootloader and probably also the kernel, along with the knowledge to “install” such changes.
In the case of the bootloader, you’d probably need a new SPL, Uboot, and DTB with your new clock settings. The kernel modifications will be similar, and easier to install as you’ll likely get a .deb package out the other end. (Assuming the OS is Debian, which I can’t remember if it was ever stated to be)
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Yes, the Clockwork OS is a derivative of Debian.
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Do not overclock, it’s too hot.
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is too dangerous to go alone, take this :
You watch ETA PRIME too? Doesn’t everybody.
Necro bump much? 2 years later. Wow.
With nowhere to have any airflow come in or out, this would eventually normalise to the same temperature and not have any benefit.
This was a post made when head problems seemed to be an issue, possibly due to less kernel optimisation and reliance on the CPU to manage graphic processing.
I’d be really careful with watching videos from this eta prime channel regarding the gameshell; especially anything older than a year. So much of it is out of date and no longer relevant.
Referring to information gained from these would result in spreading misinformation. AFAIK, no one from the forums makes any video tutorials or anything like this, and the forums and GitHub is where most of the action takes place.
I for one don’t follow this YouTube channel. I don’t know if many others do. It is probably the first thing that comes up when you google “gameshell heatsink”
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It is overdated but it’s the second gen GS so maybe not? Correct me i’m i’m wrong.