Overclocking on Asuswrt-Merlin 378.56_2 (RT-AC68U and RT-N66U)

[joegreat]

Does anyone notice a speed increase when using an OpenVPN? my connections are kinda slow, but i dont think I want to mess with the CFE. Im currently on 1.0.2.3 with Firmware 78.56_2.

You can read details about the VPN speed here and the overclocking solution at the beginning of this thread without the crazy idea to change the CFE (init-start and service-stop are your friends!).

And my routers been ~80C for a long time, since it was basically stock i never worried about it.

I do not get it: why people are so worried about the CPU- and WLAN-Chip temperature on their routers?
Do you also care about the CPU- and WLAN-Chip temperature of your PC and Laptop? No? Why then on the router?

Back to business: The Broadcom router chips are certified for temperatures >120° - so you have still 50% spare room before you shout get worried!

 

[kvic]

Here is one openssl benchmark run on my RT-AC56U overclocked to 1400,775. Worth running on your ASUS and compare. The maximum throughput in OpenVPN is roughly proportional to the increase seen in this benchmark.

$ openssl speed aes-128-cbc

The 'numbers' are in 1000s of bytes per second processed.
type             16 bytes     64 bytes    256 bytes   1024 bytes   8192 bytes
aes-128 cbc      44889.09k    49285.10k    50804.91k    51505.45k    50184.19k

 

[ASAT]

Do you also care about the CPU- and WLAN-Chip temperature of your PC and Laptop?

Yes, I care about my laptop temperatures too. When compiling Asuswrt-Merlin I must sit my laptop on a box with dual 120mm 5V DC fans inside, directing air upward toward the laptop. If I don't do this, the GPU fails due to the high temps, causing the screen to go black. For larger builds, like OpenELEC for Raspberry Pi, it takes more than 8 hours to build, and the laptop gets very hot if I don't use the external fans.

On my Windows 7 laptop, I use a program called SpeedFan to know the temperatures.

Dell Inspiron automatic fan speeds for CPU temperatures. My internal fan "kicks on" at these temperatures.
58C - fan speed low
68C - fan speed med
78C - fan speed high

CPU idle

CPU under heavy load

Download SpeedFan for Windows here:
http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

 

[kvic]

When compiling Asuswrt-Merlin I must sit my laptop on a box with dual 120mm 5V DC fans inside, directing air upward toward the laptop.

Here is a little utility that I partially brewed it myself. Below are the temperates at idle and after finish compiling linux kernel of the ASUS firmware. The machine is a Sandy Bridge Mac.

$ util/smc_temp

TEMPERATURES
    Ambient Air
        Upper Left          : 42.1 °C              43.6
        Upper Right         : 41.9 °C              42.6
        CPU Fan Assembly    : 34.5 °C              33.6
        Bottom Left         : 29.7 °C              28.8
        Bottom Right        : 28.1 °C              28.5
    CPU
        Core 0              : 48.0 °C              64.0
        Core 1              : 47.0 °C              64.0
        Core 2              : 47.0 °C              65.0
        Core 3              : 47.0 °C              59.0
        Integrated Gfx      : 47.0 °C              66.0
        SA/North Bridge     : 45.0 °C              61.0
        Proximity           : 47.6 °C              54.5
        Heatsink            : 42.8 °C              54.9
    GPU
        Diode               : 54.2 °C              57.8
        Heatsink            : 52.0 °C              55.6
    Proximity
        Hard Disk           : 41.0 - 53.0 °C       54.0
        Optical Drive       : 43.1 °C              43.4
        LCD Panel           : 43.8 °C              45.1
        Logic Board         : 49.0 °C              53.5
        PCH/South Bridge    : 61.0 °C              63.0
    Power Supply
        Proximity           : 53.6 °C              57.4
        Heatsink 1          : 55.9 °C              61.8
        Heatsink 2          : 55.2 °C              59.0
FANS
        Current Min/Max(RPM)
    ODD:    1148    1150/2713                      1146    1150/2787
    HDD:    1099    1100/5500                      1100    1100/5500
    CPU:    941     940/2436                       940     940/2553

 

[Bronsen]

I do not get it: why people are so worried about the CPU- and WLAN-Chip temperature on their routers?
Do you also care about the CPU- and WLAN-Chip temperature of your PC and Laptop? No? Why then on the router?

Back to business: The Broadcom router chips are certified for temperatures >120° - so you have still 50% spare room before you shout get worried!

Actually I do Joe that is why I'm constantly monitoring all of my temps in everything I use. I have GPU-Z for my Graphics Cards and CPUID HWmonitor for my motherboard and CPU, I also keep Temp probes on the memory Sticks attached to my Fluke Meters.

Also Keeping an Eye on your temps can be a Early warning of something going wrong. If a Voltage Regulator starts to go it will increase the Temperature of the Chassis and when a Voltage Regulator goes it can go one of two ways full open or full closed if full closed that would mean full Supply voltage is being let through and not regulated down to the required voltage there by increase the heat generated by components and blowing them.

73 Mike N1AMD

 

[slvrscoobie]

You can read details about the VPN speed here and the overclocking solution at the beginning of this thread without the crazy idea to change the CFE (init-start and service-stop are your friends!).

I do not get it: why people are so worried about the CPU- and WLAN-Chip temperature on their routers?
Do you also care about the CPU- and WLAN-Chip temperature of your PC and Laptop? No? Why then on the router?

Back to business: The Broadcom router chips are certified for temperatures >120° - so you have still 50% spare room before you shout get worried!

Actually I didnt really care, as I knew it was stock, but now that Im realizing that 80 could be determintal im worried about it.
Plus i do worry abou the temp of my mac. Actually brought it back to apple after they replaced it because I could easily hit 95+C when they replaced the logic board which didnt happen before that. I knew they had incorrectly added the heatsink and was under clocking the CPU to reduce heat which is a major issue when trying to process a few thousand 24mp RAW files.
yeah thanks looks like those of us concerned about overclocking ARE also concerned about the temp of our devices as we know lower temps = less errors, and longer life spans.

 

[slvrscoobie]

Here is one openssl benchmark run on my RT-AC56U overclocked to 1400,775. Worth running on your ASUS and compare. The maximum throughput in OpenVPN is roughly proportional to the increase seen in this benchmark.

$ openssl speed aes-128-cbc

The 'numbers' are in 1000s of bytes per second processed.
type             16 bytes     64 bytes    256 bytes   1024 bytes   8192 bytes
aes-128 cbc      44889.09k    49285.10k    50804.91k    51505.45k    50184.19k

Ok, so as I understand, I need to go back to 378.55 and upgrade to 1.0.2.6+ CFE?

 

[kvic]

Ok, so as I understand, I need to go back to 378.55 and upgrade to 1.0.2.6+ CFE?

Personally I'm using 378.55. It's not mandatory for overclock. This thread was actually started telling people how to get it done in 378.56.

CFE upgrade to 1.0.2.6+ for RT-AC56U is needed only if you want to overclock the memory clock. Not required for CPU clock.

I've no experience with CFE version requirement for a different model..maybe good to read the CFE thread for yourself...

 

[slvrscoobie]

Personally I'm using 378.55. It's not mandatory for overclock. This thread was actually started telling people how to get it done in 378.56.

CFE upgrade to 1.0.2.6+ for RT-AC56U is needed only if you want to overclock the memory clock. Not required for CPU clock.

I've no experience with CFE version requirement for a different model..maybe good to read the CFE thread for yourself...

So you just added to the /jffs/scripts/services-stop with the nvram set clkfreq 1000,533?

 

[slvrscoobie]

So you just added to the /jffs/scripts/services-stop with the nvram set clkfreq 1000,533?

Ok well I did that, hard rebooted, and now ive got :
admin@RT-AC56U:/tmp/home/root# cat /proc/cpuinfo
Processor : ARMv7 Processor rev 0 (v7l)
processor : 0
BogoMIPS : 2398.61
processor : 1
BogoMIPS : 2398.61

So it looks like it took the values in the script. Sweet!
Still holding steady at 82C but as I said before it was there stock so...

 

[GreGHM]

Maybe my question is strange, but still will ask mr.Merlin:

How complicated is to incorporate overclocking script to Merlin firmware in Administration menu, like drop-down menu with 1-2 possible (and limited) values? Something like "Overclocking - Yes. Values - 1000,666 or 1200,666"

I think it could be more user-friendly and in same time will prevent any possible damages of hardware or discussion "i made a nice script but router is not responding any more" or similar.

 

[L&LD]

Maybe my question is strange, but still will ask mr.Merlin:

How complicated is to incorporate overclocking script to Merlin firmware in Administration menu, like drop-down menu with 1-2 possible (and limited) values? Something like "Overclocking - Yes. Values - 1000,666 or 1200,666"

I think it could be more user-friendly and in same time will prevent any possible damages of hardware or discussion "i made a nice script but router is not responding any more" or similar.

I'm sure it is not complicated at all for him. But that is beyond the scope of his fork, as stated in the first post of his relevant thread.

 

[secafe]

What about RT-AC68P ? When 68U has 800mhz CPU, whereas 68P has 1Ghz CPU, and set default value is also 1Ghz... isn't it more stable to OC to 1200 or 1400? And when overclock CPU, the RAM clock also should be increased for timing as I know. By the way, my device 68P shows as RT-AC68U when I checked 'NVRAM GET MODEL I dunno what's wrong.

 

[RMerlin]

Maybe my question is strange, but still will ask mr.Merlin:

How complicated is to incorporate overclocking script to Merlin firmware in Administration menu, like drop-down menu with 1-2 possible (and limited) values? Something like "Overclocking - Yes. Values - 1000,666 or 1200,666"

I think it could be more user-friendly and in same time will prevent any possible damages of hardware or discussion "i made a nice script but router is not responding any more" or similar.

Quite complicated. Each router model supports different values, and now even different bootloader revisions will have different behaviour, making it next to impossible to maintain in a sane way. Each separate model would need to be constantly re-tested with each new bootloader. Not gonna happen, sorry.

 

[jsmiddleton4]

"When 68U has 800mhz CPU, whereas 68P has 1Ghz CPU"

Looks like the newer 68U's have 1ghz CPU. Mine does and seeing others making comments about it in other places. I can't say for sure as I'm not in the loop that would know. But sure appears that way.

 

[GreGHM]

New revision of 68U got BCM4709? Or they are overclocking 4708 to 1Ghz?

 

[ASAT]

This will tell you what's going on.

nvram get boardtype; nvram get model

 

[GreGHM]

ASAT, and how this will help to find out why AC68U is 1Ghz in stock? Figures of boardtype means what?

 

[ASAT]

how this will help? boardtype means what?

Here's the CFEs for all the models. These shows the default nvram settings for all the models.

https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-me...x.4708/cfe/build/broadcom/bcm947xx/compressed

#   Reference Board  boardtype
#   ---------------  ---------
#     BCM94708r       0x0646
#     BCM94709r       0x0665

 

[mstombs]

Here's the CFEs for all the models. These shows the default nvram settings for all the models.

https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-me...x.4708/cfe/build/broadcom/bcm947xx/compressed

But not including the N66U as in title of this thread. ISTR the AC66 was the first with a compilable CFE sourcecode, but I was not convinced the source matches the released CFEs...