Overclocked my Playstation Today!

[likeabaus]

So the 30 day return policy on my psx from ebay finally expired the other day. So today, I cracked open my scph-9001 and decided to do the overclock mod. I did it without a switch too #yolo lol. I was too impatient to wait til I get over to my local ratshack (yes some are still open here in the states, few and far between, but they are around) so I just went for it. So right off the bat, I noticed the colors are off, but not surprisingly so as many other's have reported graphical issues and what not do to the fact that retail games are optimized for the lower clock speed (mine's been doubled from the stock 33mhz to 66mhz). Nothing to major, but I now first hand why people often do this mod with a switch for playing their retail games XD. So, with the retail games i've tested, no major issues other than the colors being a bit fuzzy and faded, in fact loading times seem to be cut in half, not surprising as the clock speed doubled, forcing everything to work harder . I don't know how long the psx will run like this, as i'm obviously forcing it to work harder than its meant to, but these things are pretty much a dime a dozen these days so why not.

With the homebrew I've tested some actually run without the color issues, while others do still have that. It depends on the software you're using, however this would be pretty nice to be able to use for development purposes . Extra horsepower ftw! For anyone wondering, I followed this guide to get the job done: http://djky2k3.tripod.com/psx_oc.html Its for model's scph-7501 and scph-9001, but other models can be done from what I've read online, just need to do it differently. My motherboard is a PU-23. I'll post a video of the results when I get a chance. Currently letting the psx run for a while with a game in it, to make sure it isn't overheating, so far so good *knocks on wood*

EDIT: Here's a couple of screenshots of the mod (well sort of) its just the final product with lots and lots of electrical tape. The CPU pin you have to lift is so dang fragile that I was afraid to let my eyes off of it during the modding process so I didn't grab my phone until after the fact. I'll have a video of this running (with the weird graphical stuff too). Note to self, use a switch next time XD. https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... e=583E02F7

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/t3 ... 1577_o.jpg

Also notice I didn't use a hot glue gun to secure the CPU pin, I don't have one, which is why I went nuts with the electrical tape XD

[nocash]

I've never thought about overclocking a PSX. But now that you mention it, faster loading times make sense... There is a cdrom test command that can make the drive motor spin much faster as normal - it isn't actually reading data in that test mode, but it's proving that the drive motor is capable of higher speeds - and if you double the clock, then it should actually spin at Quad speed (instead normal Double speed)... and as you got games booted, apparenlty without reading errors.

[likeabaus]

Yeah, games are still working, but with some level of glitching. Like some homebrew and retail games run entirely in black and white, while others have faded colors and what not. My console is NTSC and i'm experiencing the issue with NTSC games on it as well (my tv is an old NTSC CRT from "back in the day lol.") So just saying its not a PAL issue. This is to be expected though as all retail games and most homebrew are designed with the stock specs in mind, as I explained above. Also from what I understand, the GPU maxes out at 40mhz and will not go beyond that. I imagine there's another frequency divider circuit somewhere to prevent it from exceeding that speed. So with the CPU clocked at 66mhz and the GPU at 40mhz they're clearly out of sync which would explain the color/graphical issues, not to mention that the software isn't expecting it.

I was playing around with some net yaroze games on my console that somebody converted to standard ps-exe's and rolled them all into one iso (thanks internet!). Surprisingly the games ran very well with the overclock despite the fact that the retail psx's only have 1 or 2mb of ram (I keep reading conflicting things about the retail units, not sure which number is actually right) and the net yaroze's have 8mb lol. I imagine the doubling of the clock speed is partly to blame for the good performance XD. Its able to dump the games into RAM quickly enough to not really make a difference and apparently none of the yaroze games i've tried needed more than 1 or 2 megs to run anyways lol.

On a side note, as a precautionary measure I'm thinking about slapping a random heatsink (whatever I have lying around that fits) on top of the CPU with some thermal paste. The console doesn't appear to be running too hot from the outside, but I have no way of measuring the CPU temp sooo it might be a good idea.

As for your comment on the loading times, yeah I have no way of benchmarking anything as this is the only psx I own right now and didn't bother to install a switch in the overclock mod (as stated above) XD, but my gut tells me the loading times are reduced by about 50%, of course looks can be deceiving. I would have to test it with an unmodded console and try several different games side by side and record it to be sure .

[Administrator]

Yeah, games are still working, but with some level of glitching. Like some homebrew and retail games run entirely in black and white, while others have faded colors and what not. My console is NTSC and i'm experiencing the issue with NTSC games on it as well (my tv is an old NTSC CRT from "back in the day lol.") So just saying its not a PAL issue. This is to be expected though as all retail games and most homebrew are designed with the stock specs in mind, as I explained above. Also from what I understand, the GPU maxes out at 40mhz and will not go beyond that. I imagine there's another frequency divider circuit somewhere to prevent it from exceeding that speed. So with the CPU clocked at 66mhz and the GPU at 40mhz they're clearly out of sync which would explain the color/graphical issues, not to mention that the software isn't expecting it.

I was playing around with some net yaroze games on my console that somebody converted to standard ps-exe's and rolled them all into one iso (thanks internet!). Surprisingly the games ran very well with the overclock despite the fact that the retail psx's only have 1 or 2mb of ram (I keep reading conflicting things about the retail units, not sure which number is actually right) and the net yaroze's have 8mb lol. I imagine the doubling of the clock speed is partly to blame for the good performance XD. Its able to dump the games into RAM quickly enough to not really make a difference and apparently none of the yaroze games i've tried needed more than 1 or 2 megs to run anyways lol.

On a side note, as a precautionary measure I'm thinking about slapping a random heatsink (whatever I have lying around that fits) on top of the CPU with some thermal paste. The console doesn't appear to be running too hot from the outside, but I have no way of measuring the CPU temp sooo it might be a good idea.

As for your comment on the loading times, yeah I have no way of benchmarking anything as this is the only psx I own right now and didn't bother to install a switch in the overclock mod (as stated above) XD, but my gut tells me the loading times are reduced by about 50%, of course looks can be deceiving. I would have to test it with an unmodded console and try several different games side by side and record it to be sure .

The Yaroze has 2 MB of RAM.
As stupid as it sounds, a heat sink might be a good idea in this situation.

[likeabaus]

Really!? I thought it had 8mb lol. Shows what I know . So I take it the retail units have 1mb then?

As for the heat sink, ya i'm gonna go for it, i'd rather not drive my psx into the ground if I can help it . Back in the day, I know some people even went as far as adding fans to their psx/psone/ps1's when overclocking. That might be a little much, but a heat sink is definitely a good idea. Just for fun, I might throw in a fan just for the "look at what I did factor" lol. Not that its really necessary but yeah. I have some random fans lying around that run off of 5v/3v etc it would just be a matter of find a spot on the mobo or power supply that's outputting the right voltage and current and soldering the fan wires in place. Might be good for the lolz

[Administrator]

Really!? I thought it had 8mb lol. Shows what I know . So I take it the retail units have 1mb then?

No, all retail units have 2 MB of DRAM, and 1 MB SGRAM (beforehand known as VRAM on the older launch models).
However, the PSone has 2 MB of SGRAM but it's inaccessible.

[likeabaus]

Okay so for all intents and purposes the retail units have 2mb that's usable (not counting vram) is this correct? Also I was digging threw old threads on here and found this: http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.p ... it=8mb+ram which I think is where my confusion came from about net yaroze's having 8mb came from. I was under the impression, that the hardware mod mentioned in that thread was to essentially get a retail unit up to par with a yaroze, but from the sounds of it, it surpasses that (in theory of course, software would have to be specifically designed with the extra ram in mind or it would simply just use 2mb max and call it a day and the rest of the ram chips would go unused). That would be pretty badass if somebody wrote some homebrew to actually utilize this mod <3. Reading through the thread though, it doesn't sound like it was ever done, outside of just using a tool to confirm that the ram is functional.... There could be a lot of potential for this, I'm surprised nobody has taken advantage of it (unless somebody has and I somehow missed it?) My mobo is a pu-23 (very small, which made the overclock mod pretty difficult to do), and due to its physical size, I doubt it could handle the extra ram (due to lack fof room and possibly other alterations to the board design), but haven't really looked into it. It certainly wouldn't be a walk in the park if its at all possible on this board....


UPDATE: Here's the youtube video as promised be warned its very long, feel free to skip through it :p.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOG7wieJyDA

UPDATE 2: I forgot to mention this yesterday, but I attempted to fit a heat sink on top of the CPU but am unable to without seriously cutting it down in size as the shielding that the laser assembly sits on top of won't fit over it. I did however pull some rubber thermal conductive tape out of a donor ps2 (it was toast anyways ) and cut it down and stacked it on top of the CPU so it would essentially transfer the heat away from the CPU and use the shielding as a heat sink. However in order to make contact with the shielding, I had to use two layers of the thermal tape so I'm not sure if this is counter productive (much like using too much thermal paste), i'm not too familiar with thermal tape and exactly how it works. Thoughts anyone?

[sickle]

Haha, that's awesome
I wonder - are you finding some games load a decent amount faster than others? (As if there's some kinda decompression going on)

[likeabaus]

well as described above and I think also in my video, it appears that loading times have been halved, but without another unmodded console to run side by side with it for benchmarking purposes I can't say exactly... Its pretty neat actually though. No actual decompression going on, its just forcing everything to work harder, including the cd-rom drive.

[Administrator]

I am curious to know the temperature of your R3000A. You said your clock is running at 66 MHz. That's the speed of a MIPS II R6000. The only thing you're lacking now is an FPU, and if the PSX had one of those, that could have opened some windows in the realm of development back when the PSX was in its prime

I'm curious to know what the exact speed is of the clock. When I have time, I'll do the mod and see what's on my oscilloscope I guess, because I reckon I can get the colour back. If anything, the colour burst frequency is probably completely all out of whack

[likeabaus]

From what I understand it "should" be clocked at 66mhz as that's what I'm feeding into the CPU directly, however I lack an oscilloscope so I can't actually test that theory. That one's all you

UPDATE 5/23/17: (I'm in the states, in case you're wondering why my date format is weird lol). Anyways, last night I decided to find a better cooling solution for this to see if it would help stabilize things a bit. Seeing as I couldn't fit a proper heatsink on the CPU using the standard psx caseI mofded on old xbox 360 case from a consolethat was fubar and mounted the psx inside. My ancient laptop alsi croaked, so I phishef a heatsink out of that and plopped ot on top of the CPU and noticed some minor imptovemements. Its still a work in progrrss, pics coming soon...

UPDATE 5/24/17: Here are the pictures as promised: https://scontent.fbed1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/ ... e=59B77403

https://scontent.fbed1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/ ... e=59A36969

https://scontent.fbed1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/ ... e=59B5D1CB

https://scontent.fbed1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/ ... e=59BE6353

I tried to upload them here, but no luck as the files were too large, so I through them up on facebook. They should be publically accessible, but if anyone has trouble viewing them, just let me know. Stay tuned for more updates......