CyanogenMod overclocking : Built-in controls, Alright Governor & Custom tools

Speeding up a basic tablet is easier than you might think

1.         Built-in controls

By default, CyanogenMod builds of Android provide a performance section within the settings. Select ‘Settings > CyanogenMod settings> Performance> CPU settings’ You’ll find maximum and minimum values for the CPU speed, it’s usually best to keep the minimum at the lowest available setting, but you can ramp up the Max value as far as you like. The Archos defaults to 800MHz, though the CPU is designed to run at 1GHz.

2.         Alright Governor

The Governor setting dictates how the tablet controls the CPU speed and enables you to adjust power-hungry settings. For example, Conservative increases the speed more slowly and down faster saving power. Performance ramps up very quickly and down more slowly using more power. Ondemand is a binary straight to maximum and minimum, while Interactive attempts to provide a real-time response to CPU demand.

3.         Custom tools

You’re certainly not restricted to the tools provided by the custom OS. The Android Market and other platforms provide additional overclocking tools, however the range of frequencies they’ll offer is still dictated by the installed OS. Many of these including AnTuTu CPU Master provide additional Governor-style controls to help you eke out more battery performance or at least mitigate any impact overclocking has on the device’s battery life.

Spotlight on... Hackable hardware choices

We’ve chosen the Archos 70 Tablet for two reasons: It can be picked up for £100 from the Carphone Warehouse and it has an active hacking community. That price gets you a capacitive 7-inch tablet with a 1GHz ARM processor and 256MB of memory, 8GB storage with SD card expansion. This is everything you need from a basic tablet. There are cheaper models, but these tend to have horrible resistive screens, less internal storage and slower processors. More importantly, they may not have an active community behind them.

But what other options are there? To start, consider the Archos 101 internet tablet, it’s a 10.1-inch version of the Archos 70, but specifically enables dual- booting so you can install any suitable OS you like. It can be picked up for around $240 from certain suppliers. If you want something faster the HP TouchPad is a dual-core system that has an active community working on an Android 4.0 port. As HP no longer make these it’s harder to pick them up from anywhere other than eBay. Another good dual-core choice is the Advent Vega from PC World. It has a good modding community and can be bought for around $318.4or less when on offer.

A The dual-core HP TouchPad became the best selling non-Apple tablet when It was discounted to a mere $99 last year