OK the complet instructions follow (its long):
-- Overclocking your audrey. this is difficult, and in depth. --
This is QUITE hazardous as you will be physically altering your device. the overclock hack involves removing 2 SMD resistors and moving a third. these pieces are EXTREMELY tiny, about 1/32" square, and even thinner than that. im trying to get together some pictures so you can get an idea of the scope of the project before you crack yours open. Don't blame me if your Audrey becomes comatose, you've been warned!
ok, this is based on audreyhacking.com, with a slight modification. you'll need a soldering iron (preferably a tweezer type for dealing with SMD parts), desoldering braid, solder, a heatsink fan, and some tweezers (i like the scissor type, as you have more control). youll definitely need a steady hand and lots of patience as well.
first get a baseline of how your audrey performs. open a pterm window and type the following:
cd /temp
vi ten-k
i
let x=0
while ((x<10000))
do
let x=x+1
done
then hit the 'snapshop' key and type:
:wq
this will drop you back to shell. what you just did was create a real simple script that was written by my good friend mindbum to test the speed of the audrey. it checks how fast it can perform 10,000 operations. now, for the last part of the script, type in the following:
chmod 777 ten-k
to test the speed of your audrey run the time command on the script like this:
time /temp/ten-k
every time you run this command you see how fast audrey runs those operations. typically, youll see speeds of 17.3 to 17.8 on a regular audrey with the usb adaptor. removing the usb adaptor speeds it up by .5 seconds.
now lets get hacking.
when you first open up your audrey, you will need to remove the metal shield, its held in place by the screws on the side of the serial port. take those out, then gently lift the shield off. you'll then see the circuit board that is the core of audrey.
here, i made a quick template of where the CPU is so i can cut out a section of the shield for the clearance for the CPU fan. my template was made like this: take a regular piece of paper, and line up one corner with the left and bottom edges of the bottom half of the shield, which is under the circuit board. press down on the paper, forcing it against the cpu, creating an outline of it on the paper. remove the paper, and draw an outline about 3/8" around the shape of the CPU left on the paper from the pressing. cut out this outline, and put it on top of the upper shield you removed lining it up with the left and bottom edges of the shield. draw a line around the inside of the cutout, on the shield. this should give you a nice box to cut out that is around your CPU. cut this box out using your favorite method to shear through sheet metal. i prefer a dremel with a fiberglass reinforced cutting wheel (it'll even go through a master lock). this should leave you a hole big enough to allow your fan to come through the shield. you may want to do a test fit now.
the next step is the fan. i bought a few FAC08 heatsink fans from www.coolerguys.com that are used for video card chipsets. they have 3 very cool things going for them: 1-they are perfectly sized for the job, being just a little bigger (maybe 1/8" on each side) than the CPU. 2-they operate on 5 volts, which is one of the volages available on the board (nice to get a fan that will run on the voltage available you know ;) and 3- theyre made by GlobalWIN, one of the leading HSF suppliers, so im getting a good brand too. theyre about $10 each, which isnt bad, and they attach using a thermal adhesive tape already on the bottom of the heatsink. i centered the fan over my CPU, and carefully pressed down to get a good connection between the CPU and fan. in the bottom left hand corner of the circuit board youll see 2 small dots of solder. theyre located below the cf slot. the left dot is the negative or ground (black wire) connection, and the right dot is the positive (red wire) connection. solder the wires from the fan to these dots of solder; avoid connecting the 2 together or youll probably not be able to get your audrey to run at all.
disconnect all the little wires from the circuit board. there should be 7 wires altogether, starting at the top left corner going clockwise: connection for the left speaker, connection for the right speaker, connection for the ir unit on the bottom of audrey, connection for the microphone, wide LCD control ribbon, narrow LCD control ribbon, and the connection for the LCD backlight. carefully remove these wires, paying special attention to the ribbon cables for the LCD. these wire are very VERY fragile, and frustrating to put back in after theyre disconnected. after you remove the wires, pull the knob off the front of the unit. it should just slide off its post. youll then be able to lift the circuit board out of the casing.
now the hard part.
put the casing off to the side, leaving only the circuit board to work with. if you want to, you can remove the modem/power/usb module on the back of the board. removing it while working with the main board might be easier because the main board will be able to lay flat. it is held in place with 3 little nylon screws. after the screws are removed, the module just slides off the pins connecting it to the main board. flip the board over, and you'll then see the little SMD resistors you'll be manipulating. find parts R139, R140(empty), R176 and R213. remember these locations as they are the ones you'll be moving. first, remove parts R176 and R213. what i do is use the desoldering braid to remove as much solder as i can, then use the soldering iron and tweezers to gently remove the part. i try lifting up the part a little bit on each side, going back and forth 2-3 times before you get the chip off. NOTE: there is a problem you can get here: if you try to pull the chip off too fast, the contact can come off the chip rendering it useless. by using the desoldering braid and taking your time removing the chip by doing each side a little bit at a time and alternating sides, you should be ok. remove these 2 parts and set them aside. you won't need them any more, so you should be able to throw them away. save them in case you mess one up (all 3 resistors are 200K i believe, so if you mess one up you could use one that would be trashed to save the day). you will then move R139 to R140. this is the more difficult operation, as you need to re-use the part, and solder in place. carefully remove the part, using the desoldering braid and going back and forth between sides with the soldering iron to remove it from the board. using the tweezers, place it over the empty slot at R140, and solder it in place. you may need to get a little (and i mean little) bit of solder on your iron to complete the joint.
There! your audrey should now be overclocked! reassemble the unit, going in reverse: place the board back in the casing, attach all the wires, being extremely careful with the ribbon cables from the LCD, replace the modem/power/usb module on the main board attaching it with the screws, replace the shield and tighten up the screws on each side of the serial port. close up the unit, and tighten up the screws in the casing.
connect your usb adaptor and power, and lets test it. run your script by opening a pterm window and type:
time /temp/ten-k
you should see a speed of around 14.83 show up now. this means that the audrey is about 20% faster based on this test. the real test is in how it performs. you should see your windows pop up faster and the unit as a whole be 'snappier' as i had read it described once. happy hacking!
cdthomas9 (at) toadmail (dot) com
