Overclocking Nintendo DS


[Reilly] translated some content from this site and brings us an interesting mod to run a Nintendo DS at 1.7x normal speed. The mod allows the addition of a switch for overclocking on demand. Nothing like a good overclocking to end the day.

20 thoughts on “Overclocking Nintendo DS

  1. Aw man, Monster beat me to it; I wasn’t up as early this a.m. as normal. Now I have to use the proceeds from selling my NDS in 2005 to buy a new NDS.
    Redfireant3, perhaps the oscillator is not programmable?

  2. Anyone know how oscillators react when they are placed in parallel?

    I cant really see the layout of the circuit from the pictures, but it looks like he might have done that.

  3. #4, the DS was not designed to have the clock speed changed in software like the PSP as scaling down the speed is not necessary for extending the very short battery life of the PSP due to moving parts (UMD) etc.

    #7, not many people although it has become quite popular recently with the PSX emulator hack allowing quite a few games to run perfectly on it.

  4. ummm… other than telling your friends that your DS has a switch and is 1.7x faster than theirs, is there any noticable performance enhancement with this hack?

    will i be able to play the surgery game faster? ;)

  5. #13 (japroach) yeah, looks like that’s what he did; 24+33 = 57, 57/33 = 1.7. The sum frequency is apparently driving the 33MHz coprocessor.
    #10 (mad_cow): You might have to remove the stock oscillator to do that. It might require lifting just one lead. I could see putting in a 3-position switch with slow, normal, and fast speeds.

  6. It’s pretty neat, but I have a couple things that I don’t like about it:

    #1: You can’t switch it live… needing to close it, switch it, then open it.

    #2: He really butchered the case putting that horible switch in there… Why not a push button one? You know… the kind on old computers that it like a retractable pen? That way, you can drill a nice little hole in there, and use the stylus for pressing the button…

Leave a Reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.