I've completed my analysis of running the WL700gE at 300MHz. My results were extremely positive.

With an ambient room temperature of 23.2 C, I measured the following temperatures on the BCM4780 processor:

Idle @ 264MHz (with gpio interrupt fix): 28.0 C
99.8% CPU load @ 264 MHz (as shipped from Asus): 29.8 C

Idle @ 300 MHz: 28.8 C
99.8% CPU load @ 300MHz: 29.8 C

As you can see, I measured no difference in temperature between 264MHz and 300MHz when running at high CPU load. The maximum increase in temperature was from idle at 264 MHz to max load at 300MHz. Even in this case, the rise was was only 2 degrees C.

All measurements were taken after a soak time of at least 15 minutes with a recently calibrated Fluke Model 61 Infrared Thermometer.

A hi-res picture of the setup is here:

http://wl500g.info/files/asus/custom...410-201724.JPG

A similar picture of a slightly cooler reading at 300 MHz and moderate CPU load is here:

http://wl500g.info/files/asus/custom...410-201744.JPG

Given this data, I'm convinced it's completely safe, from a thermal perspective, to run the router continuously at 300Mhz with no heatsinking or other modifications.

So... How does one set the frequency to 300MHz?

[root@WL700gE ~]$ nvram set clkfreq=300
[root@WL700gE ~]$ nvram commit
[root@WL700gE ~]$ sync
[root@WL700gE ~]$ sync
[root@WL700gE ~]$ reboot

That's it.

Tables within the router, and bootloader, keep the SDRAM timing within spec. Thus far, I've reset the clock on two routers with no ill effects.

As usual, YMMV. Do this at your own risk!

- K.C.