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Some hackers just don’t know what to do with so much time on their hands. But at least for this one, he did something good and worthwhile – that is make the CPU of the OLPC XO run faster than it normally could or what it is programmed to do. By default, the XO’s CPU runs at 433mhz and memory runs at 166mhz.

The process involves an industry old way of overclocking the CPUs clock to make it run faster than it was programmed to do. The overclocking process can be easily done if you are a tech geek. If you are successful you’ll get an OLPC XO running at 566mhz and a memory speed of 233mhz. Here’s the exact procedure from the OLPC News site:

Overclocking of the Geode LX processor is easily accomplished by writing to a specific MSR (Model Specific Register). This is easily accomplished at the open firmware prompt. To get to the open firmware prompt you press (the X in the upper left hand corner of the keyboard) immediately after booting the OLPC.
1. Type “4c000014” and press
2. Type “rdmsr” and press
3. Type “u.” and press (a hex number will be displayed)
4. Again, type “u.” and press (a second hex number will be displayed, write it down)
5. Now its time to overclock.

To make the process work, you must have a developer key and have previously disabled the security setting of your OLPC.
Just a bit of a warning though, the overclocking process is not for those with a weak heart. The process might cause some hardware and excessive heat if it fails to work properly. So if you think you are not prepared to face this possible consequences, then you are better of with you slow running OLPC. But if you are brave enough, go ahead and have some fun hacking your OLPC XO.

Via [OLPC News]