How fast can a Raspberry Pi Pico go? Well, apparently the answer is 1 GHz if you freeze it and give it over twice the voltage it normally gets. Oh, one catch. After a few minutes, the chip will fry itself.

That’s the results reported by [David] who took a Peltier cooler and a pretty serious over-voltage. The dhrystone scores went from around 200 to over 1100. Of course, there’s that pesky early death to worry about, so you probably won’t want to try this at home.

Even before the chip bites the dust, there are other problems to address. For example, once you get much over 250 MHz, the Pico’s SPI flash can’t keep up, so all the software you want to run has to be put in RAM first. You’ll also want to do some poking at the system clock parameters.

Honestly, we enjoy overclocking PCs or just about anything else. The good news is if you fry a Pico, it won’t make a sizable dent in your wallet. It is also a fun way to learn a bit more about the internals of the processor. According to [David], the cooler took the part to -40 C. We wonder how it would fare in a bath of LN2?

Of course, you can push a regular Pi, too. If you really need a 1 GHz overclocked microcontroller, maybe check out the Teensy.

Ethanol/Methanol + dry ice should be -78°C. I’d be worried LN2 being too volatile to stick much to the chiplet. Acetone would probably damage the epoxy, so it is ruled out.

Smart. Yeah, I assume that the volatility is why liquid nitrogen cooling is usually done via a copper pot clamped to the die (with a little thermal grease)

That’s expensive to build and used by professionals ;) Unarguably yours would be the best solution, I’m just speaking from a chemist perspective.

Just be careful, alcohols tend to get “sticky” when they get that cold and are still not solid. They can hit your skin and attach.

Judging by the photo, perhaps condensation is what impaired the dhrystone. Whetstone may have been a better test for this scenario.

Of course, once all the dry ice has sublimated away, you’re effectively left with a bucket of fuel with an immersion heater going full tilt. Probably want to keep an eye on that.

Did it also get an IQ of 12,368? And more importantly, did it wasn’t any toast?

Given that God is infinite, and the universe is infinite:

Would you like a toasted teacake?

No buns, baguettes,baps or bagels, no croissants, no crumpets, no pancakes, no potato cakes and NO hot cross buns… and DEFINITELY no smegging flapjacks! Ah! So you’re a WAFFLE man!

TOASTER: Three hundred and forty-five years? Well, it’s better than a kick in the breadtray.

HOLLY: (worried) Missed the decimal point…

TOASTER: You have only three point four one years left to live?

HOLLY: (panicking) That’s not years, that’s minutes: three point four one minutes!

Did it fry because the water vapor condensed and created a contact/short circuit where it shouldn’t ? Maybe the same experience should be made under vacuum.

It would die faster in a vacuum, with no convection to take away heat, but you could use a dry nitrogen/CO2 atmosphere.

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