On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 5:43 PM, Dale <rdalek1...@gmail.com> wrote: > Daniel Quinn wrote: >> >> I don't know if this is a hardware issue or not, but I thought that maybe >> I'd >> configured my kernel incorrectly and that this might be a known issue >> someone >> here has run across in the past so here goes: >> >> My computer is a pretty impressive AMD 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6400+ box >> with 2GB of RAM and for the most part, I just use it to write code at >> work. >> However, whenever I'm doing something CPU-intensive, two things happen: >> >> * The load on the box goes up to 4 >> * The box intermittently wobbles from running at full-speed and dropping >> to >> a crawl. This is best seen while watching Flash videos online, >> compressing/encoding video, or compiling. Everything is fine for a >> few >> minutes, then suddenly the rate of compiling/compression/playback etc. >> drops to a crawl for about 1-3minutes, then back up to full speed. >> >> I don't know why it's happening. I've tried various kernel options with >> no >> change in behaviour. Outside of that though, I don't know what to try. >> Suggestions welcome :-( >> >> > > Shot in the dark here. Could it be that something is getting hot, or thinks > it is getting hot, and slows down processing in a effort to cool things down > a bit? I don't know if this is just laptops but I think there is a option > in the kernel to do this. I don't use it but it may be worth checking into. > Maybe it was turned on by default.
Sometimes in the BIOS this happens, too. At work a few years ago we had a Dell laptop where it thought the temperature was 200C degrees all the time, so it would run the fan at full speed and go into lowest-power mode etc. Once we determined it wasn't really 200C, we found out it was a buggy BIOS and upgrading it solved the problem. Nobody knows why the laptop worked fine for 2 years and then suddenly exhibited this problem, but I was glad to get it fixed so I would stop hearing the fan blowing at max speed in the cubicle next to mine. :)
