On Sunday October 12 2003 06:52 am, ed tharp wrote:
> On Sun, 2003-10-12 at 07:03, Jerry Barton wrote:
> > On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 18:34:36 +0800
> >
> > Aidan Holmes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > On Saturday 11 October 2003 11:33 pm, Charlie M. wrote:
> > > Thanks Jerry and Charlie for your responses.
> > > I am very new to linux, and so I wouldn't have a clue how to
> > > see if I have gkrellm and lm_sensors running, but I'll
> > > certainly explore and see what I can find.........One more
> > > question for you, if it is a cpu overheating, I can
> > > understand it doing it after the computer has been on for a
> > > while, but why would it stop again once i press a button on
> > > the keyboard to start working again??
> just a guess, the fan is spinning down to save power, but the CPU
> is not going all the way to sleep. (zombies?)
That'd be my guess also. During standby the cpu is normally still
busy. Just somewhat lower loads than when the system is up and
running. For the original poster, some suggestions and opinions;
In bios you should have an option to disable the fan spinning
down. Set it to run 100% fan speed all the time. The sound you
heard from the system speaker was most likely the bios alarm for
cpu overheating. Probly nothin to do with lm_sensors, and since you
didn't know what lm_sensors is, you probly don't have it installed
anyhow.
OTOH, it shouldn't happen. When the cpu temp went too high,
bios should'a turned the fan speed back up. Could be marginal
motherboard and/or bios (win)design. Could be due to a thermal pad
instead of grease being used. Could be a lot of things including
dust bunnies. In any event, I suspect your cooling (including case)
might just be barely adequate.
I believe there's a way to alter fan behavior using 'setpci',
but since I've never needed it, I don't know how to use it. I was
recently contacted offlist by someone who is using setpci to vary
fan speeds with load/temp (a bad idea IMO). So there's probly a way
to force 100% fan speed all the time.
Check an see if you have a bios option to enable/disable HLT
(halt) commands to the cpu. If so enable it, if not the Linux
kernel HLT signals just might not are being sent to the cpu, even
if you see "Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK." in /var/log/dmesg
It could be that your motherboard came with a Windoze CD, and
winsux software to handle what the bios should be doin at the
hardware level, fan an HLT wise, ie, (win)designed. Specially if
you don't have fan speed and HLT options in bios. All too common
situation in ready made systems or motherboards designed primarily
for Windoze use. Even otherwise very good ones. IOW's, an
increasing prevalence of win-hardware and shifting hardware/bios
functions to software. Billy's real crime.
IMO, all these power saving deals are just gimmicks anyhow,
'cept for powering down the monitor. Any chip, particularly those
that require a heatsink, does NOT have steady temps. Instant heat
spikes in the core are the norm, even on standby. If you reduce fan
rpms, then the mass of the heatsink base will be hotter than when
running the fan at 100% all the time. So when the spikes do occur,
then the heatsink is less able to handle them.
If you want to see this happening, run a cpu load gauge (like
gkrellm). When you see the gauge shoot from under 5% to around 25
to 50% and higher, and then right back down, the cpu core temp just
spiked up correspondingly. Note how often these spikes occur too.
Almost constantly. This is completely normal behavior, and even on
standby the cpu still has work to do.
--
Tom Brinkman Corpus Christi, Texas
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft?
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
