[ltp] Z61p GPU Thermal Issue

[Richard Neill]

Brian D. Ropers-Huilman wrote:
> On 8/31/07, Richard Neill <rn214@hermes.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>> 128 C is *hot*. Can you actually feel it?
> 
> Yes, it is. I certainly feel heat on the bottom of the laptop, verging
> on /hot/ at times, but it's never been too hot for me to keep the
> machine on my lap.

>> If the GPU hits 128 degrees very suddenly, ...
> 
> Well, it's not hitting it suddenly. See comments below.

That suggests to me that it isn't really the GPU getting hot. If you can 
touch the case, it's safely below 60 degrees.
My T60p really ought to be called a "table-top" since it's too hot to 
keep comfortably on my knee [it's also a really bad typing position]

> 
> 1) initial GPU temperatures on-boot after the machine has been off for
> many hours (cold start)
> 2) GPU temperature profile under:
> 2a) vesa
> 2b) fglrx
> 2c) the new avivo driver (though when I tried this before, the display
> quickly deteriorated [I know of no better term for this -- there were
> many graphical artifacts and distortions on the screen] and eventually
> the machine hard-locked)
> 3) results of initial work with GPU power (and hopefully thermal)
> management under fglrx

Test with something like Knoppix - that should rule out possible 
distro/version-specific kernel/driver/xorg bugs.

Also, try with just the BIOS, or memtest86 - does that crash out?

> 
> I'll provide this to the list when I have the data.
> 
>> It's possible you have a broken sensor instead of a broken GPU.
> 

I think you've got a service issue here - you probably need to ship the 
machine back to IBM. [Take your disk drive out before you do]

However, if it's "just" the sensor (or the sensor-driver), what happens 
if you disable ACPI?  (boot with acpi=off). Then, try running tuxracer 
or glxgears for a while. Does your machine still power off due to an 
overheat?

Best wishes,

Richard