[ltp] 2.6 kernel kills the CPU fan

[Helen Borrie]

At 04:06 AM 8/09/2005 +0100, you wrote:

>>>Helen Borrie wrote:
>>>
>>>>Hello all,
>>>>I'm trying to track down a solution on my TP390E to a problem that 
>>>>seems rife:  that Linux causes the CPU fan to stop as soon as you begin 
>>>>to boot the OS.
>
>>And, yes, the machine is getting hot enough to put itself into suspend 
>>(which one can't get out of) and to not want to complete POST when 
>>rebooted after doing this.  I seem to get about 30 minutes "life" before 
>>this happens;  and need about 10 mins for cool-down.  The bottom of the 
>>case feels hand-hot when this occurs (i.e. about 60-65 Celcius) and I 
>>think I can sometimes smell hot fumes (the latter could be my el cheapo 
>>gel mousepad, though, it's pretty smelly, even at 5 Celcius).
>
>That's definitely a bug. There is no way that this should be deliberate.
>At least it's an Intel CPU - and so it shuts down when overheated. AMDs 
>(at least in some cases), just catch fire!
>
>However, on reflection, the BIOS shouldn't let the OS mess up the fan 
>speed anyway. [Eg, what happens when the OS crashes?]
>
>If it is the OS, are you running APM or ACPI?  If you run either the apm 
>or acpi commands, what do you get?

Good question.  :-)  At least I know that acpi is installed and running, 
since I can see it there when I inspect the services.  Whether the TP390E 
supports acpi is another question.  I've never configured acpi before - 
never needed to, afaik.  My "industrially active" notebook is a thoroughly 
vanilla step 6 Celeron and it "just works" with Mdk 10.1 distro.  My static 
server is an AMD Sempron 2200, which runs 24/7 and never runs hot (touches 
the nearest wooden object), also running Mdk 10.1.  But, yep, I did get the 
Sempron after frying a mainboard by an unknown technique.  (The AMD Duron 
850 survived and now runs one of my webservers on a $10 mobo out of 
eBay.)  I'm not much bothered about power-saving, beyond sleeping when I'm 
sleeping, since I always run notebooks off the mains and power them down 
when I'm not using them.  That's not very PC, I know, but I do wash the car 
with grey water and take canvas bags to the supermarket. :-)

As for the acpi commands...um...I will need to look them up in "1001 things 
you never thought you'd need to know about Linux".

Thanks muchly for the pointers.  I now have a way forward.

cheers,
Helen



>>The respective home dirs of the logged in users, i.e. root and one other, 
>>contained bunches of coredump files.  Unfortunately, I wouldn't have a 
>>clue about interpreting them.
>
>You can ignore them - they won't tell you anything useful. The crash was 
>caused by an overheated CPU, so the coredump info is irrelevant.
>
>However, when testing, it would be safer to:
>
>init 1    (or shut down as many services as you can)
>umount home
>mount -o remount,ro /
>
>That way, when it crashes, it won't harm your data.  Or boot into single 
>user mode with "linux single" at the lilo command prompt.
>
>Running "yes" will put the CPU at full load, to help test.
>
>>I will take your advice and get hold of the Knoppix distro.  Actually, I 
>>may be able to test the Knoppix behaviour as I have the Ulitmate Boot CD here.
>
>Good luck. Knoppix is useful, since it does give you an extra datapoint 
>for very little effort!
>
>Best wishes
>
>Richard
>
>P.S. You could also check for an updated BIOS.
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