[ltp] t42 archlinux fan noise

[Robert Tomsick]

On Tue, 2009-10-27 at 12:44 +0100, Damien Challet wrote:
> > I have been using Ubuntu for a couple of years on an x31 and a t42 
> > without any problems. But now I switched to Arch Linux and for some 
> > reason
> 
> it is probably reason which cause the idle temperatures to rise.

Check for stuck/busy-waiting daemons, etc.

I've seen various programs get stuck (esp. when I've been doing some
patching/hacking) and burn CPU.  Kinda easy to forget about the various
background daemons until something happens to one of them.

> You should also use hpet=force in /boot/grub/menu.lst which helps keeping the 
> CPU idle.

Just a note: although there are a number of Intel chipsets that can be
coerced into supporting HPET (via the aforementioned hpet=force) option,
no all of them have had said support validated by Intel.  Although I've
never seen that option cause any issues, it could (in theory) adversely
affect system stability or data integrity by forcing your chipset to do
something that it doesn't fully support.  (That said, I've run an X40
with that option for quite some time and had absolutely zero
problems...)

> Finally, you can try to  undervolt your CPU if you do not mind a hard crash 
> every 3 months.

Undervolting doesn't need to cause instability.  Just be sure you
actually test your setup thoroughly before assuming a given
voltage/frequency pair is stable.  ("Thoroughly" varies from user to
user, of course.  For me, a "thorough" test takes about two hours of
100% saturation for each voltage/freq. setting.)

-Rob