Re: Running hot with Ubuntu
- From: Jean-David Beyer <jeandavid8@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2006 11:15:26 GMT
Michael DeBusk wrote:
ASUS P5WD2 motherboard, Intel Pentium 3.0GHz dual-core processor,
1GB RAM, Sapphire ATI Radeon X800GTO video card, Ubuntu 6.06.1, just
updated the kernel and the fglrx video drivers to the newest available
by Synaptic updater. (I installed the video drivers via easyubuntu.)
Often (but not always) when I boot Linux, my computer starts screaming
at me... a high-pitched squeal that I presume has to do with the
processor running too hot. When I run "top" I see that
mail-notification has started and is trying to connect, but since I am
on a dialup account it gets frustrated and takes 100% of the CPU. I
kill that process and it stops screaming.
You _should_ be able to run your CPU(s) at 100% all the time without
overheating (if that is your problem). I have two Xeon 3.06 GHz
hyperthreaded processors and I keep mine at as close to 100% as I can 24/7.
They do not overheat:
CPU0 fan: 3125 RPM
CPU1 fan: 2163 RPM
System: +39C
CPU0: +56.5C
CPU1: +53.5C
07:00:47 up 22 days, 9:51, 3 users, load average: 4.11, 4.15, 4.09
125 processes: 120 sleeping, 4 running, 0 zombie, 1 stopped
CPU states: cpu user nice system irq softirq iowait idle
total 6.0% 382.4% 10.4% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
cpu00 4.3% 92.8% 2.1% 0.0% 0.2% 0.0% 0.2%
cpu01 1.9% 97.2% 0.8% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
cpu02 0.0% 96.9% 3.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
cpu03 0.0% 95.3% 4.3% 0.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Mem: 8208852k av, 7989968k used, 218884k free, 0k shrd, 540616k buff
3822884k actv, 2980724k in_d, 154636k in_c
Swap: 8193076k av, 0k used, 8193076k free 6297796k cached
PID PPID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM CTIME LC COMMAND
5784 5198 boinc 39 19 208M 208M 4848 R N 99.2 2.6 19623m 3
hadam3_um_4.07_i686-pc
5785 5186 boinc 39 19 71140 69M 4232 R N 98.6 0.8 29709m 2
hadcm3transum_5.08_i68
14625 5133 boinc 34 19 31828 31M 2560 S N 95.9 0.3 305:29 3
setiathome-5.12.i686-p
5786 5204 boinc 39 19 70856 69M 4232 R N 94.8 0.8 12250m 0
hadcm3transum_5.08_i68
....
(It does the same thing whenever a program hits the processor hard, and
stops when the process finishes hogginf the CPU.)
My machine has 13 fans. Each processor has its own 60mm x 60mm x 38mm fan
that is thermistor controlled so when the intake air is warmer, the fans run
faster. About 6 months after I built this machine, the cpu fans started
screaming because they were running at about 6000 rpm. Now they might do
that in the summer (since my machine room is not air conditioned), but this
was in the fall. I noticed the main air intake fan (120mm x 120mm x 25mm)
had siezed up so the machine was too hot. That is when I replaced the fan
and installed the lm_sensors package to monitor this stuff.
When I try to play a DVD, it starts screaming immediately. Odd, though,
that when I ran "top" it looked like the processor was fine.
One thing that always stops the screaming is switching to a full-screen
shell session, so I'm wondering if it could be the video card or the
fglrx driver that's causing the problem. All of the stuff I've found
via Google pertains to laptops; it looks like desktop chips don't have
the throttling capabilities found in laptop chips. (Or do they, and I'm
overlooking this somehow?)
My Xeon processors do have that throttling (because the processors cost me
$600 each when they first came out) to save them from overheating. But you
do not want that running just because you are loading the processor(s) to
100%. After all, you paid 100% for 100% processors, so should get 100%.
If the fans on your processor has its speed controlled by a thermistor so
Note that I never hear the noise under either eComStation (OS/2) or the
occasional Windows XP boot. I heard it once under XP when I was trying
a buggy piece of software that locked it up, but it didn't happen right
away... it took a minute to heat up.
As I'm new to Linux, I'm not sure what other information a
knowledgeable user might need to help me track this down. I *really*
want to move to Ubuntu (or at least some distro) but the noise is
keeping me from doing so.
I'd appreciate any guidance you can offer. Thank you.
its speed goes up with temperature increase, I would say this is almost
certainly a cooling problem. Be sure your intake and exhaust fans are
running properly. I would guess your CPU fan is OK because if it were not,
it would not be running fast enough to "scream". If the machine is not brand
new, you might turn it off and unplug it and vacuum the dust out of the heat
sink on the processor (and any others). This is less necessary if your
machine has an air filter on the intake air as mine does. OTOH, I find I
must vacuum clean that air filter every month. A remote possibility is that
there was not enough heat sink compound between your heat sink and the
processor, or that the heat sink is not attached sufficiently tightly to the
processor. But this would normally just wreck the processor and the fan(s)
would never notice. Basically, if the processor and heat sink were attached
and supplied by the vendor of your machine, the probability of this is
vanishingly small.
I wish I could tell what the "screaming" sounds like. It could be something
else.
You might wish to get the lm_sensors package and install it if you do not
have it already. It will measure voltages and fan speeds and temperatures if
your chip set and mother board support it.
--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A Registered Machine 241939.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 06:55:01 up 22 days, 9:45, 3 users, load average: 4.20, 4.19, 4.08
.
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