Netbooks are warmer in Arch. Fan spinning nonstop at FULL speed

todingman · 2011-03-02 23:30:42

Hi all,

I'm very new to Arch and so far I love it! After practicing with VMware for a few days, I jumped and installed it on both my netbooks about 3 days ago. Having said that, it makes me a total noob and I ask your guidance/patience on this problem that I'm having.

I've finshed installing Arch on both my netbooks including applications. It went smooth and almost everything is working. However, I noticed that the netbook warmer than usual which I never felt when it had Ubuntu/Win on it. I also noticed that the fan is spinning constantly at FULL speed. I have successfully installed CPU scaling and confirmed that it is working. I've set it to "ondemand" (800Mz, 1.2Ghz, 1.6Ghz).

So I went to the wiki and checked the Fan Control. I installed lm_sensors and ran sensors-detect. Then I ran, sensors:

Dell Mini 10 (ATOM N455)

acpitz-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1: +58.0°C (crit = +103.0°C)

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 0: +55.0°C (crit = +100.0°C)

Lenovo S10e (ATOM N270)

acpitz-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1: +47.0°C (crit = +86.0°C)

coretemp-isa-000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 0: +43.0°C (crit = +90.0°C)

Part of the instructions is to add "it87" in rc.conf (modules).

However, when I modprobe it87, it gives me this:

FATAL: Error inserting it87 (/lib/modules/2.6.37-ARCH/kernel/drivers/hwmon/it87.ko.gz): No such device

This happens in both netbooks.

What is "it87"? Is it some kind of a chipset? Could be me having ATOM netbooks be the reason for this error?

I can't continue on the Fan Control configuration wiki because sensors does not give me any voltage, rpm, etc outputs.

I also found a disclaimer warning about destryoing your hardware if you mess up the fan configuration, which led me ask for help here in the forums before I do anything stupid.

This never happened to me when I was using Ubuntu on these netbooks. As a matter of fact, I booted to a live Ubuntu USB and as soon as I got in the Desktop, the fan stopped spinning. I checked sensors and the temps are 29C and 33C. I rebooted to Arch then the fan started spinning again, giving me high temps.

I'm pretty much sure that this problem is may fault. I don't know what I'm missing or what I did to make this happen. If someone could point me to a fool-proof guide on how to set fan controls in an ATOM netbook, that would be awesome. I'm won't give up and I'm really willing to learn more.

Thank you!

Last edited by todingman (2011-03-02 23:39:50)

shadyabhi · 2011-03-03 06:23:52

Temperature of your device "Lenovo S10e (ATOM N270)" seems pretty normal to me.

I have Samsung N210 and its temperature varies from 43°C to 65°C (when cpu keeps running at 100% for a long time)..

So, I guess, 47°C and 43°C is very normal.

admiralspark · 2011-03-03 07:40:56

I have an HP Mini (virtually the same as your Dell) and it runs "hot" in the low 40's.
We need to know more about your machine(s). What DE are you using? Power Management? Acpi? Are you sure both 'cores' in the atom are running at 1ghz or lower from cpufreq? (As in, did you use cpufreq-set with the -r option to hit all processors or is the hyperthread still clocking 1.6ghz?)
How about power usage, how long are your batteries lasting? Use PowerTOP, let it run for 5 minutes, and tell us how much juice the system is using. And on and on...

sultanoswing · 2011-03-03 08:18:56

You haven't got some process running which is sucking juice and heating things up, do you?

twix · 2011-03-03 08:19:44

Could you return (all posters with Atom processor in the thread) the return of :

cat /proc/acpi/processor/CPU0/throttling

It's the state of an "power-saving" option for Pentium4 CPUs, which cause high temp and more power-consumption than P-States and (real) frequency modulation.

If it is always at T0 state, or return unsupported, all is good. But if you have another result you are concerned by this.

Also verify with cpufreq-info that the processor is not locked at it's lowest frequency :

Quote from https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CP … cy_Scaling :

"Some cpu/bios configurations may have difficulties to scale to the maximum frequencies or scale to highter frequencies at all. Sadly there is only a workaround right now. Add "processor.ignore_ppc=1" to your kernel boot line and/or edit the value in /sys/module/processor/parameters/ignore_ppcfrom 0 to 1."

Thanks

Last edited by twix (2011-03-03 08:20:57)

todingman · 2011-03-03 16:21:26

admiralspark wrote:

What DE are you using? Power Management? Acpi? Are you sure both 'cores' in the atom are running at 1ghz or lower from cpufreq? (As in, did you use cpufreq-set with the -r option to hit all processors or is the hyperthread still clocking 1.6ghz?)

I apologize for not being complete.

I'm using gnome and for power management I'm using laptop-mode-tools.

Here is my cpufreq-info:

cpufrequtils 008: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2009
Report errors and bugs to cpufreq@vger.kernel.org, please.
analyzing CPU 0:
driver: acpi-cpufreq
CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0 1
CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0
maximum transition latency: 10.0 us.
hardware limits: 1000 MHz - 1.67 GHz
available frequency steps: 1.67 GHz, 1.33 GHz, 1000 MHz
available cpufreq governors: userspace, ondemand, performance
current policy: frequency should be within 1000 MHz and 1.67 GHz.
The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use
within this range.
current CPU frequency is 1000 MHz.
analyzing CPU 1:
driver: acpi-cpufreq
CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0 1
CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 1
maximum transition latency: 10.0 us.
hardware limits: 1000 MHz - 1.67 GHz
available frequency steps: 1.67 GHz, 1.33 GHz, 1000 MHz
available cpufreq governors: userspace, ondemand, performance
current policy: frequency should be within 1000 MHz and 1.67 GHz.
The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use
within this range.
current CPU frequency is 1000 MHz.

If you stress the cpu, it goes up to 1.67Ghz fine. It is not locked at the lowest speed.

When I do "ls /proc/acpi"

it gives me this:

ac_adapter battery button event processor wakeup

@sultanoswing: I don't think I have any thing running that eats up juice. I just formatted my SSD (Dell mini), installed arch, drivers, laptop-mode-tools, firefox. I also installed Compiz but I'm not running it all. I even tried disabling gdm just to see if it was causing it, but I still have the same non stop fan problem.

@twix here it is:

cat /proc/acpi/processor/CPU0/throttling output:

state count: 8
active state: T0
state available: T0 to T7
states:
*T0: 100%
T1: 88%
T2: 75%
T3: 63%
T4: 50%
T5: 38%
T6: 25%
T7: 13%

It looks fine and I verified that it is not locked at the lowest clock speed.

I'll just include some parts of my rc.conf so you can tell if I'm doing something wrong (modules/daemons) so maybe you could see if I'm missing something.

MODULES=(acpi-cpufreq coretemp cpufreq_ondemand cpufreq_userspace)
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng dbus networkmanager netfs crond sensors cpufreq laptop-mode hal gdm)

BTW, my Lenovo S10e got a little better. The fan is not spinning all the time anymore. Fan functionaly is now turning off/on when needed but it still gets warm fast. It's just sitting idle without any apps running at all. However, my Dell mini is not like the S10. Aside from being warmer than usual, the fan never stops spinning as soon as you turn it on.

EDIT: Ambient temp in my apartment is cold - 17.2 Degrees Celsius.

Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Last edited by todingman (2011-03-03 16:24:50)

admiralspark · 2011-03-03 21:58:20

My throttling output exactly matches his. I have an N450 (made a month earlier than the 455 and only uses DDR2, otherwise same). I'm idling at 41 on battery, but it's running a mkinitcpio for the new kernel right now. I usually get 25-32C idling.
Have you edited the default laptop_mode.conf?
This may have nothing to do with it, but you should probably be loading hal right after dbus in your daemons list, since I think a few of those require hal to function properly.
Are there any programs sapping up cpu/memory time? Check with 'top'
Does it get warm regardless of if the laptop is on battery or plugged in?
Also, for the lenovo, there MIGHT be a special acpi package for it (much like the acpi-thinkpad for Lenovo Thinkpads).

EDIT: Unless your mobo is unlocked (it's not, it's a Dell), I don't believe you can have much control over the fan speed, and you shouldn't need it anyway--the computer is running hot, and if you turned the fans down it would probably overheat!

Last edited by admiralspark (2011-03-04 01:21:31)

twix · 2011-03-04 11:29:15

Ok, if you are sure that throttling is never enabled, i don't see what can cause increased fan speed and heat.
On my netbook (Toshiba NB100) there is a button for controling fan and cause the throttling, which increase heat and decrease performance.

EDIT : you could try powertop, which indicate power consumption and thus heat to compare ubuntu and arch

Last edited by twix (2011-03-04 11:41:35)

Arch Linux

#1 2011-03-02 23:30:42

Netbooks are warmer in Arch. Fan spinning nonstop at FULL speed

#2 2011-03-03 06:23:52

Re: Netbooks are warmer in Arch. Fan spinning nonstop at FULL speed

#3 2011-03-03 07:40:56

Re: Netbooks are warmer in Arch. Fan spinning nonstop at FULL speed

#4 2011-03-03 08:18:56

Re: Netbooks are warmer in Arch. Fan spinning nonstop at FULL speed

#5 2011-03-03 08:19:44

Re: Netbooks are warmer in Arch. Fan spinning nonstop at FULL speed

#6 2011-03-03 16:21:26

Re: Netbooks are warmer in Arch. Fan spinning nonstop at FULL speed

#7 2011-03-03 21:58:20

Re: Netbooks are warmer in Arch. Fan spinning nonstop at FULL speed

#8 2011-03-04 11:29:15

Re: Netbooks are warmer in Arch. Fan spinning nonstop at FULL speed

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