Does my laptop hate Arch?

pogeymanz · 2008-03-16 22:08:14

I have an HP Compaq Presario V5000. Intel Celeron M @ 1.46GHz, 768MB RAM.

I have Ubuntu and Arch installed on it.

Here is the problem. I was sitting around shortly after I installed Arch, basking in its glory. When all of a sudden, my laptop shut off. No shutdown; just off. I don't have a battery in it, so I just assumed that I hit the AC cord and it lost power. After being on for a few hours, it happened again. This time I was just looking at it! I know I didn't knock it or anything.

I've had power-supply problems with this laptop before, so I assumed that the piece of junk was broken again. (I hate this laptop) So, this happened a few more times and I thought to check if Ubuntu does it too. I left my laptop on with Ubuntu for 12 hours, then for 5 hours the next day and it did not magically shut off. I thought it was a coincidence, but the more times it happens in Arch and not in Ubuntu, the more I think my laptop might just react badly to something in Arch.

It seems incredibly odd to me that it just shuts off and doesn't shut down or crash or some "normal" problem. I was thinking that maybe it could be the kernel or something. Has anyone heard of something like this before? I really like Arch a lot and it would be a shame if I can't rely on it for my laptop.

Ashren · 2008-03-16 22:14:33

Cause: Overheating

Answer: pacman -S cpufreq

Msg. Explanation: Drunk

dyscoria · 2008-03-16 22:18:32

Could possibly be overheating? Install something like lm_sensors to check the temperature of your CPU. Maybe do some CPU frequency scaling, which I assume Ubuntu does by default. Ubuntu probably has a more conservative default scaling approach than arch.

Last edited by dyscoria (2008-03-16 22:19:04)

pogeymanz · 2008-03-16 22:28:57

That's a good theory. I have conky running now and it's the same temp as it usually is in Ubuntu, so it at least is not always running hot. I'll keep an eye on it to see if it climbs.

Assuming that it isn't that: is there anything else you can think of?

Thanks.

Sigi · 2008-03-16 22:57:56

Ashren wrote:

Cause: Overheating
Answer: pacman -S cpufreq
Msg. Explanation: Drunk

That's probaly one of the funniest (and also helpful!) posts I've seen in a while...

brebs · 2008-03-17 02:17:27

Assuming it's not a hardware failure, shutdowns should be the cause of a kernel or kernel module crash.

Given that Linux is Linux, regardless of distro, you can use the Ubuntu kernel in Arch (I used to use the Ubuntu kernel in Gentoo). Here is the Ubuntu kernel.

pogeymanz · 2008-03-17 02:30:42

I'm going to try that because it's still happening and not running that hot. (Not anywhere near the manufacturer's limit)

How do I go about installing that kernel? Will my Arch still be i686 optimized? Am I compromising anything? How likely is it that I will break my system? (I don't care, I'm doing it anyway, I just want to know)

brebs · 2008-03-17 02:48:49

pogeymanz wrote:

How do I go about installing that kernel?

That's too much effort for me to explain. I would have to do it myself, to create a foolproof walkthrough. You're gonna have to use your own brain a bit. Use Google, and look at the zillions of people who use the "patch" command millions of times per day.

Will my Arch still be i686 optimized?

You're compiling it, so set CFLAGS in /etc/makepkg.conf to safe values.

How likely is it that I will break my system?

Well, it's extremely likely, if you become the root user and starting screwing around with files at random. What was the question again?

The Ubuntu kernel is one of the most widely-used distro kernels.

pogeymanz · 2008-03-17 03:02:40

Alright. Thank you very much. This will be my next project.

Sigi · 2008-03-17 03:04:26

Before I'd use the Ubuntu kernel I'd try to isolate the problem. Does it help if you unload (rmmod) some of the kernel modules. Use lsmod to see which modules you use. Any errors in dmesg? kernel.log?

A second thought: you mentioned that you've had power supply problems before. Would it be possible that you plug in the battery just to make sure that its not the power supply cable which fails from time to time? It is strange that this only happens when Arch is running but you never know...

elliott · 2008-03-17 05:41:26

Just a note, don't bother with frequency scaling on that Celeron M, it doesn't have SpeedStep and the frequency makes absolutely no difference. I have a Celeron M 560 1.6Ghz, I can force it to scale with P4 clockmod, but it uses the same power and produces the same heat at 200mhz that it does at 1.6Ghz.

.:B:. · 2008-03-17 08:08:57

Heat production is not only the result of voltage. If voltage stays the same, the power consumption (and heat production) scales along with the clock speed.

Last edited by B (2008-03-17 08:09:37)

pogeymanz · 2008-03-17 12:39:49

elliott wrote:

Just a note, don't bother with frequency scaling on that Celeron M, it doesn't have SpeedStep and the frequency makes absolutely no difference. I have a Celeron M 560 1.6Ghz, I can force it to scale with P4 clockmod, but it uses the same power and produces the same heat at 200mhz that it does at 1.6Ghz.

Yeah, I've realized this is the case. I used P4 clockmod, and it did run just as hot; sometimes hotter!

And, unfortunately I have a new battery coming in the mail, but the original is damaged. So no testing that. I'll try playing with the kernel modules after class today.

pogeymanz · 2008-03-20 18:51:31

Well, I installed the kernel26mm from the repos and I really thought that did the trick until yesterday. I have two problems that might be related:

The laptop just shuts off. It only does this under Arch, so it's not just the laptop. This has only happened twice since I installed the different kernel, so it seems to have become less frequent, which is weird.

Also, X seems to die on me sometimes. My screen will go black (but still on) and then blink on and off a few times (still black) and the computer stays powered on.

What are all the error log files I should check? I don't know where any are located.

tigrmesh · 2008-03-20 19:35:57

Logs are in /var/log.

pogeymanz · 2008-03-20 20:19:02

I also disabled the testing repo and am reinstalling the testing packages to see if some of those might have broke something.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-03-16 22:08:14

Does my laptop hate Arch?

#2 2008-03-16 22:14:33

Re: Does my laptop hate Arch?

#3 2008-03-16 22:18:32

Re: Does my laptop hate Arch?

#4 2008-03-16 22:28:57

Re: Does my laptop hate Arch?

#5 2008-03-16 22:57:56

Re: Does my laptop hate Arch?

#6 2008-03-17 02:17:27

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#7 2008-03-17 02:30:42

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#8 2008-03-17 02:48:49

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#14 2008-03-20 18:51:31

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#15 2008-03-20 19:35:57

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Re: Does my laptop hate Arch?

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