Arch Linux

eduardowoj

Member

Registered: 2014-01-14

Posts: 17

Dropbox makes my laptop hot!

Sorry, I could not express me better with another title, because this is what actually happens. I have almost 15GB of backup in dropbox and I want to continually sync my files with dropbox servers. This is the best backup method I know, and I could not even imagine losing my research files.

I installed dropbox from the AUR guided by the wiki. However, whenever I start dropbox and it starts syncing my files, my CPU temperature rises from a normal 45°C (idle) to a scorching 80°C ~ 85°C. I don't believe this is an expected behaviour.

I'm running Arch in a Thinkpad T420 4178ABP, core i5 and 4GB of ram, if this helps...

This temperature rise happens to anyone? How can I solve this?

Neburski

Member

Registered: 2009-09-15

Posts: 118

Re: Dropbox makes my laptop hot!

I don't know what method dropbox uses to keep folders synced, but if it relies on checksums then it's quite normal that your laptop will get really hot because it needs to calculate all the checksums for all the files in your 15GB large folder.
If I were you I wouldn't keep every folder sync all the time, but only sync particular folder where a lot of changes are happening. The other folders you should sync only when a change happened, maybe even try to check if dropbox can use an alternative syncing option.

alphaniner

Member

From: Ancapistan

Registered: 2010-07-12

Posts: 2,810

Re: Dropbox makes my laptop hot!

I think you have an i5 2520M which has a Tjunction value of 100°C. IOW, those temps aren't out of spec. You could check your lappy is ventilating properly, otherwise your only recourse may be to throttle the CPU somehow.

---

But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.
-Lysander Spooner

eduardowoj

Member

Registered: 2014-01-14

Posts: 17

Re: Dropbox makes my laptop hot!

Thank you, Neburski, for your suggestion. I'm syncing one folder at a time (trying to avoid enormous directory trees), and the temps are much more manageable. I didn't knew about the checksums, and it makes a lot of sense!

alphaniner: This laptop is quite new, and I use it primaly in ambients with little dust, so I know the fan isn't clogged. And I keep it with plenty of room to ventilate through the fan exits. By the way, thanks for the response. Also, nice avatar!

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: Dropbox makes my laptop hot!

alphaniner: This laptop is quite new, and I use it primaly in ambients with little dust, so I know the fan isn't clogged. And I keep it with plenty of room to ventilate through the fan exits. By the way, thanks for the response. Also, nice avatar!

I think though that since it is still within the normal operating temperature range for your machine, I'm not sure that what you are seeing here is actually a problem. 

But since it is a Sandy Bridge generation processor, it is likely using the intel_pstate driver.  You could try using thermald to leverage some of the kernel features for cooling down your system.  Thermald is a daemon that was created by Intel to be used with their newer processors.  Typically it takes no configuration and can just be installed and started/enabled.  The only thing is that one of the goals of thermald is to make it not rely on the fan so much.  So this may not be ideal for what you are seeing here.  But actively trying to avoid the fan use, it should then make efforts to use pstates, tstates, and the intel_powerclamp and intel_rapl modules to try to cool the processor.  It might be worth a shot and thermald can be found in the AUR.

Neburski

Member

Registered: 2009-09-15

Posts: 118

Re: Dropbox makes my laptop hot!

I think though that since it is still within the normal operating temperature range for your machine, I'm not sure that what you are seeing here is actually a problem.

The issue is not really that his laptop gets hot, but rather that a backing up/syncing solution is the cause of it. Ideally dropbox would keep his folders synced, but not using that much power for the CPU.

As far as I can understand (dropbox has incredibly bad documentation), your dropbox client was indexing your files. What it actually does when it is indexing I wasn't able to find, but if definitely consumes CPU.

eduardowoj

Member

Registered: 2014-01-14

Posts: 17

Re: Dropbox makes my laptop hot!

@WonderWoofy & @Neburski

This was exactly what was happening. I followed Neburski sugestion and I managed to sync the 15 GB backup without much heat on the CPU, by syncing one folder at a time. When I hovered the cursor over the dropbox icon, it said "indexing xxxx files", so the overheating was probably caused by the checksum calculations, as suggested by him.

Now, after the indexing ended, I'm just uploading files, and my temperatures are at a much more CPU healthy 50°C, which is only 6°C or 8°C above normal idle temperature on my system.