Re: disk temp monitoring
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pol write:
> Hi all
Hello,
> Often my laptop overheats, although the cpu is not overloaded (according to
> the 'top' monitor)
What do you mean by "overheats"? Does it become extremely slow, or shuts
down? Or does it simply become warm? How do you monitor temperature?
Most new laptops run quite warm. The temperature of the motherboard can
reach 50 C, and CPU may run at 40 C - 55 C. This is usually normal.
The most common reason for overheating is broken ACPI, and (as a result)
CPU fans not turning on. Also check if went holes are not clogged with
dust, if the machine is not new.
> I guess the only other component that can get hot is the spinning hard disk.
> I have tried the command
> hdparm -S 1 /dev/sda
> turning off the disk after 5 seconds of inactivity, but nothing has changed.
Hard drives use more energy while spinning up and down, than in normal
active state. Constant switching between active and standby states will
also reduce the lifespan of the disk.
It only makes sense if you can get your disk to remain in standby mode
for at least 10 minutes, which you will probably not be able to achieve
on a full-featured desktop/laptop system. My advice: LET THE DISK SPIN.
> I guess that it could be due to the system often writing or reading the
> disk, although the led monitoring the disk access does not light up.
The disk should never ever overheat, even under load. If it does,
something is terribly wrong. Temperatures between 40 C and 50 C are
usually fine.
> My questions:
> how do i force the system not to write to disk so often, so that my disk
> do not start spinning every minutes?
The best tool for this is probably "laptop-mode-tools". This and a lot
of manual tweaking of your entire system. Most likely not worth it.
> Are the disk and the cpu the only possible causes of heating?
More likely CPU only. It produces way more heat than any other component.
> What facilities to use to tell whether the disk is spinning?
To check current the state of you your hardware, run:
sudo hdparm -C /dev/hda
Check "man hdparm" for explanation of states.
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