Re: disk temp monitoring
On Sat, May 26, 2007 at 02:55:23PM +0200, pol wrote:
>
> Often my laptop overheats, although the cpu is not overloaded (according to
> the 'top' monitor)
>
> 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.
> 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.
>
> 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?
>
> Are the disk and the cpu the only possible causes of heating?
>
> What facilities to use to tell whether the disk is spinning?
>
If the drive has S.M.A.R.T. you can monitor drive temp directly; also
see hddtemp package.
Keep in mind that spinning up a disk causes wear on the drive.
Lots of things can get hot especially if they're not working right;
things like power supplies (yes the MB has voltage regulators), and
display drivers.
What kind of filesystems and what mount options?
Keep in mind that most acpi daemons opt to give better performance when
on AC power rather than battery. This could be an issue for you.
Checkout the packages laptop-mode-tools and noflushd.
Your ear should tell you if the disk is spinning.
Can you localize where in the laptop the heat is; where does it feel
hottest?
Are the fan(s) running at the correct speed? Are the vents clear? On
what surface is the laptop sitting?
What about an external laptop cooler (a cold pad that it sits on)?
Doug.
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