Re: [Solved - sort of...] Lenny overheating, preventing installation
On Sat, 2009-04-11 at 18:54 +0200, Klistvud wrote:
> Based on several replies/suggestions set forth in my previous thread and on
> some imagination, I finally managed to complete the Lenny setup process. What
> I did:
>
> I found a spot in my house directly between two opposing windows and placed
> the computer there. Lifted the computer on two narrow (but thick) dictionaries
> (books), so as to free its underside. Opened both windows to create a strong
> air current flowing directly over and under the laptop. Improved this setup
> with the aid of a common household fan. Powered the laptop off and waited for
> it to completely cool off. Opened the lid, powered on and started the Lenny
> DVD setup procedure. After the initial screens, when no input is needed
> anymore, I put a small weigh on the lid switch in order to turn off the screen
> backlight. And now, the MOST CRUCIAL step in any computer troubleshooting:
>
> kept fingers crossed all the time!
>
> It worked. Now I have a working Debian Gnome desktop and - believe it or not -
> it actually runs cool as a breeze, it even feels COOLER to touch than my
> current production system (OpenSuSE 11.1 with KDE). Go figure...
>
> Anyway, a huge thanx to all who cared to reply to my initial post, especially
> seeing that I had inadvertently hijacked another thread...
>
Even in the cleanest working environment laptops can gather dust. They
(literally) suck it out of thin air and the exhaust grilles on many
models seem designed to catch as much of it as possible.
I had overheating issues on an MSI 1.6Ghz Turion 64 laptop that rarely
left its clean hard-top surface. Opening the expansion slot on the
bottom, cleaning the fan, and blowing some compressed air through the
exhaust grille followed by a careful clean with a damp lint-free cloth
reduced the avg CPU temp from around 75-80C down to 45-50C. The actual
amount of dust expelled was negligible.
Having installed Lenny recently on that same machine, I had no issues.
The installer loaded the 'ondemand' cpufreq governor fine. I'd check you
don't have any BIOS options set to always run the machine at max CPU
speed. Linux tends to do a good job of managing the speed when set to
ondemand and generally needs less CPU cycles in day-to-day usage than
other OSes. The ondemand governor can very quickly ramp up the CPU speed
when it's needed.
And purely anecdotally, I seem to find my system runs cooler when it's
running a 64-bit OS than an i386 one. I've no evidence of why this might
be or even whether its entirely my imagination. YMMV.
--
Mark McCorkell <markmccorkell@tiscali.co.uk>
"At least you can ignore my inanity, I'm stuck with it for life"
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