Disable Ondemand

[Martin Marshalek]

Is it safe to disable the ondemand scaling in rcconf when using a laptop? I've done this because nothing works right (youtube, compiz, etc) when ondemand is enabled, but when it is not my fan is always running and runs pretty loud. Will having my cpu at constant full power cause damage to my system?

[DrHu]

The general answer would be NO
Would you have any concern if you simply left the notebook plugged in while using it, and if not, it is no different a situation..

If the system becomes overheated it will shut itself down as a protection; the only way to see how this affects you is to do it, run the system without running ondemand frequency scaling (speed) for the processor..

The acpi, power control mode of the notebook is to save power, by running the processor at a lower frequency (speed), which decreases other needs, like fans to be running faster to keep the processor cooled..

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... =0&Recs=10
--looks like most have fans, I thought there were thermal only ones available; the other option is placement of the notebook to allow maximum airflow; perhaps on a open weave surface
--those notebook coolers,. some are passive heatsinks, some have fans, which might move the fan noise further away from you (reducing the noise)

[Martin Marshalek]

Thanks for all the help DrHu. I'm going to run on ondemand from no on then because the computer doesn't really get that hot (plus the fan's been quiet lately) and seeing how I have only two 1.8 GHz processors (which scale down to 800 MHz) I need all the power I can get.

By the way, now that I have fully set up Mint the way I like it I can truly say now that it is my favorite of all the distros that I've tried (Fedora 11, Ubuntu 8.10 --> 9.04, and OpenSuse 11.1). Great job mint team!