Mint burns laptops, please don't leave it to another distr

[ThePicker]

I want to start out by saying that I love this distro - it works almost perfectly, hassle-free, and with grace on my desktop. But it's unfortunate how laptop issues persist, just like with the Ubuntu kernel it's built on, considering how much more important the secure Linux environment is for laptops in wi-fi world.

Here below is an all-too typical response to another respondent's similar problem last year (mine differs in that the fan doesn't run at all)

Re: Mint 6 - Still Cooking Laptop CPU's

Postby ***** on Tue Dec 16, 2008 3:48 pm

wrote:I'm frustrated! I just installed Mint 6. Just like Ubiuntu Intrepid and its predecessors, the problem persists that is my #1 biggest complaint. I hear the sound of a fan running wide open to cool an already overheating laptop - and I just rebooted it from a cold start install!

When oh when will Ubuntu-Mint-etc prioritize the endlessly running wide open cpu problem on laptops? I will not come near a distro that cooks my laptop. There are a zillion posts on this and ubuntu's forums about this major showkiller bug. But it persists and persists release after release and never gets addressed.

Powernowd and it's friends in the repo are installed by default but are useless. I've seen no solutions offered in the forums that make a dent in this problem.

Note: It's not dust - rpm distros work perfectly with laptops. CPU throttling works fine on them.

Let me be clear: Mint is terrific and is my fav............... for my destkop. Maybe this can be solved by someone so laptops can use it too.

Is there any hope of solving this probem?

I cannot address your problem, as I did not even realize this problem existed until just now! Saying "laptops" is a bit of a blanket statement dont you think? I have Mint 5 and 6 running on several laptops both Intel and AMD and it runs just fine. No overheating, no fans going crazy...Everything normal here.

I am not saying you do not have a problem, one must obviously exist. But maybe you are stuck using a different distro? Does debian exhibit the same problem? Ubuntu does strange things to the kernel sometimes, maybe try the mint 6 debian release? If not then why waste time, just learn Fedora or Slack or something that will work.

By the way, I'm another Ubuntu-Linux user with that laptop-burning problem. I am new to Linux Mint, but have tried a few distros in the past year - Mandriva, Fedora, Mepis, DreamLinux, PCLinux, Ubuntu.

Now, it's another distro release since the above post, and my laptop just got so hot I could smell the plastic burning, and I'm impressed that I was able to power it up again (safe from a literal meltdown, but not happy, in Windows). Obviously the problem with Ubuntu and laptops isn't that rare, as I was able to find and install Powernow earlier this week. It seemed to work for the remaining session after it was installed, but it's just now I found out that more settings must be tweaked before I can expect it to run at startup (lol). So, PLEASE try and fix this problem with the next release - is it really too much to include a fix like Powernow working whenever Mint does? How could it not be better than sending users away? Until Mint takes care of this, maybe there could be a Powernow or other-solutions tutorial for this problem in the sticky zone.

Thanks for your consideration.

[optimize me]

I want to start out by saying that I love this distro - it works almost perfectly, hassle-free, and with grace on my desktop. But it's unfortunate how laptop issues persist, just like with the Ubuntu kernel it's built on, considering how much more important the secure Linux environment is for laptops in wi-fi world.

Here below is an all-too typical response to another respondent's similar problem last year (mine differs in that the fan doesn't run at all)
By the way, I'm another Ubuntu-Linux user with that laptop-burning problem. I am new to Linux Mint, but have tried a few distros in the past year - Mandriva, Fedora, Mepis, DreamLinux, PCLinux, Ubuntu.

[...]

Now, it's another distro release since the above post, and my laptop just got so hot I could smell the plastic burning, and I'm impressed that I was able to power it up again (safe from a literal meltdown, but not happy, in Windows). Obviously the problem with Ubuntu and laptops isn't that rare, as I was able to find and install Powernow earlier this week. It seemed to work for the remaining session after it was installed, but it's just now I found out that more settings must be tweaked before I can expect it to run at startup (lol). So, PLEASE try and fix this problem with the next release - is it really too much to include a fix like Powernow working whenever Mint does? How could it not be better than sending users away? Until Mint takes care of this, maybe there could be a Powernow or other-solutions tutorial for this problem in the sticky zone.

Thanks for your consideration.

You see it as an ongoing problem, though it's the first I've ever heard of it. I have Ubuntu (for the last three years) and (presently) Mint running on two laptops side by side and never saw this happen. Not once.

Here's what I see: Another rant against a bug that is present for some users, that provides no information whatsoever as to specific OS version install, specific hardware, log outputs, or any other relevant information that might help a capable person know where to start looking for the source of the problem.

You're standing in the dark, screaming at the wind.

[MarcoB]

Are you talking about the hard disk overheat problem?

That is a well know bug, yes.

Basically the hard disk spins too much due to the "agressive" linux and it overheats.
But there are a few fixes out there.

IF you are talking about the hard disk

Else I've never heard of any other heating laptop problems either.
Except this one that is pretty serious.

[ThePicker]

I want to start out by saying that I love this distro - it works almost perfectly, hassle-free, and with grace on my desktop. But it's unfortunate how laptop issues persist, just like with the Ubuntu kernel it's built on, considering how much more important the secure Linux environment is for laptops in wi-fi world.

Here below is an all-too typical response to another respondent's similar problem last year (mine differs in that the fan doesn't run at all)
By the way, I'm another Ubuntu-Linux user with that laptop-burning problem. I am new to Linux Mint, but have tried a few distros in the past year - Mandriva, Fedora, Mepis, DreamLinux, PCLinux, Ubuntu.

[...]

Now, it's another distro release since the above post, and my laptop just got so hot I could smell the plastic burning, and I'm impressed that I was able to power it up again (safe from a literal meltdown, but not happy, in Windows). Obviously the problem with Ubuntu and laptops isn't that rare, as I was able to find and install Powernow earlier this week. It seemed to work for the remaining session after it was installed, but it's just now I found out that more settings must be tweaked before I can expect it to run at startup (lol). So, PLEASE try and fix this problem with the next release - is it really too much to include a fix like Powernow working whenever Mint does? How could it not be better than sending users away? Until Mint takes care of this, maybe there could be a Powernow or other-solutions tutorial for this problem in the sticky zone.

Thanks for your consideration.

You see it as an ongoing problem, though it's the first I've ever heard of it. I have Ubuntu (for the last three years) and (presently) Mint running on two laptops side by side and never saw this happen. Not once.

You are merely venting your venom, but I, have made a valid plea for better support, will be VERY specific.

1. I am talking about tech guys like YOU, who's join date is more recent than I have been using Linux, but take it on themselves to assert his distro's chronology of perfection, no matter how many users who he has either not interacted with or ignored otherwise.

2. I am not, repeat, NOT implying anything concerning your expertise, but the attitude that you can deal with problems which you have not experienced personally by just throwing derision at the plaintiff is disgusting. Btw, I don't see it as an ongoing problem, since I am far from alone.

3. The very chronic problem is related to the Ubuntu-Debian (I list it as that because Ubuntu is known to have tweaked the original Debian kernel beyond compatibility with Debian programs - don't know the details on that, but it's interesting), and very probably NOT Mint, but Mint uses that kernel.

4. I was more than specific enough, to ask for the inclusion and setup of speed-throttling technology such as "Powernow!" for common, modern laptops, with future releases. If it makes a difference, mine is a dual-core Pentium, although issues have been reported for AMD as well. This does not appear to be driver-specific, nor would it require more than two, at most three versions (yes, that would be Intel vs. AMD, it was actually that easy on mine). I have asked you take into account the setup of this software which is unlikely to harm anyone's computer, BEFORE the lack of it results in a fried laptop, and possibly a fire.

5. Oh, and did I, or did I not request that solutions such as Powernow (it's not an ad, there well may be other solutions) for burning laptops be addressed as a site tutorial?

When Ubuntu-based operating systems had truly valid competitors for new users (and new users really knew what they were getting into), fires weren't reported because the users then could move on to another distro. Now, Ubuntu and Mint are the most popular distros out there, specifically owing to it's solicitude to technical newbies, who put their faith in you guys, and therefore the potential for disaster is ever more real if the issues aren't dealt with proactively.

You're standing in the dark, screaming at the wind.

That much is apparent, but I'm not a blowhard!

[optimize me]

All that typing and still no information provided.

[ThePicker]

Are you talking about the hard disk overheat problem?

That is a well know bug, yes.

Basically the hard disk spins too much due to the "agressive" linux and it overheats.
But there are a few fixes out there.

IF you are talking about the hard disk

Else I've never heard of any other heating laptop problems either.
Except this one that is pretty serious.

Thanks for you thoughtful reply.

I was not aware of a hard disk overheating issue, but then I'm not a tech guy. To be honest, I've no idea how a laptop hard drive could be anything other than flash, for the dearth of space which is allowed, but of course laptops seem to have been around much longer than flash drives.

My impression, due to dead silence from my laptop as it became so hot that you could almost cook on it, and that "Powernow!" cooled down my laptop for the session in which I ran it (still need to work that software into my startup sequence), has been that the processor is causing this.

Anyway, what sort of solutions are there available for fast-spinning hard drive issues? Is the issue better known on laptops or desktops? I ask because there were some desktop operations which I could compare directly between Fedora and Ubuntu, which produced much more noise in Ubuntu - now I'm wondering if it was the disk and not the fan which I heard.

[mcash454]

You're standing in the dark, screaming at the wind.

That much is apparent, but I'm not a blowhard!

The Picker, I think what optimize me was trying to say is explained in more detail here.

Basically, it is much easier for the experienced / advanced users to try to identify the source of a problem if they know more about your set-up, so it is very helpful to post your output to the lspci command.

[ThePicker]

All that typing and still no information provided.

I did not post to ask for help with my specific problem of the moment, but to ask the Mint/Ubuntu community to be more attentive to this known, and chronic issue. Helpful information is, of course, welcome, but I believe the purpose of this specific forum is to discuss the future of the distro, and that is my purpose here.

As for my situation, there is little more information than what I have already given which would likely be of relevance, and then nobody here seems to believe in overheating laptop processors, nor have they heard of speed-throttling. I don't say this with any sense of grandeur, since I'm not an engineer and know nothing about the technology, only that it worked for me when I ran it for a session. Therefore, I suggest that it be considered for inclusion in future releases.

If open-source software fixes are already available, then Mint should be able to apply them without compiling a list of troublesome hardware, but if you are really interested:
Processor: Pentium Dual CPU T3400 @ 2.16GHz
Hard disk: ATA WDC WD@500BEVS-2, Western Digital

Whatever it is in the Ubuntu kernel which is causing laptops to overheat, Fedora, for all it's freaky faults, did not cause this, nor did any of the non-Ubuntu-debian distros which I tried (never tried the original Debian). I believe that this observation should be considered, because it is posted by others as well. If you are an Ubuntu or Mint developer, please do some research on that. Pretty please!

[Husse]

ThePicker thanks for your input
It always helps to know the hardware and software involved to appreciate the situation - it helps to establish if it is a bug as you imply (and of course there are bugs - nod doubt about that) or if it is a problem with a specific computer or both
Of course a laptop can overheat but the problem posted many times in this forum is that the fans do not spin down so there's a lot of noise - the opposite of your problem
And there are quite a few reports of "speed-throttling" not working so that the battery time is decreased
And the problem with how the Ubuntu kernel treats laptop hard disks has a topic of it's own - a long one (of course I don't find it now when I want to link to it, the topic has not been active for some time)
But frankly I have not until now seen a report of such serious overheating (as far as I can remember) but as this is a safety concern (it may catch fire) it has to be dealt with seriously
This topic confuses me a bit - do you still have the problem or was it solved by powernowd?
I'll report this as a bug in the bug section of the forum - the proper place is really launchpad ....

[DrHu]

1. I am talking about tech guys like YOU, who's join date is more recent than I have been using Linux, but take it on themselves to assert his distro's chronology of perfection, no matter how many users who he has either not interacted with or ignored otherwise.

This is a problem of perception, yours I think
--I don't think you will find anyone in these or any other forums, which are basically about problems or complaints with a very few Kudos to the development teams, that are not of that type (people with OS or application problems)

Now the fact that you are not specifying, except to say powernow should be fixed (how? for what purposes), you don't say

no matter how many users..
Your opinion that you are one of that perceived multitude of users with that problem, which if you were clear about the issue(s) might be answerable; otherwise it comes off as a general rant

Frustrations have been part of every OS that has been produced from the beginning of the computer age (immediately after WWII), when mathematicians & scientists worked on machines with limited hardware and limited resources (read as memory and storage) using bare metal language (machine language) to today's fastest processors with their complicated OS and applications..

I have asked you take into account the setup of this software which is unlikely to harm anyone's computer, BEFORE the lack of it results in a fried laptop, and possibly a fire.

--maybe a poll might help,

• First: how many people have the melting notebook problem
• Second: was it a battery problem

The only burning/exploding/melting notebooks (laptops) issues I have heard about has been to do with battery problems
--some more recently and with various brands no matter which OS was installed; we don't blame windows or Apple OS-X for that even if their OS is installed on those notebooks..

[ThePicker]

ThePicker thanks for your input
It always helps to know the hardware and software involved to appreciate the situation - it helps to establish if it is a bug as you imply (and of course there are bugs - nod doubt about that) or if it is a problem with a specific computer or both

I'm writing this from my desktop, but my previously printed lshw list indicates the processor as Intel Pentium Dual CPU T3400. The version is 6.15.13, 64 bits, and the clock speed is 667 MHz. I was running Ubuntu Ibex when it was printed, which I rarely used on that machine due to heat and sound issues, and it indicated 2.16GHz. Oh, and my laptop is a Toshiba Satellite L305-S5933.

As for the software involved, it overheated slowly after idling for over an hour - when I left it today, there actually wasn't anything open or running. The first time it happened, and I returned to it, the heat from the keyboard got my attention. I risk being over-dramatic by invoking "fire", but the bottom panel had become so hot that I could not keep my hand there, and there was at best a faint smell of ozone - luckily it still works at all! No distro or OS which is not based on Ubuntu has caused even a slight heating issue, the others are variants of Red Hat (hate to say it) and Windows.

Of course a laptop can overheat but the problem posted many times in this forum is that the fans do not spin down so there's a lot of noise - the opposite of your problem
And there are quite a few reports of "speed-throttling" not working so that the battery time is decreased

I have noted the above in other posts. And the problem which I had was that I would have been overjoyed just to hear my fan go on at all. It never did.

Being a non-engineer, I sort of panicked. I shut it down immediately, went to my desktop, and combed the whole internet for the terms I understood to be related: Ubuntu, overheat, and laptop (alternately I substituted Linux Mint). What I found, everywhere that I looked in terms which I could understand was something about powernow (which I installed and ran) and kpowersave (which I never got to). I knew it was a shot in the dark, that it could do worse, but I had to try something.

I decided on Powernowd because it's available in the repos, and because it's on a page referring directly to Mint. I don't know if the Mikazo Tech Blog has any association with Mint, but I noticed after the fact that the same article which had Linux Mint in the title was listing menu structures and directory paths which do not exist in Gloria, if any Mint releases (won't post it because I'm not sure if you would consider it spam).

When I installed and ran Powernowd, the fan soon came on, after not coming on for such a critically long time, so I presumed Powernowd had saved my laptop. I noticed something further into the article on making Powernowd run at startup, then noticed the incongruities with Mint Gloria (in an article with Linux Mint in the title), but it was late, so I decided I could sort that out later. This morning, I powered it back on, forgetting about all that, and it got hot again. So I thought, well, it has to be run from Terminal again, which I did, but this time the fan did not come on! So, guess I'm somewhat confused, and I'm sorry if I said anything which may be misleading.

I spent tonight trying to recreate the heating situation. Although most of the time that I have been running Mint on my laptop the fan never runs at all, and it didn't run the 2nd time that I ran Powernowd (for what it's worth), when I powered down and ran it again, it suddenly came on without my running anything (no idea why). It has run constantly like this for well over an hour, despite there being absolutely no heat. Of course, I'm much happier to have the fan running with no heat than not when it starts to cook, but I still didn't know if it would behave consistently. I did a shutdown/restart to see what would happen, and the fan is not moving now. I will check for heat in about half an hour, and keep you posted on what happens (or doesn't).

And the problem with how the Ubuntu kernel treats laptop hard disks has a topic of it's own - a long one (of course I don't find it now when I want to link to it, the topic has not been active for some time)
But frankly I have not until now seen a report of such serious overheating (as far as I can remember) but as this is a safety concern (it may catch fire) it has to be dealt with seriously
This topic confuses me a bit - do you still have the problem or was it solved by powernowd?

Very sorry for the confusion. I thought that it had been fixed, with nothing left than to get powernowd executing at startup, but now I'm not sure that it had anything to do with the problem - which means I have no idea what could fix the problem.

I'll report this as a bug in the bug section of the forum - the proper place is really launchpad ....

Again, sorry - launchpad is for filing bug reports? I had no idea while scanning the forum titles in haste.

Also, thanks profusely for taking the time to deal with this issue!

[ThePicker]

Follow up: My laptop fan was not running at all, then there was a session in which it ran endlessly while the laptop case remained cold. I'm testing it for consistency after adding Powernowd, and apparently it may not have changed anything. After half an hour following a shutdown/restart, again the fan does not go on, and it got very hot.

It's also possible that I may have confused myself - not sure how distinctly that I remember running Powernowd in Terminal right after installing it, as opposed to restarting and hearing the fan come on (did lots of things in Terminal yesterday , mostly on my desktop). Guess at my age I should be taking notes. I just know that the fan has frequently not been working (for whole sessions) and when it fails in this way my laptop heats up. I note also (possibly noticing for the first time) that the fan doesn't seem to quit (sat by it for an hour after the laptop had partially cooled from a previous session).

I just did another restart, and the fan is on - so, if Mint begins to manage my temperature control intelligently, I'll let you know, but it seemed to run a very long time continously the last time it ran (although it was not running fast at all, maintaining a rather slow, even speed).

Again, thanks, Husse, for your attentiveness to this problem.

[richyrich]

Hi, you may want to consider this . .

To help you determine your cpu & hd temps & fan speeds you can download lm-sensors from Synaptic, then run sudo sensors-detect from the terminal, which will take you through the detection process with a bunch of questions (y/n). reboot.
Since I have the kde version of Mint7, I had to add a Plasmoid to the desktop to view my sensors.
In Gnome it may be Screenlets or even Conky. (panel applets available too!)
I have Conky showing my old IBM A31p's temps (avg's low 40's C) & fans (turns on at about 50) on my Mint7 Xfce laptop.

. . or you may not . . just a suggestion.

richy

[ThePicker]

I just did another restart, and the fan is on - so, if Mint begins to manage my temperature control intelligently, I'll let you know, but it seemed to run a very long time continously the last time it ran (although it was not running fast at all, maintaining a rather slow, even speed).

I did another reboot, and the fan didn't run. I wanted to know if there would be any fan/heat management at all, so I waited a bit, then found something to do, and I wished I didn't get so distracted because it did get quite hot - but then the fan came on, with a bit of a roar. Still, I don't think my laptop should have been allowed to get as hot as it did.

[emorrp1]

Ok, so I have a similar issue, about a year ago, my laptop suddenly began overheating, it would actually cause a hard shutdown after a while, and would certainly burn your lap before then if it wasn't on a desk. I still haven't solved this problem (mostly because I don't like hardware troubleshooting) but I have a workaround in that I just prop up the back of my laptop on a piece of wood to increase the airflow.

Now, you say you've included all the info you think is relevant, i.e. CPU and Hard-Disk, but the problem is rarely as simple as that, as it could be your graphics card (it has been suggested to me that maybe my thermal paste is not so good). So I'm sure what optimize me meant to say was please can you post the output of "inxi -F" which will give us a much more complete view of your hardware.

I installed powernowd, since you mentioned it had benefits immediately, but haven't noticed any improvement, so you see the solution is not that simple. If we included powernowd, then we'd still have people posting about this issue complaining their laptop is still overheating and demanding action and probably still not providing enough info to diagnose. When someone has a problem that the devs cannot reproduce on their own machines, you have to provide much more info, as seemingly irrelevant details can be important. There's many a time I've been trying to solve something for someone, they've tried my possible solution, it didn't work, and then mentioning something much later that they didn't think was important but that enables me to post a complete solution.

With some more investigation into powernowd (since you mention it doesn't start immediately on boot) I came across this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/153186 Apparently, powernowd should be used "on demand", so doesn't run automatically. Since you say it's not coming on until it's much too hot, please follow richyrich's advise to install lm-sensors. This will tell you what temperature Mint thinks your CPU etc. are, and if they're wildly inaccurate (mine always claim 10 degrees) then we can be sure that there's something wrong with the sensors, and there may be a way to tweak powernowd's settings to account for it.

[mcash454]

To help you determine your cpu & hd temps & fan speeds you can download lm-sensors from Synaptic, then run sudo sensors-detect from the terminal, which will take you through the detection process with a bunch of questions (y/n). reboot.

Also, one thing you may want to do just to put your mind at rest a bit with the fire issue, and also to hopefully prevent hardware damage, is to lower the temperature threshold that initiates shutdown in your BIOS settings. It will probably be under something like 'PC Health Status'. At least both my machines have it. If you monitor the temperature like richyrich says, and you see that if the temperature goes up to, say 65 degrees, that it is in 'overheat mode' and on its way to dangerous temperatures, just shutdown at 70. (I'm completely fabricating the numbers, but I hope you understand what I'm suggesting.)

Obviously this doesn't fix the overheating, but it could protect your computer's hardware while using the computer in the midst of finding time to address this problem correctly.

[ThePicker]

Hi, you may want to consider this . .

To help you determine your cpu & hd temps & fan speeds you can download lm-sensors from Synaptic, then run sudo sensors-detect from the terminal, which will take you through the detection process with a bunch of questions (y/n). reboot.
Since I have the kde version of Mint7, I had to add a Plasmoid to the desktop to view my sensors.
In Gnome it may be Screenlets or even Conky. (panel applets available too!)
I have Conky showing my old IBM A31p's temps (avg's low 40's C) & fans (turns on at about 50) on my Mint7 Xfce laptop.

. . or you may not . . just a suggestion.

richy

Richy, thanks for the tip, I did all of the above - Conky works, but does not show temperature after lm-sensors was installed (I only saw one micro-screen, no tabs) - is there something available which does?

Can any Conky info be used to diagnose this overheating problem? My best guess would be the frequency, which surprisingly is just 1.0 (lshw, when I ran it just now, lists it @2.6GHz, which I now guess is NOT a current rate, maybe a maximum (I'll be listing all the output in response to emorrp1's reply)?

[ThePicker]

Ok, so I have a similar issue, about a year ago, my laptop suddenly began overheating, it would actually cause a hard shutdown after a while, and would certainly burn your lap before then if it wasn't on a desk. I still haven't solved this problem (mostly because I don't like hardware troubleshooting) but I have a workaround in that I just prop up the back of my laptop on a piece of wood to increase the airflow.

Now, you say you've included all the info you think is relevant, i.e. CPU and Hard-Disk, but the problem is rarely as simple as that, as it could be your graphics card (it has been suggested to me that maybe my thermal paste is not so good). So I'm sure what optimize me meant to say was please can you post the output of "inxi -F" which will give us a much more complete view of your hardware.

Code: Select all

~ $ inxi -F
System:    Host mrg Kernel 2.6.28-11-generic i686 (32 bit) Distro Linux Mint 7 Gloria - Main Edition
CPU:       Dual core Intel Pentium Dual T3400 (SMP) cache 1024 KB flags (sse3 nx lm) bmips 8646.04
           Clock Speeds: (1) 1000.00 MHz (2) 1000.00 MHz
Graphics:  Card Intel Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller X.Org 1.6.0 Res 1280x800@60.0hz
Audio:     Card Intel 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller driver HDA Intel
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.18rc3
Network:   Card-1 Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller driver r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI at port 3000
           Card-2 Atheros AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter driver ath5k_pci v: 0.9.4
Disks:     HDD Total Size: 266.1GB (6.2% used) 1: /dev/sda WDC WD2500BEVS-2 250.1GB 2: USB /dev/sdc Cruzer 16.0GB
Partition: ID:/ size: 17G used: 2.7G (17%) ID:swap-1 size: 5.24GB used: 0.00GB (0%)
Info:      Processes 138 Uptime 1:20 Memory 276.3/2894.5MB Client Shell inxi 1.0.6


I installed powernowd, since you mentioned it had benefits immediately, but haven't noticed any improvement, so you see the solution is not that simple. If we included powernowd, then we'd still have people posting about this issue complaining their laptop is still overheating and demanding action and probably still not providing enough info to diagnose. When someone has a problem that the devs cannot reproduce on their own machines, you have to provide much more info, as seemingly irrelevant details can be important. There's many a time I've been trying to solve something for someone, they've tried my possible solution, it didn't work, and then mentioning something much later that they didn't think was important but that enables me to post a complete solution.

Sorry about that, I shouldn't have jumped to a conclusion so quick, just because the fan came on after not working for so long.

Code: Select all

Here is my lspci output:
lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 07)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation ICH9M/M-E SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01


With some more investigation into powernowd (since you mention it doesn't start immediately on boot) I came across this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/153186 Apparently, powernowd should be used "on demand", so doesn't run automatically. Since you say it's not coming on until it's much too hot, please follow richyrich's advise to install lm-sensors. This will tell you what temperature Mint thinks your CPU etc. are, and if they're wildly inaccurate (mine always claim 10 degrees) then we can be sure that there's something wrong with the sensors, and there may be a way to tweak powernowd's settings to account for it.

I could have missed it, not knowing exactly where to look for temperature readings, or what to interpret as such, but I didn't see any in the output of any of the above.

[richyrich]

This is where I got mine set up from . . I had to do a little tweaking, but once I found what I needed, all I had to do was add one line to my conkyrc file.
http://conky.linux-hardcore.com/?page_id=393
(there are more scripts, etc. under the Welcome menu, and in the gallery.)
Also the Ubuntu forum has a whole bunch of conky files to check out!

[optimize me]

Have you seen this yet: http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Edgy ... sensors.29

It's kind of old, but may still be relevant.