Acpi/Cpu freq scaling problem? Temperature misreads

[sdru]

Hi guys,
i'm noticing a strange behaviour on my amd athlon x2 64 + mint 12 64 bit and i think it's caused by multiple problems.
The idling temp for my laptop is around 60°C (xsensors) (acpitz) for temp1 (constanly changing as expected) and temp2 (i presume the temp for the second core) that HAS NEVER MOVED for WEEKS constantly at 30°C
So first of all either my 2nd core is never getting used (even though it shows up perfectly if i run cat /proc/cpuinfo) or ther's some kind of temperature reading problem that i'd like to fix.
On another laptop i have ubuntu 11.10 64bit running on a celeron dual core T3300 cat /proc/cpuinfo shows 2 cores but xsensors only shows temp1 could it be a similar problem?

Also another thing... while watching flash streaming videos the temperatures (only temp1 since temp2 stays at 30C° and is not even shown for the celeron) reach OVER 100°C if using jw player which looks insane to me while they go up to about 76° while streaming from youtube.

.Changing browser doesn't make a difference
.Using proprietary ati drivers or gallium 0.4 doesn't make a difference either (maybe 1-2°C difference) while streaming the same vid under the same circumstances
.cpufreq-info gives a good output showing the right module (powernow-k8) and the right governor (conservative)
for both cores
.installed powertop because i thought that i could have had something like 900 wakeups/sec but it showed 0.0 wakeups (so i'm having some kind of problem there too) per second and the only process that was using a good chunk of % was gnome-shell

ANY HELP is highly appriciated please note that i'm not experienced as i'd like to be with linux so try yo be as clear as possible

[Tuxi]

Generally and more in the case of the olds (but excellent) athlon 64x2 , is normal that core 0 is much more used than the core 1. This pass in linux and windows (for windows AMD has launched patchs for this). I had an athlon 64 x2 4000+ (but desktop version), and on LM12 32 with dual-core support enabled, generally the core 0 has more activity than de core 1.
You can search for your athlon model, to know the maximium normal temp for your processor.
In my case:

-Cooling Fans-
Core0 Temp : 67,00°C
Core1 Temp : 22,00°C

and my pc run with optimal performance and stability.

[Tuxi]

Generally and more in the case of the olds (but excellent) athlon 64x2 , is normal that core 0 is much more used than the core 1. This pass in linux and windows (for windows AMD has launched patchs for this). I had an athlon 64 x2 4000+ (but desktop version), and on LM12 32 with dual-core support enabled, generally the core 0 has more activity than de core 1.
You can search for your athlon model, to know the maximium normal temp for your processor.
In my case:

-Cooling Fans-
Core0 Temp : 67,00°C
Core1 Temp : 22,00°C

and my pc run with optimal performance and stability.

NOTE: some days the temps are : 70 and 30. I think 60 for your mobile version is normal.

[sdru]

Mine is an Athlon X2 QL-64
(http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-At ... M22GG.html)
Maximum operating temp shown is 100°C

Is your second core temp NEVER EVER EVER EVER moving? Mine is not only much lower (and you just explained me why so thanks for that ) but also never moving
Running ' sensors ' shows

Code: Select all

acpitz-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:        +61.0°C  (crit = +127.1°C)
temp2:        +30.0°C  (crit = +127.1°C)


[Tuxi]

Personally i think that the linux sensors systems is not optimal. If you run windows with an program for view temp, probably the result mitgh vary.
In my case the core 1 (the second core) is all time at 30c and only shows at 22c on cooler days, but not vary in "real time/running time", i think probably is a bug because with the Gnome System monitor this core shows activity (and less than the core 0). Tthe present versions of LM come with Multi-core support enabled by default (i dont remember now the specific name of the technology), and if your processor core1 shows activity is normal. It would be rare that a core of your processor is running bad.

[sdru]

I can clearly see that the second core is working using the gnome system monitor (how did i not check it in the first place?!)
So my 2nd core is working fine and the CPU temp for core2 in xsensors is a bit buggy

The news is i sort of found a solution for the insane temperatures
I tried kernel parameters like acpi.nopowercheck and pcie_aspm=force but they did nothing to fix my problem
What fixed it is an awsome app called Jupiter that now lets me view streaming vids from youtube with my temps moving just a couple of °C instead of 25C°

Setting it in "power on demand" mode makes my system act like always , putting it in "power save" mode instead keeps everything under control and i can't see any noticeable performance drop (i have no idea of what it actually does though besides setting a different cpufreq governor)

I also discovered that the over 100C° temps were caused by a known bug
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/363695
that i fixed by removing the package and had no problems of any kind since

cpufreq scaling also wasn't an issue since the output of cpufeq-info is perfect

I hope i helped you somewhat !

[Tuxi]

You can also see on bios your core temps (i think for your noteebok probably 30-38c on bios are the normal valors). Probably the most effective form to get temps, is touching bottom of the notebook, and seeing that it is not burning
Note: If your notebook does not hang , its not have overheating problems.