[SOLVED]Need a laptop hardware guru

[Beardedragon]

I'll give that a shot. (how do I add it?)

Code: Select all

sudo gedit /etc/modules

Add the line

modprobe i8k

W/O quotes.
Save and reboot.

[omegaman]

tried a couple times, doesn't work. also how would I get GkrellM to start at boot up. though I need to get the i8kmon to work first, otherwise I have to close it and re-start after I do the modprobe i8k

[Beardedragon]

tried a couple times, doesn't work. also how would I get GkrellM to start at boot up. though I need to get the i8kmon to work first, otherwise I have to close it and re-start after I do the modprobe i8k

Sorry, what does not work? Put gkrellm and i8kmon in startup applications.

[omegaman]

sorry, losing clarity.

apparently the modprobe i8k in /etc/modules isn't working. I get i8kmon to start, and gkrellm (syntax error on my part) but I still have the missing proc/i8k error code.
I thought also when i first installed and ran gkrellm it was reading the cpu temp, it is no longer, just GPU and THM(which is about the same as what hardware monitor in the panel reports for the CPU)

[omegaman]

GOT IT!!! checked that ubuntu thread and followed a link to another changed it to i8k force=1 in the /etc/modules file and Gkrellm fired up with the fan controls in place.

now to see if I can figure out why it still won't play videos properly and forces the cpu to 600 mhz and stays there. I have cpufreq running, maybe one of the other throttling apps would do better. will check it out later.

Thanks Again!

[omegaman]

almost there. things are loading and fans are working but....cpu scaling is whacked. upon boot it's 1.8 gHz, then immediately forced down to 600 and "current policy: frequency should be between 600 mhz and 600 mhz." seems I'm about back where I started long ago....

something is pushing it down, but I don't know what. At the beginning it was a bad power supply, but it never went above 600mHz, here it is starting at 1.8gHz and then being pushed down.

I did find this http://www.pantz.org/software/cpufreq/u ... linux.html but it's gonna take a while for me to absorb that.

[omegaman]

I gotta quit... I'm totally confused. I used Synaptic and removed, and then completely removed cpufrequtils, cpufreqd, libcpufreq0 have rebooted, removed them via get-apt remove as well, which tells me they are not there, yet.... when I reboot, there it is sitting in the panel. I swear this laptop is possessed by poltergeists or something. How can you remove something yet it remains? CPU temp is 36C GPU is 65C fans are working, laptop starts up, at 1.8gHz, fans kick on, then slow down, controlled by temp, and then the CPU is forced to 600 mHz and is locked there.

Worked fine under WinXP so I may just shelve this whole idea and put XP back on, this is nuts, uninstall a program but its still there? cpu scaling isn't happening, I'm about at the end of my rope.

[Beardedragon]

I gotta quit... I'm totally confused. I used Synaptic and removed, and then completely removed cpufrequtils, cpufreqd, libcpufreq0 have rebooted, removed them via get-apt remove as well, which tells me they are not there, yet.... when I reboot, there it is sitting in the panel. I swear this laptop is possessed by poltergeists or something. How can you remove something yet it remains? CPU temp is 36C GPU is 65C fans are working, laptop starts up, at 1.8gHz, fans kick on, then slow down, controlled by temp, and then the CPU is forced to 600 mHz and is locked there.

Worked fine under WinXP so I may just shelve this whole idea and put XP back on, this is nuts, uninstall a program but its still there? cpu scaling isn't happening, I'm about at the end of my rope.

Well, I am stumped as well. You seem to make one step forward and two steps back. Seems to be a hardware problem with the fan and the heat. There are not enough applet to draw from to fix it. Kind of strange to go this long with others helping and not finding a solution.

[omegaman]

Okay, I walked away for a bit... cpufrequtils was uninstalled, I had the CPU Freq monitor in the panel... duh! So I reinstalled cpufrequtils... I can use cpufreq-set to set the various levels, but should they not have already been set by the cpu itself, cpufreq-info shows the various governors, and the available frequencies.

I guess I'll leave it as it is, and find some time to crack the case open. I do think the issue is not the cpu but the gpu as that seems to heat up., not sure if that takes thermal paste as the cpu heat sink does, but I guess I will find out when I open her up. maybe the apps in XP just did a better job at handling the symptoms and didn't get at the root cause.

maybe later this week, as some shoots I had scheduled have been re-scheduled until next week.
Thanks again for all your help, I'll update when I have something new. maybe check around for a new gpu. would rather have one on hand when I open the case than to open it, find a physical issue, and then have to close it all up again until I get a gpu.

[omegaman]

did a bit of poking around and the cpu and gpu temps seem about normal...
System has been up about an hour
CPU 42C
GPU 67C
THM 42C

I had added the i8k force=1 to the /etc/modules and that started the fan immediately upon start up until Gkrellm took over and controlled via temp and slowed them down. So I changed that to just i8k which gets around the error code so Gkrellm can control the fans. Booted upa t 1.8 but as soon as the fan came one, even slow speed, BAM cpu was forced down to 600mhz.

For what I need the laptop works fine a that speed (though a bit of a disappointment) but streaming video is impossible.
I'm beginning to suspect (based on no knowledge whatsoever, just a thought) that it might be a video driver issue. Would love to hear from other Dell D800 or others running Mint with the nVidia card if they have similar problems. Well actually based on something, the fact that it seems to operate better in XP which are the Dell supplied nVidia driver.

I need the S-video output and wonder if that would work with the default video drivers. will have to give that a try, deactivate the nVidia drivers and see what happens.

I'm just thinking out loud

[omegaman]

A bit of research today and some interesting finds, yet no solution.
Frst I ran a Live CD of CrunchBang, and shortly after boot the fan kicked on and the cpu was a 600mhs (fortunately crunchbang includes the Broadcom wireless driver so I was able to sluggishly install cpufrequtils..) I also poked around and found a thread from 2004 on the Ubuntu forums, that pointed to a kernal issue, and the poster, following detailed instructions recompiled his kernal apparently with a patch and all was well.

I think put in an Ubuntu 10.10 Live disc and it ran fine, even though it was at 600mhz, the interesting part is the fan never kicked on..which is usually the precursor to the cpu being scaled to 600mHz even though the temps are low. I mean right after start up, In Mint, it boots at 1.8 gHz, and once things settle down, maybe 30 seconds in, bam its stuck at 600mHz, Cpu temps are low, it would be tough to run up a cpu temp in 30 seconds from a cold boot wouldn't it.

I am now trying to find the ubuntu forum thread I spoke of, and found this https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/132271 an an interesting post there mentions a low CMOS battery (which i believe in this machine is inside the battery compartment and easily accessed) That might be worth a shot, since it could be an easy fix.

Other notables, it seems to be worse (which leans me toward the CMOS battery idea) It used to happen when the CPU was stressed and should have run at 1.8 GHz like running a video, but now it's almost immediately after start up. Yet in XP with the SpeedswitchXP app and the i8kfan app installed things worked well. (though that may have been treating the symptom instead of the cause) then in the launchpad thread I found this

Since I didn't have any news. I decided to have a look at the kernel code. I
compared arch/i386/kernel/cpu/cpufreq/speedstep-centrino.c in 2.6.20 and 2.6.22
and I saw that my cpu's code ("CPU_DOTHAN_C0 / SONOMA") was removed. I wrote a
patch to add it back and now cpu frequency scaling is working again. I tested
my patch on a 2.6.23.1 kernel.

Could someone have a look and see why this code was removed?

Apparently, upon further reading, the speedstep-centrino code was removed from the kernal in favor of acpi controlling the scaling, so it could be buggy bios(I have the latest version for this machine) so I might just have to learn how to compile a patched kernal.

fingers crossed its the CMOS battery. LOL

[Beardedragon]

Omegaman, looks like you may be on the right track. My own Dell 1545 bit the dust, keyboard and USB kaput. Bought an HP Slimline desktop and am back up within 24 hrs. good luck with your fix.

[omegaman]

Finally got a new CMOS battery. nearly 9 days via priority mail from NYC to NJ... anyway. It's not the issue.
System, as I have said is running fine temp wise. It scales during the first minute it is running, then the governor locks it down at 600 mhz. I8k fan is running as it should.

With that and a scaling utlity on XP it worked fine, even running youtube vids smoothly while at 600 mhz. Apparently Linux has an issue with the configuration of this machine.

I'd like to say how much I really appreciate everyone's help, advice, assistance and suggestions on trying to solve this problem, but it appears it's just not to be.

I may try a few more things, but as much as I hate to say it, I thinking I have to go back to XP to use this machine for it's intended purpose, as a teleprompter and web machine. I tried the prompter the other day and it does not scroll smoothly operating at only 600 mhz.

I'm open to suggestions, but I fear we've exhausted just about everything. It's not heat, but the CPU is locking down at 600 Mhz.

[omegaman]

okay maybe I spoke too soon. I shut it down, a while later booted up and now it is scaling, watched a few vids, pused the cpu to 1800 and 100% and the cpu temp went up, fans roared but they played. Will have to check out the prompter but it's late that will have to wait.

[omegaman]

Prompter works. Not sure what changed. Only two things that changed...new CMOS battery, and I went in and set the frequency at 1.8Ghz, trying to force it to stay at the top speed, but now it scales. I dunno, but it works, the fans are loud and the cpu heats up watching video, but it works.

I'll let it go a day or so and then mark this solved.

(or maybe it heard me say I might go back to XP and it decided to cooperate LOL )

[omegaman]

Trying to deduce what I did right, either the battery or the cpufreq command. so I decided to run the live version of Crunchbang. CPU is scaling (after installing cpufrequtils) CPU usage is about 33%, watching youtube videos are smooth and the fans don't kick on, and it didn't stress the CPU to 100% Interesting. I didn't load any nVidia drivers with crunchbang so not quite sure what that would do. but it seems to be running very smooth, cool and quiet. might install this along side Mint and play with it. Uptime over and hour and the fan hasn't kicked on high at all.

last time I ran the live version of Crunchbang the fans kicked on high, so I'm thinking it was in fact the CMOS battery. Julia though really pushes the CPU, might have to check out Mint xfce debian, maybe it's something in the ubuntu stuff that it doesn't like. at the moment though, things are working well enough for me to do what I need to do.

[omegaman]

I'm going to mark this one solved, because it's as close as I can get. I burned a disc of the new Debian Mint XFCE but it took forever to load, I clicked on system monitor and it accessed the DVD but then never ran anything.

I have to wonder out loud, why do distros like PCLOS and Crunchbang come with the Broadcom driver built it, or at least seem to since I can access the wireless card right from the Live disc, and the nVidia drivers, or at least something that works and Mint doesn't? I know if I connect via ethernet I can download the drivers, but...my question remains. I plan on using this box as a teleprompter by connecting an external monitor to the S-video port. Last night I hooked it up, fired up the Crunchbang live disc and Bang, there it was, feeding the external monitor and working like it should. It did change the screen resolution, so on the laptop it was a bit "soft". Unfortunately setting up the nvidia driver on Mint to do the same is a bit of a pain, getting the right resolution, cloning the screen and it doesn't line up properly. (to be fair the nVidia software for Linux is just different enough from the Windows version which I use at work that its more my problem than Mint.)

the cpu scaling is working fine in both, but in CB, watching an online video was much less stressful than in Mint. in Mint it taxes the CPU and heats up, in CB not at all. now I did read something that the version of Chromium in CB uses HTML5 instead of Adobe Flash so maybe that's the reason? Only thing I had an issue with in my short tests in CB was getting the i8kfan utility to run, but I think that is because I had to add something to /etc/modules/ but that doesn't load until a re-boot and of course running the live CD the change I made to the file doesn't survive the re-boot. LOL

What I would really like to do is install CB alongside Mint, but I have to figure that out since I guess I have to manually partition the HDD in order to get CB to install. Probably break something...LOL will have to write down all my little tweaks to Mint in case i do.

So my ramblings notwithstanding... apparently a low or dying CMOS battery caused the issues with CPU scaling. If you're having that issue, try replacing the CMOS battery, I got min online for about $12 and on the D800 it is very easy to access, right inside the battery compartment.

[omegaman]

Final Update. Definitely the CMOS battery, I also disabled the proprietary nVidia drivers and videos play with much less CPU usage, don't drive up the temp, and suspend works... now when I close the lid it suspends, which it did with the nVidia drivers, but it would not come back from suspend with those drivers. Now it works as it should.