asterisk users - Sep 2005 - Asterisk overheating on VIA Epia M Series motherboard

Hello

I am running Asterisk on SUSE Linux Professional 9.3 on a VIA Epia M Series 
motherboard - CPU runs at 1GHz.  There is no fan - just a large heatsink. 
Currently system is running off standard IDE hard drive - because I couldn't
get astlinux to run with my Digium TDM04B card (only PCI card in system).

Strangely I also have the same system also running SUSE Linux running as a 
file server and that does not run so hot and does not overheat?  Why the 
difference?

Just booting up both systems for 15 minutes you can tell the Asterisk box is 
quite a bit hotter.  Also the Asterisk box overheated (well think that was 
the problem) and stopped operating as PBX at one stage.

Anyone any experience of this sort of thing?  any ideas how to fix - ideally 
I don't want to have to fit a fan.

Is SUSE not the best distro to use for this sort of thing?  Should it be 
something to take up with VIA?

Angus

As you suspected, the problem is the fact that you don't have a fan.
Since a machine that runs just a file server does not require much CPU
power, the CPU doesn't get too hot. However Asterisk does use lots of
CPU, therefore the CPU is hot, and yes the problem of stopping to work
is because of the CPU being overheated, you are lucky that the
computer booted after that, in most cases the overheating of a CPU
means that the CPU expanded too much, when you shut it down it cools
off, and shrinks, which could result in cracking the CPU. You should
never run a CPU without it's fan if it's meant to run with a fan. Even
if running it just as a file server. The fact that you are lucky
doesn't mean that you don't need a fan.

On 9/5/05, Angus Comber <angus@iteloffice.com>
wrote:
> 
> Hello
> 
> I am running Asterisk on SUSE Linux Professional 9.3 on a VIA Epia M Series
> motherboard - CPU runs at 1GHz.  There is no fan - just a large heatsink.
> Currently system is running off standard IDE hard drive - because I
couldn't
> get astlinux to run with my Digium TDM04B card (only PCI card in system).
> 
> Strangely I also have the same system also running SUSE Linux running as a
> file server and that does not run so hot and does not overheat?  Why the
> difference?
> 
> Just booting up both systems for 15 minutes you can tell the Asterisk box
is
> quite a bit hotter.  Also the Asterisk box overheated (well think that was
> the problem) and stopped operating as PBX at one stage.
> 
> Anyone any experience of this sort of thing?  any ideas how to fix -
ideally
> I don't want to have to fit a fan.
> 
> Is SUSE not the best distro to use for this sort of thing?  Should it be
> something to take up with VIA?
> 
> Angus
> 
> 
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The EPIA M runs fanless at 600Mhz.  If you are running it at 1Ghz you need a
fan.

http://www.viavpsd.com/product/epia_m_spec.jsp?motherboardId=81

Having said that, Asterisk can overwhelm these boards unless you run a very
lean distro and configuration.  They are beautiful little machines but they
are designed for maximum reliablility at a relatively modest level of
performance.  Codec transcoding is not possible for more than a few
channels.  Running a full PRI on a Digium TE110 is pushing it, especially
with echo cancellation.  It should handle a TDM04B just fine though.

We run Fedora Core 3 on these with no problems.  You could try running
"top"
to see which process is chewing up your cycles.

Michael Crown
Managing Partner
www.thevoipconnection.com
321.989.6728 ext. 611
sip:611@voiceserver.thevoipconnection.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Angus Comber [mailto:angus@iteloffice.com] 
> Sent: Monday, September 05, 2005 4:52 PM
> To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com
> Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Asterisk overheating on VIA Epia M 
> Series motherboard
> 
> 
> Hello
> 
> I am running Asterisk on SUSE Linux Professional 9.3 on a VIA 
> Epia M Series motherboard - CPU runs at 1GHz.  There is no 
> fan - just a large heatsink. 
> Currently system is running off standard IDE hard drive - 
> because I couldn't get astlinux to run with my Digium TDM04B 
> card (only PCI card in system).
> 
> Strangely I also have the same system also running SUSE Linux 
> running as a file server and that does not run so hot and 
> does not overheat?  Why the difference?
> 
> Just booting up both systems for 15 minutes you can tell the 
> Asterisk box is quite a bit hotter.  Also the Asterisk box 
> overheated (well think that was the problem) and stopped 
> operating as PBX at one stage.
> 
> Anyone any experience of this sort of thing?  any ideas how 
> to fix - ideally I don't want to have to fit a fan.
> 
> Is SUSE not the best distro to use for this sort of thing?  
> Should it be something to take up with VIA?
> 
> Angus
> 
> 
> 
>