freebsd stable - Aug 2009 - Problem with IBM Thinkpad T30 shutting down due to high temperatures

Hello list,

for some time now my T30 shuts down due to temperatures exceeding the
safe limit of 92 degrees celcius.
Regardless to say that a 2GHz pentium4m powers the machine, and these
chips are "well known" for high temperatures.
But I'm unable to do anything that causes high load on the laptop:
Building world or complex ports makes the system reach the limit
within minutes. A few days ago I configured xcompmgr, which even seems
to make the problem whorse (yes, composite extension is enabled).
What I don't know is if this is a hardware error, or something caused
by the kernel. I wrote a small script to monitor  dev.acpi_ibm.0.fan
dev.acpi_ibm.0.fan_level, hw.acpi.thermal.tz0.temperature and
dev.cpu.0.freq, and it sometimes appears that the temperature of the
CPU rises, but the kernel doesn't decrease the clock in time. I tried
setting hw.acpi.thermal.polling_rate=2, but this didn't seem to work
out, too.
Today I wanted to rsync $HOME to my server, which caused several
shutdowns. I used a ssh connection, and my hard disk is encrypted
using geom.eli with AES-CBC 256.

I know that I put this machine under a rather high pressure (yes, I
have all my filesystems encrypted, including /usr/ports and /usr/sys),
but from my point of view the laptop should be able to deal with this.

The kernel I'm using is basically GENERIC, with acpi_ibm and radeondrm
added.

What could I try next to prevent this from happening again? I guess
it's needless to say that rebuilding ports (for example after the jpeg
version bump) is next to impossible because it would require manual
intervention everytime the temperature reaches the limit...

I'm happy about any help I can get on this issue.

Regards
Christian

Christian Walther wrote:
> Hello list,
> 
> for some time now my T30 shuts down due to temperatures exceeding the
> safe limit of 92 degrees celcius.
You included a lot of details, but missed some crucial ones. First,
did it ever work? If so, what you probably have are fans/heat sinks
that are clogged with dust. Give the system a good hosing with
compressed air and see if that helps.

You also failed to mention whether or not the fans come on, and
whether or not they increase in speed when it gets hotter.


hth,

Doug

-- 

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On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 11:53:10PM +0200, Christian Walther
wrote:
> Hello list,
> 
> for some time now my T30 shuts down due to temperatures exceeding the
> safe limit of 92 degrees celcius.
> Regardless to say that a 2GHz pentium4m powers the machine, and these
> chips are "well known" for high temperatures.
> But I'm unable to do anything that causes high load on the laptop:
> Building world or complex ports makes the system reach the limit
> within minutes. A few days ago I configured xcompmgr, which even seems
> to make the problem whorse (yes, composite extension is enabled).
> What I don't know is if this is a hardware error, or something caused
> by the kernel. I wrote a small script to monitor  dev.acpi_ibm.0.fan
> dev.acpi_ibm.0.fan_level, hw.acpi.thermal.tz0.temperature and
> dev.cpu.0.freq, and it sometimes appears that the temperature of the
> CPU rises, but the kernel doesn't decrease the clock in time.
If available, you can use acpi_thermal(4) to set the temperatures at which
atcive cooling engaves. Look for the sysctl 'hw.acpi.thermal.tz%d._ACx',
where
%d is the core number and x is the cooling level. Or set the level manually
with 'hw.acpi.thermal.tz%d.active'.

Read the acpi_thermal manpage for more details.

Roland
-- 
R.F.Smith                                   http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/
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Am Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:53:10 +0200
schrieb Christian Walther <cptsalek@gmail.com>:
> What could I try next to prevent this from happening again? I guess
> it's needless to say that rebuilding ports (for example after the jpeg
> version bump) is next to impossible because it would require manual
> intervention everytime the temperature reaches the limit...
> 
> I'm happy about any help I can get on this issue.
Hi Christian,

I've had this too with my T60p. The temperature when it shut down was
101?C. Also while compiling ports on FreeBSD. Other OSes were fine on
this laptop (around 90?C when on high load).

This seems to happen when using ATI based Thinkpads. The fan is for
both CPU and GPU and the GPU runs idle at over 70?C, because FreeBSD is
missing any power saving modes that tune down the GPU voltage (this is
the only way to keep the GPU cool). Also idle temperature with FreeBSD
is very high, at around 70?C instead of 50?C on OSes that can use power
management for ATI mobile adapters.

What to do?

- check the fan and look if there is dust (clean it, but don't touch
  the fan too hard, because it will break!)
- when compiling ports/world, make sure you have your laptop near fresh
  air
- use a script that tunes down the frequency when temperature is
  above a sane level (it should tune up again, when it's sinking too
  far) and use it while doing some heavy things on FreeBSD

I don't have the laptop anymore, because of this problem, but I still
have the script. You have to check if it still works and tune the
values for the temperatures and sysctls. I really don't care to make it
an universal solution.

http://bsdforen.pastebin.com/f331d2357

The perl script keeps a history of the temperature in last few seconds
and tunes it according to the average, afair. It also prints the
CPU temperature and the CPU speed.

Have fun with it. ;)

--
Martin

On Mon, 2009-08-10 at 23:53 +0200, Christian Walther
wrote:
> Hello list,
> 
> for some time now my T30 shuts down due to temperatures exceeding the
> safe limit of 92 degrees celcius.
> Regardless to say that a 2GHz pentium4m powers the machine, and these
> chips are "well known" for high temperatures.
> But I'm unable to do anything that causes high load on the laptop:
> Building world or complex ports makes the system reach the limit
> within minutes. A few days ago I configured xcompmgr, which even seems
> to make the problem whorse (yes, composite extension is enabled).
> What I don't know is if this is a hardware error, or something caused
> by the kernel. I wrote a small script to monitor  dev.acpi_ibm.0.fan
> dev.acpi_ibm.0.fan_level, hw.acpi.thermal.tz0.temperature and
> dev.cpu.0.freq, and it sometimes appears that the temperature of the
> CPU rises, but the kernel doesn't decrease the clock in time. I tried
> setting hw.acpi.thermal.polling_rate=2, but this didn't seem to work
> out, too.
Your description is somewhat generic, so the best I can do under the
circumstances is to give you a generic suggestion.

Add something like

hw.acpi.thermal.tz1.passive_cooling=1
hw.acpi.thermal.user_override=1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz1._PSV=75C

to /etc/sysctl.conf and reboot.

Please, note that on my laptop, relevant thermal zone is TZ1, which
might or might not be the case for you -- if it is not -- change tz1 to
whatever is appropriate.

If this does not work, things, which are needed to help you further,
include:

1. output of uname -a
2. output of sysctl hw.acpi.thermal
3. output of sysctl dev.cpu
4. output of grep powerd /etc/rc.conf
5. output of sysctl dev.acpi_ibm

It would be good to have output of (#5) from several points under the
load.

Also, please, consider following advice on cleaning up dust and possibly
re-applying the thermal paste given elsewhere in the thread -- on my
2-year old laptop doing both shaved about 3C from the normal operating
temperature.

HTH,

-- 
Alexandre Kovalenko (????????? ?????????)