Powerbook/iBook thermal issues?

[Viro]

I've been running Ubuntu Linux solely for a week now on my Powerbook, using it for everything from DVD playing, to writing code, emailing to running my neural network simulations.

One thing that I have come to realize is that the laptop runs much hotter than it did when I was running OS X. The left palm rest (above the hard drive) seems to get really hot. So does the CPU area. Is this normal for laptops running Linux? Or is there something that I need to set?

I've currently got the powernowd daemon running, and my CPU speed is set to half for most of the time until CPU usage goes above 90%. The hard drive also spins down. I hear it spinning up and down, so I know that isn't the problem.

So anyone able to shed any light on why my laptop is running hot? Does anyone else have a similar experience?

[port7]

Yep I get that too, it gets quite hot on the left of the trackpad.

I have an 800Mhz G3

[SunTzu]

I have a 15" G4 powerbook and I've been running ubuntu for for about 2 weeks and it did get real hot once for about an hour and has not done it since. Not sure if thats good or bad. I have done the update and upgrade: (#apt-get update) and (# apt-get upgrade) but I'm not sure if that was the solution to the problem.

[Viro]

Glad to see it's not just me, but it is slightly disconcerting to see my laptop going so hot. Hope it doesn't shorten the lifespan of my laptop.

Now I wonder how to go about fixing it? I don't remember stock Debian ever making my hard drive so hot.

[TekMate]

I have the opposite problem my PowerBook 867mhz runs cool under Linux but runs too hot to touch under Panther.

[Viro]

Have you configured the spindown time of the hard drive? Also, what about the CPU scaling? Is there anything else you did?

[newfontherock]

Hi Viro,

I have similar issues with my iBook G4 933. I'm a little scared to use my iBook with ubuntu because it does get so hot. And the fan (which never makes its presence known in OS X) is very noisy. So I think I'll have to wait for the next release before using ubuntu again.

[jerome bettis]

http://www.targus.com/us/product_images/PA248U_accessories_b.jpg
http://www.targus.com/us/product_details.asp?sku=PA248U


cool to the touch with a 7200 rpm hard drive

[adamw]

I have more difficulties with my laptop getting hot with Mac OS X, but mainly when playing DVDs and doing source code compiles. Of course this is easily fixeable on OS X by setting my processor to "reduced" if I get too worried about the fan spinning up and the overheating. Not sure how to do this yet on Ubuntu, but then again I haven't needed to. My laptop runs a lot cooler and I get roughly 60% more battery life when I run Ubuntu.

[Viro]

I have more difficulties with my laptop getting hot with Mac OS X, but mainly when playing DVDs and doing source code compiles. Of course this is easily fixeable on OS X by setting my processor to "reduced" if I get too worried about the fan spinning up and the overheating. Not sure how to do this yet on Ubuntu, but then again I haven't needed to. My laptop runs a lot cooler and I get roughly 60% more battery life when I run Ubuntu.
That's all well and good. But my laptop runs hotter and I'm very interested to know what settings you have hence the point of this thread ;).

For those who have cool (as in temperature wise :)) laptops, please do a ps -A and post that listing so we can see what services you're running. Also, tell us if you did anything extra like spindown the hard drive, put on CPU throttling, etc. Model of the laptop will be helpful too.

[TekMate]

Mine runs cool this is my output.

tekmate@TiBook:~ $ ps -A
PID TTY TIME CMD
1 ? 00:00:00 init
2 ? 00:00:00 ksoftirqd/0
3 ? 00:00:03 events/0
4 ? 00:00:00 khelper
20 ? 00:00:00 kblockd/0
36 ? 00:00:00 pdflush
37 ? 00:00:00 pdflush
38 ? 00:00:00 kswapd0
39 ? 00:00:00 aio/0
193 ? 00:00:00 kjournald
262 ? 00:00:00 udevd
922 ? 00:00:00 khpsbpkt
1726 ? 00:00:00 khubd
2092 ? 00:00:00 pccardd
2175 ? 00:00:00 knodemgrd_0
2378 ? 00:00:00 portmap
2653 ? 00:00:00 syslogd
2664 ? 00:00:00 klogd
2745 ? 00:00:00 apmd
2769 ? 00:00:03 cupsd
2789 ? 00:00:00 dbus-daemon-1
2793 ? 00:00:03 hald
2813 ? 00:00:00 famd
2827 ? 00:00:00 inetd
2848 ? 00:00:13 pbbuttonsd
2921 ? 00:00:00 cardmgr
2942 ? 00:00:00 eth1
3127 ? 00:00:00 master
3143 ? 00:00:00 qmgr
3193 ? 00:00:00 powernowd
3205 ? 00:00:00 mdadm
3216 ? 00:00:00 atd
3227 ? 00:00:00 cron
3241 ? 00:00:00 gdm
3251 ? 00:00:00 gdm
3276 tty1 00:00:00 getty
3285 tty2 00:00:00 getty
3286 tty3 00:00:00 getty
3287 tty4 00:00:00 getty
3288 tty5 00:00:00 getty
3289 tty6 00:00:00 getty
3381 ? 00:00:00 dhclient3
3452 ? 00:02:19 XFree86
3719 ? 00:00:01 x-session-manag
3765 ? 00:00:00 ssh-agent
3768 ? 00:00:00 dbus-launch
3769 ? 00:00:00 dbus-daemon-1
3771 ? 00:00:03 gconfd-2
3774 ? 00:00:00 gnome-keyring-d
3776 ? 00:00:00 esd
3778 ? 00:00:00 bonobo-activati
3780 ? 00:00:01 gnome-settings-
3790 ? 00:00:01 xscreensaver
3814 ? 00:00:01 gnome-smproxy
3816 ? 00:00:08 metacity
3824 ? 00:00:03 gnome-panel
3826 ? 00:00:03 nautilus
3828 ? 00:00:00 gnome-volume-ma
3834 ? 00:00:02 gnome-cups-icon
3835 ? 00:00:00 gnome-cups-icon
3837 ? 00:00:00 nautilus
3838 ? 00:00:00 nautilus
3841 ? 00:00:00 gnome-vfs-daemo
3842 ? 00:00:00 gnome-vfs-daemo
3843 ? 00:00:00 gnome-vfs-daemo
3847 ? 00:00:00 mapping-daemon
3848 ? 00:00:00 nautilus
3849 ? 00:00:00 nautilus
3850 ? 00:00:00 nautilus
3851 ? 00:00:00 nautilus
3853 ? 00:00:06 wnck-applet
3855 ? 00:00:00 trashapplet
3856 ? 00:00:00 trashapplet
3857 ? 00:00:00 trashapplet
3858 ? 00:00:00 trashapplet
3860 ? 00:00:01 clock-applet
3863 ? 00:00:01 mixer_applet2
3865 ? 00:00:00 battstat-applet
3867 ? 00:00:06 wireless-applet
3869 ? 00:00:00 notification-ar
4353 ? 00:07:32 firefox-bin
4381 ? 00:00:00 firefox-bin
4382 ? 00:00:06 firefox-bin
4386 ? 00:00:04 firefox-bin
5165 ? 00:00:00 pickup
5207 ? 00:00:07 soffice.bin
5232 ? 00:00:00 soffice.bin
5233 ? 00:00:00 soffice.bin
5234 ? 00:00:00 soffice.bin
5235 ? 00:00:00 getstyle-gnome
5236 ? 00:00:00 soffice.bin
5239 ? 00:00:00 soffice.bin
5807 ? 00:00:00 firefox-bin
6316 ? 00:00:00 firefox-bin
6317 ? 00:00:00 firefox-bin
6318 ? 00:00:00 firefox-bin
6319 ? 00:00:00 firefox-bin
6320 ? 00:00:00 firefox-bin
6336 ? 00:00:00 gnome-terminal
6339 ? 00:00:00 gnome-pty-helpe
6340 pts/0 00:00:00 bash
6341 ? 00:00:00 gnome-terminal
6342 ? 00:00:00 gnome-terminal
6347 pts/0 00:00:00 ps

[adamw]

Here it is (1.5 ghz powerbook):
PID TTY TIME CMD
1 ? 00:00:00 init
2 ? 00:00:00 ksoftirqd/0
3 ? 00:00:02 events/0
4 ? 00:00:00 khelper
26 ? 00:00:00 kblockd/0
42 ? 00:00:00 pdflush
43 ? 00:00:00 pdflush
44 ? 00:00:00 kswapd0
45 ? 00:00:00 aio/0
199 ? 00:00:00 kjournald
268 ? 00:00:00 udevd
835 ? 00:00:00 thermostat
918 ? 00:00:00 khpsbpkt
1770 ? 00:00:00 pccardd
1831 ? 00:00:00 khubd
2585 ? 00:00:00 knodemgrd_0
2825 ? 00:00:00 dhclient3
2837 ? 00:00:00 portmap
3150 ? 00:00:00 syslogd
3185 ? 00:00:00 klogd
3247 ? 00:00:00 apmd
3268 ? 00:00:00 battery-stats-c
3276 ? 00:00:00 cpudynd
3282 ? 00:00:00 cupsd
3303 ? 00:00:00 dbus-daemon-1
3307 ? 00:00:00 hald
3326 ? 00:00:00 dictd
3332 ? 00:00:00 distccd
3333 ? 00:00:00 distccd
3372 ? 00:00:00 famd
3406 ? 00:00:00 ikeyd
3419 ? 00:00:00 inetd
3428 ? 00:00:00 distccd
3438 ? 00:00:00 pbbuttonsd
3476 ? 00:00:00 cardmgr
3515 ? 00:00:00 distccd
3578 ? 00:00:00 master
3580 ? 00:00:00 pickup
3581 ? 00:00:00 qmgr
3614 ? 00:00:00 powernowd
3627 ? 00:00:00 rpc.statd
3638 ? 00:00:00 mdadm
3649 ? 00:00:00 cfsd
3654 ? 00:00:00 atd
3667 ? 00:00:00 cron
3690 ? 00:00:00 bacula-sd
3692 ? 00:00:00 bacula-sd
3694 ? 00:00:00 bacula-sd
3706 ? 00:00:00 rpciod
3707 ? 00:00:00 lockd
3710 ? 00:00:00 apache
3717 ? 00:00:00 apache
3718 ? 00:00:00 apache
3719 ? 00:00:00 apache
3720 ? 00:00:00 apache
3721 ? 00:00:00 apache
3722 ? 00:00:00 bacula-fd
3723 ? 00:00:00 bacula-fd
3725 ? 00:00:00 bacula-fd
3731 ? 00:00:00 bacula-dir
3732 ? 00:00:00 bacula-dir
3734 ? 00:00:00 bacula-dir
3735 ? 00:00:00 bacula-dir
3740 ? 00:00:00 gdm
3750 ? 00:00:00 gdm
3763 tty1 00:00:00 getty
3764 tty2 00:00:00 getty
3765 tty3 00:00:00 getty
3766 tty4 00:00:00 getty
3767 tty5 00:00:00 getty
3832 ? 00:00:05 XFree86
3861 tty6 00:00:00 getty
3974 ? 00:00:00 x-session-manag
4020 ? 00:00:00 ssh-agent
4023 ? 00:00:00 dbus-launch
4024 ? 00:00:00 dbus-daemon-1
4026 ? 00:00:01 gconfd-2
4029 ? 00:00:00 gnome-keyring-d
4031 ? 00:00:00 esd
4033 ? 00:00:00 bonobo-activati
4035 ? 00:00:00 gnome-settings-
4045 ? 00:00:00 xscreensaver
4069 ? 00:00:00 gnome-smproxy
4071 ? 00:00:00 metacity
4079 ? 00:00:00 gnome-panel
4081 ? 00:00:00 nautilus
4083 ? 00:00:00 gnome-volume-ma
4089 ? 00:00:00 gnome-cups-icon
4090 ? 00:00:00 nautilus
4091 ? 00:00:00 nautilus
4093 ? 00:00:00 gnome-vfs-daemo
4094 ? 00:00:00 gnome-vfs-daemo
4095 ? 00:00:00 gnome-vfs-daemo
4096 ? 00:00:00 gnome-cups-icon
4102 ? 00:00:00 mapping-daemon
4103 ? 00:00:00 nautilus
4104 ? 00:00:00 nautilus
4105 ? 00:00:00 nautilus
4106 ? 00:00:00 nautilus
4107 ? 00:00:00 nautilus
4109 ? 00:00:00 wnck-applet
4111 ? 00:00:00 mixer_applet2
4113 ? 00:00:00 notification-ar
4115 ? 00:00:00 clock-applet
4119 ? 00:00:01 battstat-applet
4257 ? 00:00:13 epiphany
4261 ? 00:00:00 epiphany
4262 ? 00:00:00 epiphany
4263 ? 00:00:00 epiphany
4297 ? 00:00:00 trivial-rewrite
4323 ? 00:00:00 epiphany
4324 ? 00:00:00 epiphany
4325 ? 00:00:00 epiphany
4338 ? 00:00:00 gnome-terminal
4339 ? 00:00:00 gnome-pty-helpe
4340 pts/0 00:00:00 bash
4341 ? 00:00:00 gnome-terminal
4342 ? 00:00:00 gnome-terminal
4346 ? 00:00:00 gnome-cups-icon
4347 pts/0 00:00:00 ps

[chele]

That's all well and good. But my laptop runs hotter and I'm very interested to know what settings you have hence the point of this thread ;).

For those who have cool (as in temperature wise :)) laptops, please do a ps -A and post that listing so we can see what services you're running. Also, tell us if you did anything extra like spindown the hard drive, put on CPU throttling, etc. Model of the laptop will be helpful too.This one runs hotter then I like. It's a powerbook II, 550MHz, running Hoary, kernel:
~$ uname -a
Linux ti 2.6.10-2-powerpc #1 Thu Jan 27 15:20:15 UTC 2005 ppc GNU/Linux

Looks like at least part of the issue is the fact that powernowd is not running.
~$ powernowd
powernowd: PowerNow Daemon v0.90, (c) 2003-2004 John Clemens
Go away, you are not root. Only root can run me.
~$ sudo powernowd
Password:
powernowd: PowerNow Daemon v0.90, (c) 2003-2004 John Clemens
powernowd: Found 1 cpu:
Couldn't open file: No such file or directory
Couldn't open file: No such file or directory
Couldn't open file: No such file or directory
couldn't open govn's file for writing: No such file or directory
Couldn't get per-cpu data: Illegal seek
PowerNowd encountered and error and could not start.
Please make sure that:
- You are running a v2.5/v2.6 kernel or later
- That you have sysfs mounted /sys
- That you have the core cpufreq and cpufreq-userspace
modules loaded into your kernel
- That you have the cpufreq driver for your cpu loaded,
and that it works. (check dmesg for errors)
If all of the above are true, and you still have problems,
please email the author: clemej@alum.rpi.edu
public@ti:~$ lsmod | grep cpu
cpufreq_userspace 5644 0
cpufreq_ondemand 7964 0
cpufreq_powersave 1984 0
~$ cat /etc/fstab | grep sysfs
~$ So, what is sysfs and how does one use it? And why is it not already configured?

[chele]

So, what is sysfs and how does one use it? And why is it not already configured?Never mind:

:~$ mount | grep sysfs
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)

So sysfs in running, just not listed in fstab.

- That you have the cpufreq driver for your cpu loaded,
and that it works. (check dmesg for errors)

Is that it then? What is the correct cpufreq driver for a G4 PPC?

[Viro]

Those are the right drivers for the G4. Did you do what he suggested (i.e. check error messages in dmesg)?

pgoh@komek:~ $ dmesg | tail


That should give you any errors that powernowd encountered.

[chele]

Those are the right drivers for the G4. Did you do what he suggested (i.e. check error messages in dmesg)?

That should give you any errors that powernowd encountered.I'm not seeing any errors from dmesg related to powernowd or cpufreq. However, on the boot screen there is a note:

* Starting powernowd...
* CPU frequency scaling not supported [ok]

The * before CPU is orange, not red or white. I assume that means it's an information message, rather then something critical?

By the way, there is no /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq file on the system.

[Viro]

What kind of powerbook are you using? AFAIK all G4 processors should support frequency scaling. If you have time, do a "cat /proc/cpuinfo" and show us the output.

[chele]

What kind of powerbook are you using? AFAIK all G4 processors should support frequency scaling. If you have time, do a "cat /proc/cpuinfo" and show us the output.:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
cpu : 7450, altivec supported
clock : 550MHz
revision : 2.1 (pvr 8000 0201)
bogomips : 546.81
machine : PowerBook3,3
motherboard : PowerBook3,3 MacRISC2 MacRISC Power Macintosh
detected as : 72 (PowerBook Titanium II)
pmac flags : 0000000b
L2 cache : 256K unified
memory : 512MB
pmac-generation : NewWorld

Some more searching on the web shows that as recently as kernel 2.6.8 there was no cpufreq support for this cpu :-(

Bugzilla Bug 132422 – Overheat of PowerBook Titanium II due to lake of cpufreq support https://bugzilla.redhat.com/beta/show_bug.cgi?id=132422

An older discussion on debian-powerpc: cpufreq on TiBook II http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2003/07/msg00526.html

And it appears, from my experience here, that the patch listed in the redhat bug report has not made it into the current kernel. Oh, my poor machine....

[Viro]

Try compiling a kernel yourself? :). You gotta do it sometime and this is as good a reason as any.

[mpg]

I have the opposite problem my PowerBook 867mhz runs cool under Linux but runs too hot to touch under Panther.

I have to say that the same happens to me when working under OSX: lately my iBook G4 12 inch started overheating seriously in the left palm rest area. The bottom of the machine is too hot to touch and the fan seems to come on quite rarely and erratically (two days ago it never worked, now it started working after the area became uncomfortably hot).
I ran an extended hardware test and all is fine, and by the way, no overheating while running the tests, and the fan starts and stop at the "corerct" times!
So this would seem to point out that the culprit, at least in my case, is something loaded during startup of OSX.
Alas, after starting I have no processes gobbling up large amounts of CPU times, yet the darn thing keeps overheating! (so it does not seem to come from high CPU or HD activity, either).
This kind of problem moreover is reported in a few other forums (try googling iBook overheating palm ... or hand) not concerned with Linux.
I am not that techinically advanced, and I have no idea if the fan in the iBook is regulated via hardware or software, in this last case, could there be a conflict (i.e. with some "bad" driver) resulting in diminished temperature control capacity? :?

Sorry for not giving a very knowledgeable contribution to the discussion, but I hope that knowing that this is happening in other instances (i.e. under OSX) and under which conditions could be useful to somebody in solving their problem by helping them look in the right place.

Regards,
Marco

[gruepig]

I've also noticed that my iBook (white iBook G3) runs much hotter in Ubuntu (and Debian) than in OS X. As for concrete numbers, hddtemp reports a temperature of 40-45C after about half an hour of fairly light use. Is this within an acceptable range, or should I be concerned?

[Xappe]

I suffer from the same problem. hddtemp gives about 45-50C after half an hour or so, and I hardly ever hear the fans...

would appriciate some help on this issue.

ibook g3 700

[Viro]

I've found a way to get the fans to turn on slightly earlier. It's pretty much a hack and requires you to change some code in the kernel, so unless you're really really concerned about heat, I don't think it's worth bothering.

By default, the CPU fan comes on when the temperature hits 50 C. This has been debated upon in the Debian mailing lists and they seem to have stuck with this value. If you changed the value to 45, like I have, the fans come on sooner and try to bring the temperature down. After doing it, my fans are on most of the time, probably because the CPU doesn't go down much further than 48 C. I guess 50 is alright and there is nothing that can be done about it.

[adamw]

I take back what I said earlier. I think my powerbook runs cooler because the chip runs at 1.5 ghz, and then underclocks to 750 mhz and powers up the fan when it gets hot. Even at 750 mhz it can handle idle processing which allows it to cool down pretty quickly. Using the movie player or doing a build makes it heat up very hot, however.

[solidether]

to keep the machine running on lower noise as used from os x, read the powernowd manual (`man powernowd`) and adjust your local settings in /etc/defaults/powernowd. (for example: OPTIONS="-m 3 -u 95 -l 50 -p 3000 -q")
also have a look at the files in /sys/devices/temperatures/* (they tell you some temperatures and fanspeeds), which are controlled by the module "therm_adt746x" (this is loaded in /etc/modules.conf - check `modinfo therm_adt746x` to adjust some settings, i use 'therm_adt746x limit_adjust=5 fan_speed=32' in /etc/modules).
good luck & noiseless computing,
;-)
solidether

[ast3risk]

okay, so i have read through this thread, and i too am having the same heat problem. Currently my fan runs nonstop with ubuntu and it has never done that in OSX. I am running an ibook g4 1ghz i think. anyway, what are my option?

change the powernowd settings
compile my own kernel?

im just trying to get a sense of what I am going to do. this is such a problem, that I am thinking of waiting till my next computer to go to ubuntu. i had a 1gig thinkpad, and ubuntu ran perfectly, no wireless problems, no mousefreeze after suspend, etc. has support for ppc in ubuntu gone down or waht?

[Netsensei]

I was wondering wether or not this problem has been solved.

I have an iBook G4 1,2Ghz with a 60Gb disk and 768Mb DDR ram

This week, I installed ubuntu edgy (6.10) on my machine in dual boot with OSX 10.4. Apart from the annoying bugs that plague suspend and sleep function, I noticed that my machine gets hot. I'm not even doing anything: it just shows the desktop. When I bother to do anything, either surfing, mailing or some other common desktop work, it *really* gets hot. And I'm not even trying to consider installing beryl or those other nice 3D desktop thingies...

I checked my temps with hddtemp and /sys/devices/temperatures:

- My hard disk runs at 40C going up to 45C when I'm using apt or something. The disk is located, I believe, in the lower left corner of the ibook so that explains why that area is getting so hot.
- CPU/GPU temperatures go up to between 53C and 55C.

Powernowd daemon is working out of the box together with the term_adx modules to control the fans. Which, by the way, really start spinning very loudly. I could turn them down, but i'd rather have noisy iBook then a fried iBook.

Either way, it just gets very hot very quickly. When I reboot back in OSX, my iBook cools down quite quickly. No problems in OSX.

Apart from the obvious suspend bugs, a very hot iBook is holding me completly from switching to linux on my iBook. It's a shame because ubuntu looks great and has a lot of software that can be very easily installed. Unlike OSX.

Can someone please give me pointers here? Is this going to be fixed in Feisty? Is this a kernel issue that needs fixing?