Airris
April 7th, 2010, 05:39 PM
I've put linux onto a few computers now in the course of things, but it's all been desktops until I could clear enough space on my laptop for a WUBI install. And the install went great... until I realized how hot it was getting.
Some poking and installation of lmsensors later, I confirmed : the GPU starts out at 52 C (the same temperature it idles at when I'm booted in Windows), and steadily increases without apparent end. Fan noises are not apparent, and the fan for that graphics card is LOUD, I can tell when it's running. Additionally : this is during very low intensity activity : having a terminal open and midori open for internet.
When it got up to 70 C I decided it was time to shut off and end the experiment. On Windows, the hottest this card will get is around 62, and usually once the fan kicks in, it'll stay at 52-54 C even under high activity (rendering high polygon count 3D scenes in openGL). I've asked a bit about this in chat and read up on similar situations, i think my case is a little different since it looks like the thing isn't just running hotter, it's not trying to cool itself... which poses a large obstacle with trying to use ubuntu on this computer.
A few extra notes :
1) I tried to remove the nvidia drivers to see if the defaults would handle it properly, but I apparently botched that and X won't come up unless I run in low graphics mode, but all the nvidia stuff is removed and the problem still persists, indicating maybe this happens with the default drivers too? (The problem existed before I broke X, so I'm not worrying about that currently, since if I can't fix this I can't have linux on this laptop, so I'm not going to bother trying to fix any other problems besides the main one). <br />
2) Compiz may be helping the thing heat up faster, but unless there's a bug in Compiz that disables fans, I don't think it's the problem (also, stuff is still happening in low graphics mode)
3) Someone posted that temperature sensors report differently in Windows/Linux, which i originally thought might be the problem, but since I got lmsensors sayings starts off at the same temperature as Windows during boot, I think the two operating systems are in agreement about the temperature, it's just running a lot hotter on Ubuntu for some reason.
4) Some software packages have been installed but the only hardware extra installed was the closed source graphics drivers.
5) Any suggestions/experiments to help diagnose this will have to be things I can try in less than 10 minutes time. Since I don't want to turn my graphics card into a brick, I can't have Ubuntu running very long. (I didn't time how long it gets to 70 C, but it's probably in the 10-20 minute range).
6) It's quite possible this particular card isn't well supported, the 2500M is a lot less common then the other cards in the Quadro line, most people that bought this laptop from Dell have 1500's.
Details/Specs:
-Dell Precision M90 Laptop
-Ubuntu 9.10 -Graphics card : Nvidia Quadro FX 2500M
-Problem exists with Nvidia closed source binary version 185, possibly also with default drivers (see above)
Some poking and installation of lmsensors later, I confirmed : the GPU starts out at 52 C (the same temperature it idles at when I'm booted in Windows), and steadily increases without apparent end. Fan noises are not apparent, and the fan for that graphics card is LOUD, I can tell when it's running. Additionally : this is during very low intensity activity : having a terminal open and midori open for internet.
When it got up to 70 C I decided it was time to shut off and end the experiment. On Windows, the hottest this card will get is around 62, and usually once the fan kicks in, it'll stay at 52-54 C even under high activity (rendering high polygon count 3D scenes in openGL). I've asked a bit about this in chat and read up on similar situations, i think my case is a little different since it looks like the thing isn't just running hotter, it's not trying to cool itself... which poses a large obstacle with trying to use ubuntu on this computer.
A few extra notes :
1) I tried to remove the nvidia drivers to see if the defaults would handle it properly, but I apparently botched that and X won't come up unless I run in low graphics mode, but all the nvidia stuff is removed and the problem still persists, indicating maybe this happens with the default drivers too? (The problem existed before I broke X, so I'm not worrying about that currently, since if I can't fix this I can't have linux on this laptop, so I'm not going to bother trying to fix any other problems besides the main one). <br />
2) Compiz may be helping the thing heat up faster, but unless there's a bug in Compiz that disables fans, I don't think it's the problem (also, stuff is still happening in low graphics mode)
3) Someone posted that temperature sensors report differently in Windows/Linux, which i originally thought might be the problem, but since I got lmsensors sayings starts off at the same temperature as Windows during boot, I think the two operating systems are in agreement about the temperature, it's just running a lot hotter on Ubuntu for some reason.
4) Some software packages have been installed but the only hardware extra installed was the closed source graphics drivers.
5) Any suggestions/experiments to help diagnose this will have to be things I can try in less than 10 minutes time. Since I don't want to turn my graphics card into a brick, I can't have Ubuntu running very long. (I didn't time how long it gets to 70 C, but it's probably in the 10-20 minute range).
6) It's quite possible this particular card isn't well supported, the 2500M is a lot less common then the other cards in the Quadro line, most people that bought this laptop from Dell have 1500's.
Details/Specs:
-Dell Precision M90 Laptop
-Ubuntu 9.10 -Graphics card : Nvidia Quadro FX 2500M
-Problem exists with Nvidia closed source binary version 185, possibly also with default drivers (see above)