Thinkpad T60 Heating/Temperature issues

[eismcsquare]

This is my first post here, so please go easy on me guys.

System:

Thinkpad T60
ATI Radeon X1400
Dual Core Intel T2400 1.83GHz
Intel Pro Wireless 3945ABG
Fingerprint Reader (not activated yet on Ubuntu)
Dual partition with XP and Gutsy

Problem: Laptop heating up/hight temperature. Laptop runs hotter on Ubuntu then when it runs on XP. Also, the area of right palm rest (near finger print reader) is hotter than that on left hand side.

Now, its not to the critical point that it shuts down automatically, but after frying my earlier laptop (Dell with Suse) due to probably bad power management, I am a lot more concerned here.

As my battery is dead, currently, system is plugged in all the time.

Here are my sensor temperature (in degree C) [from tpfan]
Sensor 0 57
Sensor 1 38
Sensor 2 38
Sensor 3 78
Sensor 8 43
Sensor 9 52
Sensor 10 51

Fan speed: 3436 rpm

This state is when I am not even running any Compiz effects. This is when all effects are disabled.

I have searched this forum/internet up and down, and have yet to see any solution - hence starting up this thread in hope that somebody knows more now than earlier and has a solution. Or at least somebody else is facing similar problem so that I know its not my setup but some hardware issue.

Here what I want to know first - If this is caused by fingerprint reader, would installed required driver/software for fingerprint reader and then enabling/disabling it would solve the problem? Has anybody done that?

Or that the problem is somewhere else entirely?

Other than this, I am simply loving Ubuntu.

Cheers!

[eismcsquare]

Forgot to highlight earlier.

See Sensor 3? Its reading 78 C. Its in the range of 70 when I start my T60 and hovers around 75 after a while. And that's bothering me a lot. What sensor is it? CPU, HDD?

[cygnine]

To get your cpu temperatures, type the following in a terminal:

cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/*/temperature

By the way, you're not the only one who's seen this heat problem in Ubuntu vs Windows. I also have a Thinkpad T60, with the same OS setup (except I'm running Hardy instead of Gutsy). Anyway, you might want to check out these threads:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=821597
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=813274

I don't think this has anything to do with a fingerprint reader: I don't have one on my Thinkpad, and I have the same problems. And nobody else has been able to pin down their fingerprint reader as causing such a problem.

[dinub1]

This is my first post here, so please go easy on me guys.

System:

Thinkpad T60
ATI Radeon X1400
Dual Core Intel T2400 1.83GHz
Intel Pro Wireless 3945ABG
Fingerprint Reader (not activated yet on Ubuntu)
Dual partition with XP and Gutsy

Problem: Laptop heating up/hight temperature. Laptop runs hotter on Ubuntu then when it runs on XP. Also, the area of right palm rest (near finger print reader) is hotter than that on left hand side.

Now, its not to the critical point that it shuts down automatically, but after frying my earlier laptop (Dell with Suse) due to probably bad power management, I am a lot more concerned here.

As my battery is dead, currently, system is plugged in all the time.

Here are my sensor temperature (in degree C) [from tpfan]
Sensor 0 57
Sensor 1 38
Sensor 2 38
Sensor 3 78
Sensor 8 43
Sensor 9 52
Sensor 10 51

Fan speed: 3436 rpm

This state is when I am not even running any Compiz effects. This is when all effects are disabled.

I have searched this forum/internet up and down, and have yet to see any solution - hence starting up this thread in hope that somebody knows more now than earlier and has a solution. Or at least somebody else is facing similar problem so that I know its not my setup but some hardware issue.

Here what I want to know first - If this is caused by fingerprint reader, would installed required driver/software for fingerprint reader and then enabling/disabling it would solve the problem? Has anybody done that?

Or that the problem is somewhere else entirely?

Other than this, I am simply loving Ubuntu.

Cheers!

Ubuntu has (depending on circumstances and hardware in usage) a power management issue. It may occur randomly.
There is a CPU dynamic power allocation icon near or at the laptop battery icon. That dynamic power allocation usually runs the CPU at full clock speed (full power) when applications demand it, then goes back to lower cycles (lower power or lower cpu speed) when laptop is at idle or when applications are not demanding high power.
Ubuntu has a problem sometimes with that dynamic power allocation.
It makes CPU run at full speed, even when applications do not require that. That causes CPU overheating.

I have seen this type of overheating before and this includes my own laptop (a HP model which is overall excellent). In my case it happened when I upgraded from version 6 to version 7. I did not have problems with my laptop with prior version of Ubuntu as I did not have any issues running MS Windows XP on it. Also not with other Linux distros run from Live CDs and not with Ubuntu itself, same version, also run as a live CD.

I also noticed that same overheating problems did not occur with same version of Ubuntu running on a desktop. So after backing up important data under Ubuntu, I wiped clean the Ubuntu partition and reinstall Ubuntu 7 clean from scratch from a CD.
Instl went without a glitch and since then i do not have overheating problems with Ubuntu. Currently running version 8.04 and it runs good.

So you may just try that. Then copy back files that you backed up onto the Ubuntu partition.

If you do not want to do this, you can try playing with the dynamic allocation power icon. It can be set to 3 positions: power save, dynamic and performance. When set to dynamic it automatically allocated CPU power when needed. But that may have the glitch. You can manually set that icon to powersave mode, lower CPU cycles, that will reduce the clock cycles and therefore the overall temperature, but also reduce the CPU speed. Laptop will work slower, but with less heat. When you need faster speed, crank the icon to performance mode. That will crank the CPU speed to max. and therefore temps will rise. You can play with that on demand. If you are afraid of frying your machine, then put it on power save mode.
See what you get. Good Luck.

[eismcsquare]

Thanks cygnine, dinub1.

At least now I know that CPU temperatures are not that bad.


$ cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/*/temperature
temperature: 51 C
temperature: 50 C

I did check other threads, but they don't answer what is going on. This issue seems to be more common in T60, although not exclusive to them.


dinub1, I could not find that icon anywhere on my desktop. I can go to power history from the "plugged" icon. But then, I don't have a battery at the moment on my laptop anyways.

I will keep looking and post more info if I find any.

Thanks.

[eismcsquare]

Further update - still working on it:

Tried using fan control by following this how-to:
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_control_fan_speed

It seems I can set level to 7, and the fan speed increases to ~3780 rpm. But that is not making any big difference in the temperature.

Also, interesting to note that I can not put fan in "disengaged" mode - within few seconds of setting it, it resets to "auto".

[dinub1]

Thanks cygnine, dinub1.

At least now I know that CPU temperatures are not that bad.


$ cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/*/temperature
temperature: 51 C
temperature: 50 C

I did check other threads, but they don't answer what is going on. This issue seems to be more common in T60, although not exclusive to them.


dinub1, I could not find that icon anywhere on my desktop. I can go to power history from the "plugged" icon. But then, I don't have a battery at the moment on my laptop anyways.

I will keep looking and post more info if I find any.

Thanks.

You are welcome. The icon looks like a yellow diamond and you can find it in the Ubuntu lower panel tray, at your right.... not on the desktop, but on the panel (taskbar). I talk about Kubuntu. It shows if you have battery or not, also on desktops. When you move your mouse over it, it should say something like "CPU mode dynamic". By right clicking on it you can manually change its mode... as I stated, default is the dynamic mode, the other options are power save and performance. In dynamic mode OS should adjust clock speed automatically depending on the programs. If it gets screwed up it may get stuck on Performance mode, then your CPU runs at full cycles and it overheats. In my experience this is only a Ubuntu issue. It does not happen with by example Mint that is a derivative of Ubuntu or other Linux distros. And this happens randomly.

[dvchops]

I am having the same problem. I have a t60 with the 2.16 core 2 duo cpu, and it seems to be running a bit hotter than with gutsy. It is idling around 60-65c, in a room with ambient temperature of ~80 Farenheit. I don't remember it idling that high in gutsy.

The third sensor is your GPU temperature, and like yours mine is around 80c at idle. That number seems high, it worries me. I never monitored it in gutsy, so I don't know if it has changed.

Under the right side of your palm rest is the hard drive, that is probably the cause of the warmth there.

I'll play with power management more when I get a chance. What do people use to monitor temps in windows? I hardly use it anymore, so I have a tough time finding the good apps from the bloatware and spyware.

Dan

[dvchops]

You can also try to lower your cpu temperature with a different dynamic frequency scaling setting. Try this link: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_make_use_of_Dynamic_Frequency_Scaling

I changed my governor to 'conservative' and it tends to stay at the 1ghz more often, I think I lowered the cpu temperature 2-4 degrees celsius from that change. It's down to 58c now.


root@mediator:/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq# cat scaling_governor
ondemand
root@mediator:/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq# echo conservative > ./scaling_governor
root@mediator:/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq# cat scaling_governor
conservative

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6522
Based on this thread I see there is an app called 'radeontool' that may be able to improve the GPU's power consumption in similar radeon GPUs, although our x1400 gpu is some sort of deformed model that crashes when the code is run.

From the same thread I saw that there is an option in aticonfig called '--set-powerstate' that looks like it would be a big help, if it worked for me. Based on the error message my second monitor seems to be the problem, and I'm not about to give that up.

root@mediator:~# aticonfig --set-powerstate=2
Setting the requested power state failed or is not supported yet.
Possible reasons for failure:
- thermal control is in effect
- trying to set the current power state again
Modes unsupported due to bandwidth limitations:
- dual head/big desktop/clone modes
aticonfig: parsing the command-line failed.

I'll keep playing around some other evening, but if I can't get reasonable temps I might just switch back to gutsy. :(

Dan