HP Omnibook xe4500 overheats & shuts down under Ubuntu 9.10

[Grakul]

Hi, All

I've been having a problem with an old notebook I got from work. The CPU temperature (queried using acpi -t) starts out low (around 30 degrees), but very quickly heats up as I use it. At around 70 degrees, the machine just powers off. If the machine is cool when I boot it up, and I let it boot all the way (into Mythtv in my case, as I have Mythbuntu 9.10 installed), then leave it alone, it runs for days/weeks without problems... until I try to do anything remotely taxing on the machine, which often causes an immediate power down.

I thought this was just a problem with the notebook, but then I found this bug on launchpad: Aspire 5315-2713 overheats shuts down using Ubuntu 9.10

The people there seem to believe this is a bug in either 9.10, or the kernal used in 9.10. Doing some additional research, I found some old tutorials for controlling the fan speed, involving lsm-sensors and pwmconfig--I've also discovered that these tutorials no longer work in 9.10.

I don't really have the luxury of installing Windows or a previous version of Linux (We have limited bandwidth to download stuff, and besides the machine has a tiny hard drive, so dual booting wouldn't really be an option). I know it's a completely different notebook make and model, but could it actually be a "bug" in the way Ubuntu 9.10 controls the fan speed?

Cheers
Grakul

[Grakul]

Can nobody offer some suggestions about this issue?

The above bug report also intimated that installing updated BIOS firmware helps. I'd love to try this, but on the HP website (http://search.hp.com/query.html?lang...&charset=utf-8), I can only find a Windows installer for the latest BIOS firmware. Anyone know how I can get hold of a Linux one?

Cheers
Graham

[Grakul]

Update: I picked up my shiny new laptop cooling pad yesterday, and it works beautifully! I hammered the notebook with everything I could, and after several hours, the hottest it got was 47 degrees, and no shutdown!