Consistent Xubuntu computer shutdown issue with Youtube

[Chessgeek2900]

Greetings,

I am brand new to Linux, as in I just downloaded Xubuntu maybe three days ago and actually got it installed two days ago (after a bit of trial and error--the computer I used to download it is a slow 10+ year old Windows XP machine.) After doing the basic software updates through the updater included with the system (including the preconfigured updates) I decided to test the computer's ability to handle videos. Interestingly enough, under Linux this machine plays videos on Youtube at a higher quality--but it also shut itself down at (seemingly) random intervals. I tried testing this in both Firefox and Seamonkey (Firefox's open-source cousin, which I am more familiar with) and had the same results in both. Last night, I finally decided to try not running videos in full-screen mode--and went for about 3 hours with some of the highest quality video I have ever seen on Youtube (at least as good as my newer Windows 7 machine showed, which is significantly better than this computer has ever done before!) and no shutdowns.
However, when I changed to full screen mode, the computer shut itself down during the second or third video. Thinking back, the previous seemingly random shutdowns all occurred on the second, third, or fourth full-screen video I watched on Youtube, never on the smaller version.

Now for my questions:

1) Might these shutdowns be caused by the computer using all of its memory to run the full-screen video? If not, what else might it be?

2) Is there some way to defragment the memory in Linux, or perhaps limit the maximum amount to be used by a single application?


Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

Chessgeek2900

[pqwoerituytrueiwoq]

1. No it is not a ram issue
2. ext4 partitions don't need defraging like ntfs do

I suspect this is a cooling issue, flash is hell on the CPU in linux (try using html5), that old cpu is probably running as hard as it would be if you were running prime95 (CPU stress test) on windows
1. clean out dust bunnies
2. if you still have issues upgrade your cooling solution, be sure to check socket compatibility and clearance, you may be able to get by with modding a side fan onto your case

[whatthefunk]

Yes, I suspect cooling too. Install the package lm-sensors. This is a terminal program so youre going to have to open a terminal to continue. In the terminal, type:

sudo sensors-detect

Answer yes to all the questions. Once it is finished, to see the temperature of your system you can type:

sensors

Run a video or two, run "sensors" and post the output of that here.

[Chessgeek2900]

Good evening.

Where the cooling fan is concerned, perhaps I should have specified this is a laptop with a history of overheating issues (and thus I have a USB-powered fan my mother gave me as a gift.) Strangely enough, the computer did not feel warm when it shut down. I have, however, now enabled html5, and will go try another extended run on Youtube to see if it makes a difference.

As for the package lm-sensors, where would I find it? The closest thing I could find in the Ubuntu software center was Psensors, which seems to be little more than a graphical interface for something more which I do not have.

Thanks for the help, and I'll check back probably in the morning.


Chessgeek2900


EDIT: I just followed the directions for checking the sensors. The results are below.

 avalon@avalon-Satellite-A75:~$ sudo sensors-detect
[sudo] password for avalon: 
# sensors-detect revision 6085 (2012-10-30 18:18:45 +0100)
# System: TOSHIBA Satellite A75 [PSA70U-003002] (laptop)
# Board: TOSHIBA EDW10

This program will help you determine which kernel modules you need
to load to use lm_sensors most effectively. It is generally safe
and recommended to accept the default answers to all questions,
unless you know what you're doing.

Some south bridges, CPUs or memory controllers contain embedded sensors.
Do you want to scan for them? This is totally safe. (YES/no): yes
Module cpuid loaded successfully.
Silicon Integrated Systems SIS5595...                       No
VIA VT82C686 Integrated Sensors...                          No
VIA VT8231 Integrated Sensors...                            No
AMD K8 thermal sensors...                                   No
AMD Family 10h thermal sensors...                           No
AMD Family 11h thermal sensors...                           No
AMD Family 12h and 14h thermal sensors...                   No
AMD Family 15h thermal sensors...                           No
AMD Family 15h power sensors...                             No
Intel digital thermal sensor...                             No
Intel AMB FB-DIMM thermal sensor...                         No
VIA C7 thermal sensor...                                    No
VIA Nano thermal sensor...                                  No

Some Super I/O chips contain embedded sensors. We have to write to
standard I/O ports to probe them. This is usually safe.
Do you want to scan for Super I/O sensors? (YES/no): yes
Probing for Super-I/O at 0x2e/0x2f
Trying family `National Semiconductor/ITE'...               No
Trying family `SMSC'...                                     Yes
Found `SMSC LPC47N217 Super IO'                             
    (no hardware monitoring capabilities)
Probing for Super-I/O at 0x4e/0x4f
Trying family `National Semiconductor/ITE'...               No
Trying family `SMSC'...                                     No
Trying family `VIA/Winbond/Nuvoton/Fintek'...               No
Trying family `ITE'...                                      No

Some hardware monitoring chips are accessible through the ISA I/O ports.
We have to write to arbitrary I/O ports to probe them. This is usually
safe though. Yes, you do have ISA I/O ports even if you do not have any
ISA slots! Do you want to scan the ISA I/O ports? (YES/no): yes
Probing for `National Semiconductor LM78' at 0x290...       No
Probing for `National Semiconductor LM79' at 0x290...       No
Probing for `Winbond W83781D' at 0x290...                   No
Probing for `Winbond W83782D' at 0x290...                   No

Lastly, we can probe the I2C/SMBus adapters for connected hardware
monitoring devices. This is the most risky part, and while it works
reasonably well on most systems, it has been reported to cause trouble
on some systems.
Do you want to probe the I2C/SMBus adapters now? (YES/no): yes
Using driver `i2c-piix4' for device 0000:00:14.0: ATI Technologies Inc ATI SMBus
Module i2c-dev loaded successfully.

Next adapter: Radeon i2c bit bus DVI_DDC (i2c-0)
Do you want to scan it? (yes/NO/selectively): yes

Next adapter: Radeon i2c bit bus VGA_DDC (i2c-1)
Do you want to scan it? (yes/NO/selectively): yes

Next adapter: Radeon i2c bit bus MONID (i2c-2)
Do you want to scan it? (yes/NO/selectively): yes

Next adapter: Radeon i2c bit bus LCD (i2c-3)
Do you want to scan it? (yes/NO/selectively): yes

Next adapter: SMBus PIIX4 adapter at 8060 (i2c-4)
Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): yes
Client found at address 0x51
Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1033'...                     No
Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1034'...                     No
Probing for `SPD EEPROM'...                                 Yes
    (confidence 8, not a hardware monitoring chip)

Sorry, no sensors were detected.
This is relatively common on laptops, where thermal management is
handled by ACPI rather than the OS.
avalon@avalon-Satellite-A75:~$

[monkeybrain20122]

1. No it is not a ram issue
2. ext4 partitions don't need defraging like ntfs do

I suspect this is a cooling issue, flash is hell on the CPU in linux (try using html5), that old cpu is probably running as hard as it would be if you were running prime95 (CPU stress test) on windows
1. clean out dust bunnies
2. if you still have issues upgrade your cooling solution, be sure to check socket compatibility and clearance, you may be able to get by with modding a side fan onto your case

I doubt that html5 would be easier on cpu usage, at least it doesn't seem that way on my machines. flash actually performs a lot better on Youtube because gpu acceleration works on those machines,--but tends to crash on other sites if gpu acceleration is enabled.

Previously I set up lubuntu on a 10 year old XP machine, the optimal solution was Viewtube, a greasemonkey script that plays flash videos with mplayer (need to install gecko-mediaplayer from repo) or totem on popular flash streaming sites such as Youtube, Vimeo, dailymotion etc
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/87011

P.S. flash is problematic even on Windows.

[pqwoerituytrueiwoq]

P.S. flash is problematic even on Windows.

been a while since i used windows, but i don't recall it eating my cpu link it does on linux, figure it has better hardware acceleration support, long story short flash sucks and needs to perish, if you can get the video to play in mplayer DO IT
i attached a script i use to do that, it works on most sites, i have a launcher in my top xfce4-panel for it, i start a flash video and hit pause then click my launcher once it has buffered enough

[whatthefunk]

So, it looks like the program didnt find any sensors, but lets check again. In a terminal, type:

sensors

Paste the output here.

What kind of laptop is it? Can you hear the fans running or feel any air coming out of the vents when its on?

[Chessgeek2900]

Good morning.

Here is the result of typing 'sensors' directly into the terminal:

avalon@avalon-Satellite-A75:~$ sensors
No sensors found!
Make sure you loaded all the kernel drivers you need.
Try sensors-detect to find out which these are.
avalon@avalon-Satellite-A75:~$

This is an Intel Pentium 4 laptop. I have copied the summary generated by System Profiler and Benchmark in below this line.

(begin summary)


-Computer-
Processor : 2x Mobile Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz
Memory : 895MB (380MB used)
Operating System : Ubuntu 13.10
User Name : avalon (Avalon)
Date/Time : Fri 28 Mar 2014 10:24:10 AM CDT
-Display-
Resolution : 1024x768 pixels
OpenGL Renderer : Mesa DRI R200 (RS300 5835) x86/MMX/SSE2 TCL DRI2
X11 Vendor : The X.Org Foundation
-Multimedia-
Audio Adapter : ATIIXP - ATI IXP
Audio Adapter : ATIIXP-MODEM - ATI IXP Modem
-Input Devices-
Lid Switch
Power Button
Power Button
AT Translated Set 2 keyboard
Video Bus
PixArt USB Optical Mouse
PS/2 Mouse
AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint
-Printers-
No printers found
-SCSI Disks-
ATA IC25N060ATMR04-0
TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-R2512


(end summary)

Yes, I can hear the fan running (it sounds VERY loud to me, but then I have pretty sensitive hearing.) However, I cannot feel any real airflow from the vents (there is just a hint, but that's it.) The USB fan, which sits underneath my computer, runs silently, and on its own extended the time before overheating from less than an hour to at least 10 hours.


Oh, wow... I just realized something really weird... This computer has a 2.8 GHz processor, while my much newer Windows 7 machine has a mere 2.3 GHz processor!


Surprisedly,

Chessgeek2900

EDIT: I just tried inputting 'sensors' from the root directory. The only difference between the output from that and the previous output is a shorter path on the input side (in other words, no difference to the output. *laughs at self for being as clear as rusty iron*)

[pqwoerituytrueiwoq]

sounds like it is packed with dust, remove some scews and get some caned air to blast them out
clock speeds are not everything, your old laptop probably only has 1 core, your new laptop has at least 2 cores
also if i showed you my desktops AMD Phenom II 965 CPU clock speed was 4.2GHz and showed you a i5-4670 that was 3.4 GHz (they are both quad cores)
you would think my cpu is better, however the intel cpu is about 25% faster and it sips power while mine gourdes on it, google MHz myth

[Chessgeek2900]

And hello again!

Actually, this is the old laptop. Both computers are dual-core processors. The Windows 7 machine is at most 3 years old, while this one is at least 4 years old (a friend gave it to me when he got a new computer, and I decided I was not going to let this machine die if I could help it!)

I'll see if I can take this thing apart without damaging it and clean it out a bit. I've been a bit reluctant to do that, though, since my other laptop died after I took it apart looking for a different issue (I think I damaged the power supply on that one, but I have no idea how I did it.) That's one nice thing about desktops, they are easier to take apart and put back together properly.

Hmm... I know that the size of your hard disk does not matter if you do not have enough RAM to run your operating system. Is there a similar interaction between the processor speed/number of cores and how much RAM you have? If so, that might explain some of the performance differences between my two laptops. Though where graphics are concerned, I might have to break down and get a new graphics card for this machine (I think it might have been damaged by the computer overheating one time too many. That would certainly explain the display issues in games for which this machine has always met the optimal requirements!)

Gratefully,

Chessgeek2900