loud fan pavilion ze2000

[ito]

On Sun, 2013-12-22 at 16:51 +1100, Ian Smith wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Dec 2013 18:01:35 -0500, ito wrote:
>  > Hello Ian,
>  > 
>  > At 50 through 62C the dev.cpu.0.freq: 1298
>  > 
>  > at 70C , 1135
>  > 
>  > back up to 1298
> 
> Right, 1135 / 1298 ~= .875 = 7/8, so yes that's your 1.3GHz CPU dropping 
> down one step for thermal control.


OK


>  >    dev.cpu.0.freq_levels: 1298/-1 1298/-1 973/-1 811/-1
>  > 649/-1 486/-1 324/-1 162/-1
>  > 
>  >               Also directly below that:
>  > 
>  >    dev.p4tcc.0.freq_settings: 10000/-1 8750/-1 7500/-1 6250/-1   5000/-1
>  > 3750/-1 2500/-1 1250/-1
>  > 
>  > I suppose that is the 8 (freq_levels) you where referring to.  Further I
>  > infer that this -1 means that the BIOS has set them or does set them. 
> 
Yes, but here the -1 indicates for freq_levels that power consumption in 
milliwatts at that freq is unknown, likely the same for p4tcc settings.


Ok.


>  > I set hw.acpi.thermal.tz0._PSV: 70C
>  > 
>  > Trying "find / acpi" to see it work.
>  > 
>  > While doing the above (find) the fan is on but not full out.
> 
> find(1) works disk harder than CPU as a rule, though here that command 
> gets xorg about 70% busy, and keeps going for ages after hitting ^C, as 
> it lists each file on the disk :)  Maybe useful: find / -name "*acpi*"


OK, I will keep that in mind

find / -name "*acpi*"



> From below:
>  > PS, is this the exact command?
>  > "   dd if=/dev/random > of=/dev/null     "
> 
> No, no.  I was careful to be precise, and yes a mistyped dd can be 
> dangerous, and redirected to a file could indeed fill your disk.  
> Fortunately that one doesn't work, invalid filename.  see dd(1).
> 

OK

so "dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/null"



I see: 

if=FILE read from file instead of stdin

/dev/urandom, kernels random number generator

of=FILE write to FILE instead of stdout

/dev/null, data sink
:




>  > I am reluctant to type anything like dd: anything: I'm not really that
>  > confident with the command line.
> 
> Without your redirection it just reads from /dev/random, burning CPU, 
> discarding the output, until you hit ^C .. perfectly safe.
> 

  :>

>  > After setting the PSV value it does not go above 71 when rendering
>  > animation with blender.
> 
> Yeah rendering will busy the CPU (and GPU too) pretty well.  Good, so 
> we know passive cooling works (in case your fan ever really packs up).
> 

The passive cooling seems to work pretty well.  :0

>  > I will try cleaning it again, but I think I remember that I thought
>  > cleaning would fix it before.
> 
> Unless you live in an extraordinarily dust-free environment, this needs 
> doing with some regularity anyway.  I did mine the other day, as summer 
> ambient temperatures over 30C are becoming normal here (happy solstice!)
> 

I did a quick cleaning but did not want to take it apart at the moment.
However, I noticed in the past that a thorough cleaning only helped but
did not solve noise.



> At the temperatures you've quoted, apart from annoying fan noise, it 
> doesn't seem broken to me.  How warm does it run just idling (versus 
> what ambient temperature where you are)?
> 


Yeah, thats the thing this is an old computer and all but it still works
+stock+ more or less.  That is one of the few things that is actually
bothersome, the fan that is. 

I do not have AC but the window is often open, it is winter here.  I
would guess between 60-70 degrees Fahrenheit (15-21C).


>  > I looked at acpi_thermal, have to digest it.
>  > 
>  > Found the source online for freebsd acpi.
> 
> It'll be on your disk if you installed sources.
> 



I did not install the sources, although I did find acpiio.h
in /usr/include/dev/acpica/ so I may try the find command you mentioned
(find -name "*acpi*") and see what else I can find.

And as I mentioned I can find it online.



>  > So I guess that I could adjust the throttling, through the process that
>  > the machine uses to save power??
> 
> I wouldn't worry about that.  Are you not running powerd(8)?  As Kevin 
> Oberman often points out, p4tcc is for thermal control - as we've just 
> exercised - but cpufreq(4), controlled by powerd, is the way to save 
> power when you don't need the CPU running at maximum frequency, which is 
> likely most times.  Running it slower when idle _greatly_ reduces heat.

  Powerd is the first thing that was mentioned on the FreeBSD forums.  I
tried it but possibly did not configure it properly.
  
  It did not seem to fix the fan issue and as I said above the computer
works fine otherwise;  no emergency shut down's or slow downs really to
speak of.

  I don't really work this computer that hard so I am not demanding too
much out of it.  Which is why I thought maybe the 'normal' operation of
the CPU could be curtailed.

-----
-----------/etc/rc.conf----------

----snip-----



powerd_enable="YES"

powerd_flags="-a adp -b min -i 30"


------snip------
-----------------------
------


--I am trying powerd -i 30 to see where it gets me.

> cheers, Ian


Thanks a bunch,

eg