Overheating attributed to Freebsd --sysctl variables not
available--
Jud
judmarc at fastmail.fm
Tue Nov 4 16:55:16 PST 2003
On Tue, 4 Nov 2003 19:01:00 -0500, nw1 <network101 at covad.net> wrote:
[snip]
>> "Why mother board vendors release their products with such BIOS
>> settings?
>
> What's the reason? <nothing here>
Not sure if this is what you were asking, but the reason is explained in
the quoted lines just below:
>> Well, there is a reason: There is a possibility to get the system
>> unstable
>> and/or even to hang or crash the system."
[snip]
> What I've understood from this particular posting is this:
> the motherboards used for the AMD Athlon/Duron(s) have a default BIOS
> setting --not
> allowing the processors to go into 'Power Saving Mode' --while intel
> based --default BIOS
> settings: *do allow 'Power Saving Mode' for the processor(s). y/n?
I don't know enough to be able to tell you whether Intel-based mobos are
configured by default to allow a "power saving mode," or if the fact that
Intel CPUs run cooler (I remember reading a memorable description of the
Athlon Thunderbird as a "blowtorch on the head of a pin") means "power
saving mode" never becomes an issue.
> That seems to be just a bit disturbing. If we could for the purposes of
> this paragraph
> alone, suspend the notion of *over heating while idling*... As someone
> stated earlier in
> the thread, what about these cpu's under heavy load within FreeBSD? <--
> in our case,
> without the air-conditioner on;--> will overheat and shutdown I have
> put these cpu's
> under heavy load in a non FreeBSD environment and the hardware refuses
> to break down,
> overheat or shutdown
>
> -- Unsuspend the notion of *over heating while idling*... --
>
> Should we turn our air-conditioner off and set:
> machdep.apm_suspend_delay: 1
> machdep.apm_standby_delay: 1
> and let this dual AMD idle, the machine will overheat and shutdown in a
> matter of hours.
> Once the room is at a tempurature warm enough to make the machine
> shutdown, the only way
> to keep that machine on for more than five (5) to Twenty (20) minutes is
> to turn the
> air-conditioner on and leave it on.
>
>
> Should we turn our air-conditioner off and set:
> machdep.apm_suspend_delay: 0
> machdep.apm_standby_delay: 0
>
> Run a script to loop:
> make buildworld && make buildkernel KERNCONF=<MY_KERN>
> The machine seems to run like a champ without overheating/shutting down.
>
> SUMMARY:
>
> I hear all of what you're saying here, however, if we leave apm out of
> this altogether,
> whether inTel, AMD or any other processor, shouldn't the processor(s),
> dual or not, be
> able to run full-throttle or, idle without overheating/ shutting down?
Yes, but: Let's say for some reason (e.g., heat conducting cement/paste
interface not quite so nicely done on this particular unit) that this unit
runs hot in the first place. I don't know if the Other OS is tuned to the
CPU, or has hooks into low-level functions in the CPU, or the CPU is tuned
by the manufacturer to the Other OS, so that it remains just *this* side
of shutdown with the Other OS, and goes just *that* side of shutdown with
FreeBSD. (We're way beyond my level of knowledge here, so if any of this
really is correct I just got lucky.:)
Jud
More information about the freebsd-questions
mailing list