Hello. I've had this computer for five years and have had MANY different distros on it. I have never been able to figure out how to get the cooling to work in a setting other than passive. The sensors always show the same temp in Linux (this has to be an error) but in Windows the fan speeds up and slows down like a 'normal' computer. It used to be a big project of mine to fix this but then after a while I figured "Meh. 1.6 GHz is fast enough.". I'm thinking now that maybe I should get this computer up to it's full potential. There is nothing in CMOS to set. Any ideas?

Start with providing some info on about that machine:
- which CPU
- which distro
- status of power-saving

I'm new to LQ and had problems with my posting. This is a desktop and accidentally put this in a laptop section.

It is the Intel duo processor (supposed to be 2.66 GHz fast) and right now it's running Fedora but I've had lots of different distros on it with the same results.

I have moved your thread to the hardware section.

You need to be much more specific than that:
- Exact version of the CPU- Version of Fedora - status of power-management

You do know that power management will downclock your CPU when under low/partial load graeyhat?

model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7300 @ 2.66GHz
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7300 @ 2.66GHz
PRETTY_NAME="Fedora 17 (Beefy Miracle)"

bash: cpufreq-info command not found...

Conky says my CPU frequency is 1.60 GHz... oops wait it says 2.67, nope hold on, it's back to 1.60. Yup, passive cooling. Don't think power management is an issue as this is a desktop... then again me thinking that might be the issue. Is there a way to check that?

Install cpufreq-utils and use the cpufreq-info command to determine which powersaving-governor is active. A machine that clocks down on idle is normal and expected behavior, as cascade9 already pointed out.

Thank you both. I think you guys definently put me on the right path



Well first I yum install cpufreq-utils. And then I cpufreq-info and got:

bash: cpufreq-info: command not found...



Then I did some research and found out that, like many other things, Fedora does this one different... but I found this:

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/...governors.html



Then I cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_governors:

conservative userspace powersave ondemand performance



Then I cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor and got:

ondemand



Then I echo 'performance' > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor ;echo 'performance' > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/scaling_governor



To check my work I cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor:

performance



Conky now says 2.67 GHz continuously. I started up a whole bunch of stuff and got my CPU usage up to 99%. I hear the fan changing speeds but it is rather subtle and quiet and I only feel cool air coming out the back. When I hear the fan screaming my name in passionate "THANK YOU DADDY I AM HOT!!!!" then I will consider this thread as solved.



More questions: Is there a monitor (preferably CLI) or conkyrc entry that will show cpu temps in realtime? And when I finally put Debian on this machine, will I be able to easily transfer what I learned from the Fedora platform over to the Debian platform?

Again, Thank you both.

In most cases, using the scaling governor on 'performance' wont make the system any faster.

All it will do is increase power consumption and heat output.

*edit- 'passive cooling' is when you have a cooling system without a fan. If its got a CPU fan, you dont have pasive CPU cooling.

Just for completeness, on modern Intel systems (Sandy-/Ivybridge, Haswell) the ondemand governor does not work as it should, it uses in fact more power and heat as the performance governor, because due to the constant polling the CPU is not able to reach deeper sleep states.

You can use lm-sensors to watch the temperatures, conky also has a variable that shows temperatures (sadly, doesn't work with my AMD CPUs).
Regarding Debian/Fedora, there are quite some differences (as you can see alone with the fact that Fedora doesn't seem to implement cpufreq-utils properly), but basic knowledge should still apply.

>cascade9: 'passive cooling' is when you have a cooling system without a fan. If its got a CPU fan, you dont have pasive CPU cooling.

My A+ certification book says that passive cooling is when the CPU is slowed down when it gets warm rather than increasing the fan speed.



I remember messing with the lm-sensors stuff a while back and only seeing a constant reading of the same temp no matter what (causing me to draw the conclusion that the system really couldn't tell how warm the CPU was). Tonight I'll hop back on the machine and mess with it a little more.

This behavior is in the technical world called throttling, your book must be wrong on this. Passive cooling is indeed cooling without fans.
But there may be a misunderstanding here. Throttling is not what causes your CPU to clock down to a lower speed, it is power-saving. This is a good thing and nothing to be avoided, especially on laptops.

Ok. House is empty, the computer is mine.



Fedora's version of lm-sensors is lm_sensors. When I run sensors I get:

acpitz-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1: +40.0°C (crit = +120.0°C)

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 0: +46.0°C (high = +76.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1: +43.0°C (high = +76.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)



The 'Adapter: Virtual device' has me wondering that perhaps I am missing a driver? If I am not mistaking, ISA adapter is is the power supply but the 'Core 0:' and 'Core 1:' has me confused.



I put in a conkyrc entry 'CPU0: ${hwmon 0 temp 1}' and there is a constant number '40' that does not change.

I guess that the virtual device is a sensor on the motherboard. The two Core values show the actual core temperature of your dual-core machine. These values should also change dependent on CPU load. If you let the machine idle and switch to the ondemand governor you should see the temperature lower than with the performance governor.

Found these which supports TobiSGD's above comment:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/lm_sensors

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-is-it-749701/



I can't quite get my computer to run as hot under Linux as it does under Windows but at least I now know how to adjust the governor and get a more optimum performance out of the machine. That was pretty much my implicit goal so I'm gonna mark this thread as solved. Thank you guys for your help and your fast responses were above and beyond. Long live open-source!