Hello...

I have a Compaq Presario 710US, and it's REALLY hot and noisy. Windows used to control that with the whole ACPI/power management thing, but now that I've installed Mandrake (10.1 official), the fan stays at full speed and the bottom gets painfully hot, even when nothing is running. I looked around for help and finally found out that LILO could be configured to start ACPI at boot. So I did that, and when I restarted the computer... it froze on a black screen right after the countdown finished. This isn't the first time something like this has happened; Knoppix 3.7 (kernel version 2.4.something) and Damn Small Linux both did the exact same thing, unless I specified something like "knoppix acpi=off" (can't remember the exact command) or booted into the 2.6 kernel (which is what Mandrake 10.1 uses)! Can anyone help me? (I'm pretty new to Linux, so go easy on me, please...?)

(I sent an almost identical message to mandrakeexpert.com, but have no clue when they'll get back to me.)

It's really hot and noisey, because Linux is on it? If the fan is running overtime, it should be cooler than normal, and noise is a mechanical problem, not an OS one. That said, acpi is a pain (newer kernels are better, but even Windows chokes on acpi at times). For an interim solution, you can probably try apm, but it's not very good for laptops. The acpi problem usually isn't that big of a deal to fix, but it's highly dependant on certain setups, so it's difficult to solve without experience with that particular hardware combination.

No matter how much the fan runs, it stays hot.

You're right that the noise is a mechanical problem... the thing is that Windows could manage it, so sometimes the fan didn't have to run, and then there wouldn't be noise.

Oh well.

(sigh)

Thanks for taking the time to help, though; I really appreciate it.

But now I've got another question - does anyone out there know where to download Mandrake 9.1? That torrent on levien.com doesn't work. (There's an article in the tutorials about someone who got everything, including ACPI, to work on a 710US under 9.1.)

Here's an offhanded thought: Are you sure your notebook uses ACPI?

Yeah, it always said that in the Device Manager. "ACPI-Compliant PC," "ACPI-Compliant Lid," and lots of other stuff.

You might want to look into cpu frequency sacaling too. If your processor is running flat out all the time then it will run hot. There are several cpu freq scaling modules or daemons, but the one I found easiest was 'ondemand'. I think you need 2.6.10 kernel for it though, so if you are up for a kernel compile, just select that and it automagically sets your cpu to lowest frequency needed for current usage. type 'cat /proc/cpuinfo' to see what yours is running at. If someone got acpi running good with mandrake 9.1 then you should be able to get it to run with 10.1. I would definately not suggest going backward with distros unless you really have to.
o.k just looking at the specs for your laptop it says it uses powernow, which means your cpu can be scaled, so it would definately be worth looking at. There is a powernow module for your cpu in the 2.6.10 kernel that will let you do frequency scaling. Dunno if its in earlier kernels, but you may even have the module already. Just a matter of setting it up.
have fun.

Hey!

THAT sounds like a good idea.

I have a presario 720EA (same series as yours), and ACPI runs very fine. I am using kernel 2.6.9, CPU throtlling is nicely managed.
I use sysfs, with this you should be able to control fan throttling and CPU scalling.

I have installed the powernowd daemon that allows automatic cpu control by process usage, and this seems to be usefull.

you need powernowd so the cpu will downclock when idling
mine idles at 600Mhz

"I use sysfs"

"You need powernowd"

I really appreciate the help, but WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

How do I use sysfs or powernowd or cpufreq or any of that stuff?

(I'm now using Mandriva 2005 LE, by the way.)

And another thing - I need help allocating shared video memory (KDE runs kind of slow), can anyone help me?

Thanks.

They say LE 2005 has built-in support for ACPI and CPU throttling and stuff too. I enabled ACPI and it runs okay, but I just can't figure out how to get CPU throttling to work.

http://www.deater.net/john/powernowd.html

I was browsing around for a solution to my cpu throttling problems, and came across the suggestion for powernowd, you can download it from the site, as I'm doing right now.