Compaq laptop w/FC6 does emergency shutdown on boot up because of high temperature.
 

Hi...

After a new install of FC6 a Compaq (Turion 64) laptop booted normally. But, after a network PUP (YUM) upgrade yesterday, the laptop does an emergency shut down upon boot up because of high temperatures (128C! - I think we would smell something if that were really true.).

If we boot up with "acpi=off apm=off" added to the command line, the lap top will stay on.

High temperatures has been talked about before - but I can't find a specific answer to these two questions:

1) What is this a problem with? The FC6 linux kernel? Something in the FC6 boot up procedure? And most importantly: Should there be a bug report posted?

2) What is the impact of turning off acpi and apm? Will the fan ever turn on while running linux? Will the processor be in danger of overheating?

...thanks

Hi,

While it's been 2 months since this thread was posted, I feel a need to bump this as I am experiencing the same issue after compiling and installing 2 new kernels - 2.6.18-12 (debian patched) and 2.6.20.4 (from kernel.org). Both of these kernels boot fine using the same .config from 2.6.17 (debian patched) that I'm currently running, but they are showing similar acpi/fan issues the original poster is seeing.

To the OP,
1. If your kernel is 2.6.18 or above, it's the kernel, not the hardware.
2. You'll need one or the other but not both as they are mutually exclusive. That said, with both disabled, you run a very real risk of shorting your cpu's life considerably.

The reason I 'sort of' hijacked this thread is because of the 2 new kernels that I compiled and booted. Both appears to have some sort of race condition which causes the cpu's temps to be pegged above 60C, although 2.6.18 isn't as bad as 2.6.20.4. The 2.6.17 kernel consistently ranges from 40C to 55C but avg around 42C with daily use. With 2.6.18, I get ranges from 43C to 68C. With 2.6.20.4, I get ranges from 45C to 99C, the fan hardly ever comes on. If I reboot, the temp goes down, but unless I run 2.6.17, the temp creeps back upwards and doesn't come back down, especially after the laptop has resumed from suspend.

I've googled around for this and found some nuggets that there are problems with kernels 2.6.18 and above with this issue, but there doesn't seem to be a patch available that solves this problem permanently and reliably across a wide range of hardware and configurations.