When I boot SuSE after a while (maybe 45 minutes to an hour) it shuts down, and the reason why is because it is saying that the temperature for my cpu is too hot. It's reporting that my cpu is at 61* celsius, which is way hot, but this happens in usually less than an hour.

I have XP on my comp as well, and booted in that to see if i got the same issue with the cpu running too hot. Its been on for a few days now and there is no problem.

I'm thinking it has something to do with SuSE because i had mandrake installed before, and never had this problem. Is anyone else getting this with SuSE? Is there something I can do about this? Any help would be appreciated!!

I am using a p4 2.6ghz chip with 800mhz fsb, and im not overclocking it. incase that helps. . . thanks!

Yes, there's something you can do, indeed.

I read a lot about this issue, as I have an athlon and here in Rio a cpu can grow really hot. I already fried a Duron 800 MHz, and I don't wont to go through this again.

There is a very nice howto on this subject, but written for amd's:
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Athlon-Pow...WTO/index.html (I wrote the portuguese translation!!)

From this document, I wrote a script that cools my cpu when in idle. Then, I inserted in the boot process, and the problem is gone.

Maybe you can make some modifications for a Pentium, for the solutions to work. But certainly, this is a good start point.

As far as I could understand this matter, the system can disconnect the cpu when it is not working. This disconnection helps cooling the chip. The problem is that this disconnection rarely comes enabled by default in any system, be it win, linux or else. You have to enable it yourself, or try cooling with hardware (more powerful coolers). Of course, a better cooler can help, but if you enable disconnection, you can decrease temp by 10 C, in some cases.
In win there's Vcool, a cooling software. There's a port for linux and other one for FreeBSD. You can also disconnect the chip by the command line, with the command setpci (the parameters vary according to your hardware).

I don't know why you found these differences between mdk and suse. No idea.

If you find the proper command line hack for your hardware, and if it really works, I can help you insert it in the boot process.

Hope it helps!

install some system monitoring software (like gkrellm) and see if your cpu is constantly being used

run the command top to see what programs could be working out your cpu

even 1 of hour of constant work, though, shouldn't hurt a p4.... what is telling you that the cpu is overheating?

Thanks for the info, guys ill check into your posts.

In regards to the question of what is telling me my cpu is running too hot, what happens is i'll hear my cpu make this clicking sound, and then linux goes through the process of shutting down (send TERM, send KILL, etc.). When it does this and shows everything unmounting and what not, it notes that the reason linux is shutting down is because the cpu is overheating @ 61* C. Thanks again!

I just loaded gkrellm and had it running for a while, cpu usage looks pretty normal. aside from the usage jumps when i open programs and such, it stays around 0 - 4%

I've been looking around the net for temperatures on p4 processors, and it looks like 61* is a little warm, but I shouldn't worry about it until it hits around 72 - 80* C and up.

I've looked in YaST and checked some system files to see if i can find anything on it (i'm pretty new to linux, so i'm not sure exactly where to look). And I can't seem to get any information off of web searching. Is there a way I can just adjust the temperature limit to a higher setting to prevent linux from shutting down?

my last motherboard, kt7a-raid, didn't need any special setup for disconnect. my current shuttle does.
/usr/local/bin# cat cool
setpci -H1 -s 0:0.0 70=86
setpci -H1 -s 0:0.0 95=1e

/usr/local/bin# cat hot
setpci -H1 -s 0:0.0 70=82
setpci -H1 -s 0:0.0 95=1c

i made those 2 files and added cool to my boot script. right now web browing my cpu is at 32.5 C in a 24.4C room. it's an athlon xp running at 1866 mhz. (2200+ rating?)
for a while, i was getting really slow hard drive performance on any raid card i would put in as an extra controller. after a few kernel changes the speed difference is negligable. i don't know why. i would run the hot command to turn off the disconnect, and the highpoint was faster, by a lot. it didn't affect my main via controller's speed.