first off, this is some info about my machine:

Dell Inspiron 8500 laptop w/ P4M 2.4GHz
Dual boot Windows XP pro / Slackware 10.0 (kernel version 2.6.9)

i've been searching for a solution to the cpu overheating problem on my machine with a slackware 10.0 installation. basically, the temperature of the cpu (monitored with gkrellm) rises very quickly when i start an application, do a compilation, etc. the temperature is around 65 degrees C (which is NOT a very healthy temp already) after start-up and shoots up to 78 degrees C when i open a few firefox windows. the worst thing is that whenver i compile a fairly large program, the temperature just keeps going up till 90 degrees C, invoking an automatic shutdown. this has been a real big problem because that means i'm unable to install almost anything or upgrade my kernel.

i've tried patching acpi and using cpudynd but they didn't seem to work. i dont think this is a problem with the hardware because things work fine under windows. has anyone had this kind of problems before (especially on a laptop) ? could u guys please share your experience? THANKS A LOT!!!

p.s. i think the fans are working because when temperature increases, there is also increased activity from them as indicated by the noise.

Firstly, can you underclock your CPU in the BIOS ? If so, you might want to see if that helps your overheat problems.

Secondly, this kind of thing may be a gimmick, a few producers make similar products, but you might want to ask some people about a laptop cooler like this http://www.thermaltake.com/coolers/c...004coolpad.htm

thanks for the reply

i tried looking for it, but there doesn't seem to be an underclocking option...the cooling pad in your link looks quite powerful, lol...

Though I heard about the coolpads before and that they work great, this isn't a real solution. There should be some way to throttle your CPU in function of the heath...

For laptops with the 2.6 kernel, there is maybe an interesting feature :

Power management options > CPU Frequency scaling

But your temp in not normal, did you compile your kernel ?
If yes, did you enable acpi ? and if yes, did you enable

Power management options > ACPI >Processor >Thermal Zone ?

Sounds like your heatsink fan isn't turning on. When you start using CPU-intensive applications, the thing starts overheating. It's also possible that the fan is turning on, but is blocked off with dust or something that's preventing air flow. A heatsink is only as good as the air it can push.

That's a BIOS-level thing, not an OS-level thing. And I'm a bit surprised that it isn't on all the time, because the fan is on all the time on my AMD-based laptop. The thing never gets hotter than 65'.

Killerbob, this is not always bios/hardware issue, it happened to me a similar
heat issue (70/80°C, amd XP 2600+) with a kernel patch (sk98lin, ethernet driver)

After I reverted the sources to original, all went well

Thats strange - you might want to check with Intel about the max temp of that CPU.I got a Celeron 2.4 in my laptop and that goes up over 90 degrees a lot.The max is 100 degrees for that CPU.

yeah..i did enable cpu frequency scaling and acpi...

may i ask how you could revert the sources to original?

Do you have cpufrequtils installed? You need this to control the cpufreq module.

Always back-up the sources before apply a kernel patch, you never know
what will happen, even if the patch is reported as successfull by others

Did you enable Thermal Zone ?

yea i did enable it.

did you setup a swap partition?
i had same problems and then i set a swap partition and now it doesn't overheat... (i know it is strange but it worked!)

Owkay, of course this helps! But in a normal (and healthy) situation, one already has a swap partition. In fact, it is very normal if your pc got way to hot in that case, it is because when your memory gets full, your in very deep sh*t (and your cpu as well ).
So to make a long story short, this will very probably not be your problem...

grtz,
elluva