Hi,

Please help! :-)

I am having a problem with my laptop overheating (as in it burns my legs when I rest it on them). I am using a MacBookPro1,1 (1.83 GHz, 4 GB RAM, intel dual-core) running OS X, Ubuntu, and Slackware, using rEFIt and grub2 to boot.

Ubuntu Oneiric initially ran very hot but this seemed to be solved by adding the boot parameter "pcie_aspm=force" (as pointed out by phoronix http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=OTYwNA).

Right now, I am trying to get back into Slackware (after a 15 year absence). I am running -current with openbox, using the 2.6.38.7-smp kernel. To give you an idea, I currently have hardly any programmes running, meaning conky, two terminal windows, a text editor, firefox with a couple of tabs (no flash open), and spotify. sensors shows my CPU and GPU temperatures at around 70-75 degrees C. Fan speed is 1700 rpm. The fan can go much faster, and I think SHOULD go faster - up to 6000 rpm in order to cool things down. But I can't seem to make this happen. Any help in understanding the problem or pointing me in the right direction would be hugely appreciated. :-)

I've searched LQ.org for "fan macbook", "fan control overheat", and a bunch of other criteria, but I can't seem to find anything that quite relate let alone works. Maybe I'm searching for the wrong keywords?

I've tried boot parameters "pcie_aspm=force" and "acpi=force". I've tried using modprobe to add applesmc, i2c-dev, lm63, and coretemp. I've tried using pwmconfig (giving me: Manual control mode not supported, skipping hwmon1/device/pwm1. There are no usable PWM outputs). That said, I'm not quite sure how kernel modules work, so maybe I'm doing something wrong there.

My thinking is that either the fan speed is not adjusted as it should be given the temperature, or maybe that the wrong sensor is being used to control things. I was also wondering if maybe the high temperature might be due to the graphics card (it's an old one: ATI Technologies Inc M56P [Radeon Mobility X1600]), since that temperature sensor seems high also (see below). I've done my best to clean out the dust, and as far as I can see there is nothing blocking the fan airflow.

Below I'm attaching some information I thought might be relevant. Please forgive the clumsiness - I'm only just relearning linux.

Many thanks to anyone who can help!
~Tom



output of $ sensors:
****
applesmc-isa-0300
Adapter: ISA adapter
Left side : 2502 RPM (min = 1000 RPM)
Right side : 2505 RPM (min = 1000 RPM)
Ambient: +22.5 C
Enclosure Bottom: +35.8 C
CPU A: +72.8 C
unknown TC0P: +64.0 C
GPU Heatsink: +69.8 C
GPU: +61.5 C
unknown TG0T: +76.2 C
Heatsink A: +45.0 C
Heatsink B: +44.5 C
Memory Controller: +59.5 C
unknown Ts0P: +38.0 C
unknown Ts1P: +37.0 C

lm63-i2c-2-4c
Adapter: Radeon i2c bit bus 0x92
temp1cat /sys/devices/platform/applesmc.768/fan1_input: -6.0 C (high = -6.0 C) ALARM
temp2: +0.0 C (low = +0.0 C, high = +0.0 C) ALARM
(crit = -6.0 C, hyst = -256.0 C) ALARM
****

output of $ cat /sys/devices/platform/applesmc.768/fan1_input:
2357 (as in the current fan speed)

output of $ ls /proc/acpi/:
ac_adapter battery button event wakeup

to show there is no horrible process:
output of $ ps aux --sort cp | tail -n5:
1000 11911 0.5 0.5 147824 12008 tty1 S 01:27 0:16 mousepad
1000 2267 0.7 0.2 64284 4840 tty1 Sl 01:08 0:31 conky -d
root 2158 1.1 0.0 11848 1176 ? Ssl 01:08 0:47 /usr/sbin/pommed
root 2235 2.0 1.9 48912 40240 tty7 Ss+ 01:08 1:21 /usr/bin/X :0 -auth /home/tom57/.serverauth.2217
1000 3476 4.2 1.9 142428 39736 tty1 SLl 01:11 2:45 spotify

output of $ lsmod | grep acpi
acpi_cpufreq 5013 1
freq_table 2047 2 cpufreq_ondemand,acpi_cpufreq
mperf 931 1 acpi_cpufreq
processor 21814 3 acpi_cpufreq

output of $ lsmod |grep coretemp
coretemp 4423 0
hwmon 1073 5 coretemp,lm63,radeon,thermal_sys,applesmc

Try running this as root:

echo 5000 > /sys/devices/platform/applesmc.768/fan1_min

You should hear the fans spin, if not, then your fans are not running.

1 members found this post helpful.

Hi prol,
I tried your suggestion and can hear the fan spin up, so the fans are definitely functional.

I doubt this is relevant, but I tried your suggestion for fan1 and fan2 separately, and though both cause the fan noise to increase, they behave a little differently.
increasing fan1_min causes both fans to speed up. decreasing fan1_min back to 1000 causes them both to slow down gradually.
increasing fan2_min causes just fan2 to speed up. decreasing fan2_min back to 1000 causes fan2 to slow back down very rapidly.

Your suggestion convinces me that the fans are functioning, and I imagine are being controlled by applesmc. So I guess my question then is why does applesmc not tell the fans to kick in earlier? I suppose I could just set a high minimum fan speed, but isn't the idea that the fans should kick in as needed to keep the temperature below a certain threshold? Presumably a high minimum will wear the fans out more quickly...

I've tried to do a little more investigating and I was wondering if the CPU are running too fast at idle. # cpufreq-info tells me that both cores spend >90% of their time at their lowest speed, so I think that's probably ok.
I tried booting back into OS X and indeed the whole things runs much cooler, so I figure it must be something in my linux configuration.
I have been reading elsewhere that some MacBook Pros have multiple GPUs, and that linux can't always use them, but I don't think that's the case with this model (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_R520).
Still stuck... :-)

Thanks for the help! If you or anyone has any further ideas I'd be very grateful.

Cheers,
~Tom

Well, the power management in Mac OS X is waaay better. In OS X my mbp sits at 6W at idle.In Linux after running laptop-mode-tools and installing the proprietary nvidia driver, I can get it to only 9 watts.

Ubuntu has had some mac specific software (mactel ppa) and one of them was macfanctld which is much better at managing the fan. I haven't tried that in Slack, since I've never had heating problems, it does get warm if I compiling some huge program.

Thanks for the pointers, prol. I will try out laptop-mode-tools and (if that doesn't work) macfanctld to see if that helps. Otherwise, I think what I will do is try and run a more bare-boned installation, see if I can get consumption down. Also I came across a script (http://mac.linux.be/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=319) to maybe get the fan to run a little faster when it's hot.
I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks again! :-)