I found some other threads about this topic, but I couldn't make sense of ACPI and APM.

I have a dell inspiron 8500 running mdk 10.1, with 2.2 Ghz, 512 MB ram. in windows my laptop rarely shut down because of overheating, whereas with linux everytime time i can't get more than 30 minutes without the fans going on full blast, and then eventually the keyboard gets hot and the laptop shuts down without prompt. my current temporary solution is to have a desk-size fan blowing onto my laptop. it's worked so far....

i know the problem has something to do with automatic temperature and cooling, and something with "ACPI"... i have no clue how to start that tool, configure it and use it so it can automatically monitor my fans and control the temperature appropriately.

any ideas? thanks

When you compile a kernel you have some options
Processor type and features / Dell Laptop Support

also

Power Managerment Options
enable the support,
Acpi (fan , cpu, thermal zone etc)
CPU Freq Scaling (ondemand governor, userspace, and your type of processor)

with this configuration you can use the following kind of instructions

cd /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq
cat scaling_min_freq scaling_max_freq
echo scaling_min_freq > scaling_setspeed

Maybe the ondemand handles most of the stuff for you

cd /proc/acpi/thermal_zone
here you might also find temperature info


when this works there are many tools that will handle the speed settings
for you, I prefer to control the speed manually for a laptop, but that is your
own choice when you believe a tools will handle it better for you.

Tlowk

hi!
i have the same problem with a hp pavilion..athlon mobile 2400+ etc..
mdk 10.1 comes with apic options compiled into the kernel,so i can not shut them down on lilo prompt..this means i can only boot with acpi=off(or ht don't rememmber,but on doesn't work)...this means 30min and then laptop shuts down because of overheating.i know i have to recompile the kernel,i intended to do it non the less, but laptop shuts down during compilei find this a bit strange cause i compiled before on this machine without acpi and it never made this kind of problems(i tried with suse 8.2,knoppix hdd install)!
so does anybody have maybe a compiled kernel that i could use until i can compile mine or do i have to get a fan)?
mox

The make proces will ensure that you can continue afterwards , so try to stop
before it shuts down, wait a bit to cool down everything and afterwards type
again make

Tlowk

hey man you are fast
thanx for the info but how am i going to figure out that he's going to shutdown?no acpi means that i don't know where else to look for the temperature readingi can only try 20min,then shutdown wait till it cools and start over agin...is this a good idea?i have a triple boot and one of the handsome three is suse 9.2, acpi and suspend work preatty good after some minor corrections, during a compile acpi shown as high as 85deg adn doesn't shutdown!!!the reason i'm trying mdk is that i got pissed with suse and their own tools for everything,5cd's and still had to download normal devel libraries to compile mplayer!!!...i run mdk at work and it's a bit better...i have a friend pushing me to switch to slack..but...don't know maybe i should try it.are you running it on a laptop?
mox

while sitting at work,doing nothing)(have a problem with a server but don't feel up to it) an idea camewhy not compile a kernel for my laptop on my pc at workfound this posted
http://www.spinics.net/lists/newbies/msg14712.html
and i think i'll give it a go tommorowacctually i'm compiling as i speak but the kernel source is from mdk10 2.6.3...but i think it will work,once i get something from acpi,then i can compile on the laptop
does this make sence?
mox

Compiling on another computer is an option, just don't optimize for that computer.

I only use the standard kernels from www.kernel.org with patches I download myself, but since I'm using slackware that is a normal approach.

Just based on the time should be fine to stop compiling.

I also use slackware for laptop, but I'm not using fancy stuff like hibernation.

Tlowk