Whenever I play UT2004 on my laptop, after a good 10 mins or so, the x server shuts down and the screen switches to a terminal telling me that my laptop is shutting down because the processor has reached 80 C. I currently have the powernow k8 option compiled into the 2.6.12.1 kernel, with the scaling set to ondemand.

Also, what is the typical sort of temperature that I should expect/want my processor to be running at?

Details in sig.

My box (Shuttle XPC -*very cramped quarters*-) running a 3GHzP4 peaks out at 44C.

I would suggest that either your temp sensor is faulty or you have a considerable cooling problem.... (@100C you can boil water on top of your machine

cheers

btw, I have heard that DELL has an ongoing overheating issue in their laptops. Perhaps that's your issue [edit... sorry didn't notice the Acer in your specs]

Don't suppose you have any ideas of what I could actually DO about it do you?

You want it running at considerably less than 80 for starters! The auto-shutdown is it's way of saying "Leave me along I need some rest!", a big factor is what surface is the laptop on while you're playing? Playing a game is pretty CPU intensive obviously so I'd guess that it would be running flat chat while playing which wouldn't be doing your cooling any favours.

Try it on a hard flat surface to start with, see if that makes any difference. Install lm_sensors or check the contents of /proc/acpi/thermal_zone and keep regular tabs on how hot it's running under normal load and what the CPU scaling is. Monitoring information like that will give you better background when you're trying to debug problems like this

Right now it's at 51 C with no CPU usage...

I thought that the frequency scaling would solve the problem, as it would reduce the usage of the processor, but this really isn't good. I had no idea it was this bad.

It's on a hard surface, and all of the fans are uncovered.

Yeah, well I'd suggest there is a deeper problem there that needs attention. 51 C is too hot for minimal usage, I don't know anything about laptops so I can't really suggest anything but at least you've uncovered a fuller extent to the problem

Stupid questions: Are the fans working? What frequency is the CPU running at while you're getting 51 degrees idling? Are you brave enough to pull it apart? If so, are the heatsinks set properly?

The fans are working, I dunno what the current frequency is. This is a real pain in the ass, I didn't realise it was that bad. Is there any way of finding out if the temperature monitors are faulty... because if that's the case I can simply set the shut-down temperature to be higher.

Frequency is ~1800 MHz

For what it's worth I had an HP pavilion laptop a couple of years back that would mysteriously shut down on me. Nobody could figure it out. (that was in my pre-penguin days, and I and the computer repair people I showed it to were relying on the standard windows diagnostic tools that told us nothing) Then one day I found out it was a cooling problem causing the cpu to overheat and triggering an auto shutdown. It turns out there was a design flaw in the cooling system that let ungodly amounts of dust accumulate inside the fan vent and the fan wasn't able to get rid of any hot air. After cleaning out the wad of dust in there (and installing slackware ) it has not had any problems. So, are you sure the air duct is clear of dust bunnies and such?

Cheers,
geomatt

I'm gonna take the thing apart and give it a clean etc. I've also got the resident hardware expert (dude who lives above me) around, and he's gonna help me look at the temperature sensors... I'll report back when I'm done.

If you are going to take it apart you may as clean off the old thermal grease between the cpu and heatsink and apply some fresh grease.

I doubt your temp sensors are faulty but I guess it is possible. I'm leaning towards the scaling not working properly, running at 1.8GHz is way too high if you aren't using it for much. I've seen Windows scaling down as low as 400MHz while being used for general web browsing, emails etc.

This is really starting to be a problem now, as I'm doing more and more high-processor usage stuff, and the temperature keeps going through the roof... As far as I can tell the cpu-freq scaling is working with ondemand, but I'm still averaging at around 50 degrees when idling. On the insides it all looks fine. Other than the powernow and acpi and ondemand govener, what am I missing?

It appears to be running at a lower temperature than it does in windows, so I can only assume that the frequency scaling is working. Perhaps I need a governer that doesn't let the processor run away with itself (or maybe the fan's just crap...) Granted that I've never really had any really high cpu usage like compiling or encoding in windows... How much will a conservative governer slow me down/

I'd also check the laptop's battery. Remember hearing about some faulty batteries making it into (name brand) laptops recently, a few even exploded from overcharging.