i8kutils

Bug #891175
Comment #2

Comment 2 for bug 891175

Revision history for this message

Adam Porter (alphapapa) wrote on 2012-08-05:

I am having a similar problem, but it's a bit different. When I upgraded from 11.10 Oneiric to 12.04 Precise, I started getting overheating and throttling. I've used Ubuntu on this M1330 since 8.04 Hardy and never had a problem before.

After upgrading, the fan always runs at its lower speed setting. I can force the fan to speed up using i8kfan, but it only lasts for a moment, then it goes back to low speed. This happens even when the GPU is over 95C, when the fans should be running at top speed.

I noticed that if I power off the system and then turn it back on, if the system is still hot, the fan will run at high speed like it's supposed to. But after booting and logging into X and KDE, after the system cools and the fan slows, the fan will never speed up again, even when it should. If I reboot instead of power-cycling, the fan doesn't speed up--only if I power-cycle it while it's still hot.

I thought it must be an NVIDIA driver problem. I've tried different versions, even using Xorg and nvidia-current from Oneiric, but it didn't change anything. I'm even running a 3.0.0 kernel from Oneiric, but that made no difference either.

I even upgraded the BIOS from A12 to A15, but that didn't change anything either.

It's so weird! It's like upgrading to Precise caused the BIOS-level fan control to not work properly anymore, but that makes no sense. I've read claims that the thermal pads/paste in the M1330 degrade and can be replaced, but the problem I'm having is simply that the fan isn't running at the proper speed when the system heats up. If the fan would remain at high speed when the system is hot, it wouldn't overheat and wouldn't throttle the CPU.

The throttling behavior is also strange. There is no single GPU nor CPU temperature that causes the throttling to begin or to end. Sometimes the GPU can reach 100C before it happens, and sometimes it only takes 92C. Sometimes it stops throttling when the GPU hits 87C, other times it waits until it hits 82C. The CPU temps also vary a lot. It's wildly inconsistent. It's as if there's not a computer controlling it, but a moody human.

Perhaps I can use the i8kmon daemon to force the fan to stay at high speed when the temperature is hot by reducing the i8kmon interval to a small enough setting that it will override whatever is causing the fan to slow down again--but that seems like a nasty hack. People were doing that years ago to force the fan to run at lower speeds after the NVIDIA 8400M fiasco, but I think that was made unnecessary by the BIOS and NVIDIA driver updates.

I'm pretty much out of ideas now. I can't figure out why the system won't speed up the fan anymore. I never had any throttling or overheating or low-fan-speed-only problems until a few months ago, after upgrading to Precise.

It seems like now I'm stuck with a laptop that can't handle max CPU usage for any period of time without being throttled down to 800 MHz--which makes the whole system very, very slow. And it used to work fine.

I am having a similar problem, but it's a bit different.  When I upgraded from 11.10 Oneiric to 12.04 Precise, I started getting overheating and throttling.  I've used Ubuntu on this M1330 since 8.04 Hardy and never had a problem before.

After upgrading, the fan always runs at its lower speed setting.  I can force the fan to speed up using i8kfan, but it only lasts for a moment, then it goes back to low speed.  This happens even when the GPU is over 95C, when the fans should be running at top speed.

I noticed that if I power off the system and then turn it back on, if the system is still hot, the fan will run at high speed like it's supposed to.  But after booting and logging into X and KDE, after the system cools and the fan slows, the fan will never speed up again, even when it should.  If I reboot instead of power-cycling, the fan doesn't speed up--only if I power-cycle it while it's still hot.

I thought it must be an NVIDIA driver problem.  I've tried different versions, even using Xorg and nvidia-current from Oneiric, but it didn't change anything.  I'm even running a 3.0.0 kernel from Oneiric, but that made no difference either.

I even upgraded the BIOS from A12 to A15, but that didn't change anything either.

It's so weird!  It's like upgrading to Precise caused the BIOS-level fan control to not work properly anymore, but that makes no sense.  I've read claims that the thermal pads/paste in the M1330 degrade and can be replaced, but the problem I'm having is simply that the fan isn't running at the proper speed when the system heats up.  If the fan would remain at high speed when the system is hot, it wouldn't overheat and wouldn't throttle the CPU.

The throttling behavior is also strange.  There is no single GPU nor CPU temperature that causes the throttling to begin or to end.  Sometimes the GPU can reach 100C before it happens, and sometimes it only takes 92C.  Sometimes it stops throttling when the GPU hits 87C, other times it waits until it hits 82C.  The CPU temps also vary a lot.  It's wildly inconsistent.  It's as if there's not a computer controlling it, but a moody human.

Perhaps I can use the i8kmon daemon to force the fan to stay at high speed when the temperature is hot by reducing the i8kmon interval to a small enough setting that it will override whatever is causing the fan to slow down again--but that seems like a nasty hack.  People were doing that years ago to force the fan to run at lower speeds after the NVIDIA 8400M fiasco, but I think that was made unnecessary by the BIOS and NVIDIA driver updates.

I'm pretty much out of ideas now.  I can't figure out why the system won't speed up the fan anymore.  I never had any throttling or overheating or low-fan-speed-only problems until a few months ago, after upgrading to Precise.