Ubuntu
nvidia-graphics-drivers-180 package

  1. Bug #280805
  2. Comment #31

Comment 31 for bug 280805

Revision history for this message
Giles Malet (gdmalet+launchpad) wrote :

Having just upgraded to Ubuntu 8.10, I hit this spinning fan problem on a Dell Latitude D630 laptop. The problem appears to have been introduced by the upgrade of the Nvidia driver from version 173 to 177. Graphics is provided by an nVidia Quadro NVS 135M.

Searching for answers I found http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2008/08/18/nvidia-gpu-update-dell-to-offer-warranty-enhancement-to-all-affected-customers-worldwide.aspx - which implicates nVidia.

My BIOS was version A02, so upgraded to the latest (A13). I noticed in the release notes for the previous version (A12) at http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R190175&SystemID=LATITUDE D630&servicetag=&os=WW1&osl=en&deviceid=13457&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=12&catid=1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=1&fileid=261129 (!) that there's this comment:

Fixes/Enhancements
------------------
1. Updated Intel Video BIOS.
2. Updated Nvidia Video BIOS.
3. Enhancement for thermal control.

The BIOS seems to have fixed the problem! I've been watching the system with i8kmon and it seems to be behaving reasonably (with the fan off most of the time).

Hope this information is useful.

gdm