[ale] Putting an arbitrary process to sleep

[Joseph A. Knapka]

James Kinney wrote:
> 
> How 'bout a cron job? Every minute, test the temp/voltage/etc. If temp is
> high, renice the high cpu offenders to 20 until the temp drops.

Will this reduce CPU load? The processes will still be running, right,
though at low priority?
 
> Of course, if you are having consistent heat problems, you need to address
> the hardware side of the problem with more cooling. The system should be
> able to dissipate all the heat it produces even when under 100% CPU load
> 24x7. The sensors are to warn of temp problems due to cooling system
> failure. Throttling back cpu usage is a rather cludgy way to avoid another
> noisy fan (or three).
> 
> JimK

I totally agree with that. I've tried a couple of things to
get this particular machine to stay cool, and nothing has worked.
First, I applied a thin coat of thermal grease between heatsink and
CPU. No help. Then I installed a slot-mounted fan, but
that didn't help either. The only way I can keep this thing from
overheating is to run it with the case open, but even then
sustained 100% load will trigger the temp alarm occasionally.

The machine in question is an AMD K6-2 400Mhz. My other Linux box
is a K6-2 500Mhz, and it has no problems at all. In both cases
the PS fan and CPU fan are working fine, and these machines have
the same heatsink/fan assembly. If I run a process that
just eats CPU cycles, I can watch the temperatures increase using
lm-sensors. On the 500 they reach about 45C and stabilize. On the
400 they just keep climbing right through 65C. Can anyone suggest
any thing else to try?

Thanks,

-- Joe Knapka
--
To unsubscribe: mail majordomo at ale.org with "unsubscribe ale" in message body.