[ale] laptop overheats before install completes

Wed Apr 4 19:23:11 EDT 2012

Actually you want it to spin to clean off all of it. No prob on back
voltage if system is off.
On Apr 4, 2012 4:20 PM, "Brian Mathis" <brian.mathis+ale at betteradmin.com>
wrote:

> Be careful when using a vacuum or canned air.  It will spin the fan
> which turns it into a small generator which could feedback voltage
> into the motherboard.  If possible, use a small straw or something to
> prevent the fan from spinning when you clean it like this.
>
>
> ❧ Brian Mathis
>
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 3:19 PM, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I have set a laptop intake on top of a shop vac hose with the vac running
> > and blasted canned air in the laptop exhaust vent. What came out was a
> cloud
> > of crud that was hung on the fan blades.
> >
> > I have a passive cooling pad that is nothing more than a swivel pad with
> > adjustable "bumps". Good airflow and less than $15.
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 3:12 PM, Ron Frazier (ALE)
> > <atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi Jim,
> >>
> >> Your computer SHOULD be able to run at 100 percent capacity for an
> >> extended period of time without overheating.  I'll second the advice
> >> that Brian Mathis gave to clean the unit.  Here are some details you
> >> want to check.
> >>
> >> a) Make sure the fan is working at all.  It may not be on when the
> >> computer is cool, but should definitely come on when the computer gets
> >> hot.
> >> b) Make sure the fan intake, which is often on the bottom, is not
> >> blocked and that the machine is not sitting on a soft surface, or even a
> >> hard surface with no air gap.
> >> c) Clean any dust out of the fan intake.  I've had these intakes to get
> >> clogged before.  You can put a piece of wedding ribbon or other fine
> >> mesh over the intake to help prevent dust accumulation inside the
> >> machine.  Not too fine though or you'll reduce airflow too much.  Window
> >> screen, however is too course.  You'll have to check this intake
> >> periodically and clean it.
> >> d) Get into the bios and make sure all cooling settings are maxed out,
> >> set the fans to run at 100 % all the time (at least until you solve this
> >> problem).
> >> e) You may wish to get a laptop cooler pad, which has a fan, which blows
> >> air up toward the laptop from the base.  I have a nice unit made by
> >> Cooler Master, for two of my laptops that sit on a desk, that I bought
> >> from Frys.  It has a very large and quiet fan that blows air upward.
> >> Don't get a dirt cheap unit.  They have fans that are rated for less
> >> than a year.  Get a nice unit, like the one I mentioned, with a fan with
> >> BALL BEARINGS and not sleeve bearings.  Note that these don't provide
> >> cooling in reality, just air flow, but that might be what you need.
> >> f) If you open the computer up, look for the heat exchanger, which the
> >> fan blows through, which may be attached to a heat pipe.  Very
> >> carefully, clean dust out of the heat exchanger.  Note, on one of my
> >> machines, it had a little bitty 1" heat exchanger, with all the air
> >> flowing through that.  I found a glob of dust covering 3/4 of it from
> >> the INSIDE.  Once I cleaned that, I found that the PC would stay within
> >> it's thermal limits even under full load.
> >> g) If you remove any heat exchangers or heat pipes, make absolutely sure
> >> that all surfaces have a good thermal contact and seal when you put it
> >> back together.  You may need to add / replace thermal paste as Brian
> >> mentioned.  It only takes a tiny drop.
> >> h) Once you get the OS running, install a temperature monitoring
> >> software package.  This may be hard to get working depending on which
> >> sensors are in the PC and which drivers are in the kernel.  On Windows,
> >> you could use something like SpeedFan.
> >> i) Set the cooling settings in the OS to maximum or active cooling.  I'm
> >> not sure where this is in Ubuntu.  In Windows, it's in the power
> >> settings.  These settings won't necessarily run the fan all the time.
> >> However, if the system starts getting too hot, it will ramp up the fan
> >> prior to throttling the CPU frequency.
> >> j) Find out your CPU's maximum operating temperature.  This can be a
> >> challenge.  Let me know if you need help and I'll dig through some old
> >> bookmarks on the subject  Every CPU is different.  You have to find the
> >> data sheet for your particular model.  All my laptops have Intel chips
> >> and they can take around 100 degrees C.  More modern chips will
> >> generally throttle their speed before shutting down, but only to a
> >> point.  My 4 core AMD chip in my desktop can only take 62 degrees C.  I
> >> had to go to liquid cooling to keep it from overheating under full CPU
> >> load.  GPU temperature is a whole other matter.  Your laptop's cooling
> >> system probably is attached to both the CPU and the GPU.
> >> k) After you get the problem fixed and get your monitoring working, you
> >> may (or may not) want to stress test the system.  If you want to, get
> >> the Prime95 software from here:
> >>      http://www.mersenne.org/     This software is designed to
> >> calculate world record prime numbers that are important to
> >> mathematicians.  However, it is also a great way to stress test the
> >> system since it runs the CPU and memory to the max.  It doesn't do much
> >> with the GPU.  You should be able to run the cpu flat out at 100 percent
> >> without a problem overheating.  However, I wouldn't do this all the time
> >> because it probably shortens the life of the system.  30 minutes to 1
> >> hour for testing should not be a problem.
> >>
> >> Hope this helps.  If you need any assistance and I can help, I'd be glad
> >> to try.
> >>
> >> Sincerely,
> >>
> >> Ron
> >>
> >>
> >> On 4/4/2012 1:22 PM, Jim Philips wrote:
> >> > Just trolling for possible solutions: My laptop has an ATI Radeon
> >> > video card. Unless the Catalyst driver is installed, it quickly starts
> >> > to overheat. I messed up my Ubuntu install, so now I want to
> >> > reinstall. But when I try, about 50% of the files get copied to disk
> >> > and then it slows down and finally shuts off due to overheating. This
> >> > wasn't a problem earlier, but I think with each thermal shutdown, the
> >> > laptop gets a little more susceptible to overheating. Once Catalyst is
> >> > installed, everything works fine. But I can only install Catalyst if I
> >> > complete the install of Ubuntu. Any workarounds anybody can think of?
> >> >
> >> >
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
> >> call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
> >> mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new messages very quickly.)
> >>
> >> Ron Frazier
> >>
> >> 770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
> >> linuxdude AT techstarship.com
> >>
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> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > --
> > James P. Kinney III
> >
> > As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to
> > consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they
> > please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.
> > - 2011 Noam Chomsky
> >
> > http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
> >
> >
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>
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