Overheating problem

[emotional1]

This overheating problem is not specific to PC-BSD it happens no matter what OS I run. I am curious if it is possible to make my fan stay on constantly through the Operating System? I am willing to try anything as I have not found any solutions to this problem so far. It is a Gateway 450sx-4 Pentium 4 mobile 1.6 GHZ 256mb ram ATI mobility. Any possible solutions are welcome otherwise I will use this thing until it melts-literally.

Thanks in advance,

Eric W. :roll:

[unix_Hussi]

This overheating problem is not specific to PC-BSD it happens no matter what OS I run. I am curious if it is possible to make my fan stay on constantly through the Operating System? I am willing to try anything as I have not found any solutions to this problem so far. It is a Gateway 450sx-4 Pentium 4 mobile 1.6 GHZ 256mb ram ATI mobility. Any possible solutions are welcome otherwise I will use this thing until it melts-literally.

Thanks in advance,

Eric W. :roll:

How hot dose it get?anyway,try messing with the BIOS to see if it allows tweaking the fan,my BIOS setup allows me to do that...How old is your laptop?Just curious...anyway,I hope you figure out the problem...Bye...

[antik]

This overheating problem is not specific to PC-BSD it happens no matter what OS I run. I am curious if it is possible to make my fan stay on constantly through the Operating System? I am willing to try anything as I have not found any solutions to this problem so far. It is a Gateway 450sx-4 Pentium 4 mobile 1.6 GHZ 256mb ram ATI mobility. Any possible solutions are welcome otherwise I will use this thing until it melts-literally.

Thanks in advance,

Eric W. :roll:
Try this:

/boot/loader.conf:
cpufreq_load="YES"
acpi_video_load="YES"
/etc/rc.conf:
powerd_enable="YES"
powerd_flags="-a adaptive -b adaptive"
switch -a is for AC connented and -b is for battery powered mode.

[pcbsdusr]

what hardware do you have by the way?

[emotional1]

My laptop is a Gateway 450sx-4 that I bought refurbished. The fan kicks on when it reaches a certain temp which is way too hot-60C+. I have noticed that it takes longer for it to heat up while using PC-BSD, does Unix handle the system resources beter than Linux? By that I mean, major packaged distros. I am an electrician and finish carpenter who owns a small company- or maybe it owns me-not really sure. Anyway, I got my first computer August 1999 that had Windows 98se, I determined that Windows is broken, didn't take long. I decided not to waste anymore time trying to learn how to keep it secure so I started with Lindows(now Linspire). Since I have moved to Fedora Core 3, 4, 5, and then to Simply Mepis. I always wanted to try Unix, feeling it was the next logical step in progression. I basically use my computer for internet, e-mail, watching DVD's and school-I'm working on an Associates degree at a community college with hopes to transfer into a University. I would like to continue to use this laptop and will either way until it no longer functions. I really appreciate all of the help offered so far, I am not afraid to edit text files; I just have a very limited frame of reference for doing this kind of thing. I have absolutely no fear of trying and failing. I have very little to offer in the way of computer expertise except for the computers I build Http://my.opera.com/emotional1/albums (computer anomalies) and will share experience rebuilding a home. I have no problem taking time to help when asked. Thanks again for your welcome and help it is very refreshing to be a part of this community. I will try adding the text to the appropriate files and post back the results.

Eric W.

[emotional1]

I added the lines of code to /boot/loader.conf and /etc/rc.conf

What was supposed to happen? It did seem as though the computer was not heating up as fast, but I have had a long day. Any other information I might share to see if this helped? I will enjoy PC-BSD until the computer melts or I find a solution.

Thank you for all your help so far,

Eric W. :?:

[antik]

I added the lines of code to /boot/loader.conf and /etc/rc.conf

What was supposed to happen? It did seem as though the computer was not heating up as fast, but I have had a long day. Any other information I might share to see if this helped? I will enjoy PC-BSD until the computer melts or I find a solution.

Thank you for all your help so far,

Eric W. :?:

sysctl hw.acpi.thermal
it shows your computer temperature
sysctl dev.cpu
here you can see processor dynamic speed

[Apatewna]

Since I am a hardware guy, can you spot the grids where the hot air is coming out of the laptop? I have occasionally solved overheating problems with laptops, by just instructing users not to block these grids. Also, keeping the fans turning at max speed all the time will damage your nerves - guaranteed.

You should be able to spot the most heat-generating areas. There are usually two: CPU and Hard-disk. I also remember an issue of hard-disk failing due to excessive heat on a Compaq laptop. Once the user tilted the laptop to allow better air flow from the environment, things went back to normal.

Sometimes it helps if the laptop has some "feet" to elevate its position from the table, thus allowing air to flow below the laptop.

Some laptop manufacturers also think that loading the system with air vents and fans will solve the problem of overheating, but man is the decisive factor again. Post back your results!

[emotional1]

I took the laptop apart and cleaned the thermal grease, re-applied with non-silicon eat transfer thermal grease and have the same result. I will be buying a new fan assembly for $79 and hope that it will last me a few more years. Currently, I installed PC-BSD on a WIndBook XL2 300mhz pentium with 128 mb ram-I think. It appears to be working fine as I am writing this post using the MN-520 wireless. I really, really, really appreciate the patience and the responses from this forum. Some of the Linux community forums were not as forgiving to someone with my limited background. I love to learn more about Unix/Linux, in my spare time which is sparse at best. I also really value being able to use perfectly good machines that no longer support the latest and greatest from Redmond. I have a favor to ask, what is the default shell for PC-BSD? I would like to learn more about the command-line. I have noticed that the documentation for Linux command line shells didn't always apply to the shell that was used in a particular distro. I would like to know which is the default and where a thorough beginner's manual might be located. What I mean by beginner is that I am primarily stuck with a gui interface and would like to start to change that. Any links or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Eric W. :D

[dracheflieger]

csh or tcsh as answered by antik just after you asked, her:
http://forums.pcbsd.org/viewtopic.php?p=28389#28389

[emotional1]

I want to learn the default PC-BSD shell commands and am not sure what the default shell is, is it Konsole? Whatever it is I'm just looking for a beginner's tutorial on the commands for the default shell for PC-BSD (Unix)--it is Unix right?

This is not a joke post, I am sincere as I do not want to be forced to have to use a gui forever.

Eric W. :?:

[antik]

I want to learn the default PC-BSD shell commands and am not sure what the default shell is, is it Konsole? Whatever it is I'm just looking for a beginner's tutorial on the commands for the default shell for PC-BSD (Unix)--it is Unix right?

This is not a joke post, I am sincere as I do not want to be forced to have to use a gui forever.

Eric W. :?:

PC-BSD/FreeBSD default shell is csh/tcsh (http://www.tcsh.org/).
version tcsh 6.14.00 (Astron) 2005-03-25 (i386-intel-FreeBSD) options wide,nls,dl,al,kan,rh,color,filec

tcsh man page (http://www.tcsh.org/tcsh.html/top.html).

[Apatewna]

I took the laptop apart and cleaned the thermal grease, re-applied with non-silicon eat transfer thermal grease and have the same result. I will be buying a new fan assembly for $79 and hope that it will last me a few more years.

After my latest experience with an AMD Athlon XP 2600 and a motherboard that overfeeds the processor with voltage, I would only recommend using Arctic Silver thermal paste or any equivalent.

[TerryP]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unix_programs

Can be helpful

[HealingLight]

I bet the system is overclocked. I would never ever buy refurbished computers. It is common for some computer resellers to overclock the cpu. I would open the case and find out what the true rating speed is then check what it says during boot up. Secondly it can be a bad motherboard probably been over clocked before or nearly fried. In my past i was stupid enough to over clock. This is what windows users do. I know very dumb! Oh it could be the cpu fan is no longer working check the bios and see if tells you the rotation speed of your cpu fan or open the case.

I hope you learned your lesson don't buy refurbished computers.

If it's too good to be true then run the other way especially when it pertains to hardware!

[Arabian]

Hello,

Please update your BIOS to the latest one as the first step to fix the problem.

Then in Konsole type

sysctl hw.acpi

Then put the output be here, it should be helpful to know your system acpi output to adjust it if possible, if your laptop has the latest bios already, also post your sysctl hw.acpi