Thinkpad BBQ Feature

[ignz]

I have a T43p withe FireGL GPU which has a reputation for running a bit on the warm side !

After a few days of trying to figure out a few issues, ran a new install of 11.2 from the KDE Live install. Once finished, let the software management download and install all the extras.

Once completed I tried to re-start the machine & got no response on mouse-clicking the KDE menu button. Then the whole machine locked up - no mouse or kb response.

At this point I realized the palmrest was much hotter than usual so powered off using the power button. Attempting a restart resulted in no storage devices seen so no boot.

Half an hour later the machine had cooled and re-started fine. gkrellm tells me CPU/GPU temps are what I'd expect and no lasting damage seems to have been done.

I did notice at one point during the update that sysconfig was being re-written and am assuming that something during the "update" process killed the acpi processes and caused the fan to not kick in - I wasn't paying that much attention to be sure it wasn't running, and am obviously not too keen to repeat the process to confirm that !

Be interested to know if anyone else has noticed this/is aware of it?

IG

[phocean]

I own a T61 and didn't notice any issue of this kind.

I am not sure that your problem is due to the thinkpad_acpi module, because this one is by default activated without fan control support :

% cat /etc/modprobe.d/50-thinkpad_acpi.conf
options thinkpad_acpi experimental=1 hotkey=0xffffff

If it were set to control the fan, it would have fan_control=1 at the end of the line.

And even if it were activated, you should have set up a userland program, like tpfand, to take control of it.

Plus, at least on the T61, even if this userland program happened to crash, the fan control should switch back to hardware control (= BIOS).

That's why I believe you have another issue.

Maybe a hardware one, or some process crashing and using 100% CPU...

[caf4926]

How does failsafe boot perform?

Check here: ThinkWiki

[ignz]

Thanks for the replies folks.

It looks like this was a one-off. To replicate, it would need the RC1 KDE Live installed, then the default additional software installing (and probably on a warm spring afternoon with the windows closed). The overheat only happened during that "add software" process and once it had been allowed to cool, the machine has been fine. That's why I'm sure it wasn't a rogue process hammering the cpu but that one of those updates tripped out the thermal sensor/fan control causing the BIOS thermal safeguard to kick in and shut everything down.

But as I said, I'm not prepared to try & replicate it !!

IG