How to improve heat-dissipation/power management in openSUSE 11.4?

English Hardware
1

Since updating to 11.4 KDE from 11.3 KDE my CPU core temps have increased. Under 11.3 my desktop computer ran from 37 C to 39 C and sometimes 40 C usually now under 11.4 I am running 42 C to 44 C and up to 49 C at times. How can I reduce the heat without reducing performance? I get up to the third billing tier here during the summer trying to keep cool and that’s $0.30 a Kwh. Cool being a relative 78 F to 84 F. I’d like to minimize the heat coming out of this machine which is an AMD 995 3.2GHz 4 core processor. AMD Cool and Quiet is turned on in BIOS and the processor is stepping. The machine is on 24 hours a day and Has 6 WD Caviar Green drives that run pretty cool. The Nvidia kernel modules are installed and working. The case has two intake and two outlet fans and plenty of air is moving through the machine.

Any tips and pointers appreciated.

2 
                 Since updating to 11.4 KDE from 11.3 KDE my CPU core temps have  increased. Under 11.3 my desktop computer ran from 37 C to 39 C and  sometimes 40 C usually now under 11.4 I am running 42 C to 44 C and up  to 49 C at times. How can I reduce the heat without reducing  performance? I get up to the third billing tier here during the summer  trying to keep cool and that's $0.30 a Kwh. Cool being a relative 78 F  to 84 F. I'd like to minimize the heat coming out of this machine which  is an AMD 995 3.2GHz 4 core processor. AMD Cool and Quiet is turned on  in BIOS and the processor is stepping. The machine is on 24 hours a day  and Has 6 WD Caviar Green drives that run pretty cool. The Nvidia kernel  modules are installed and working. The case has two intake and two  outlet fans and plenty of air is moving through the machine.

Any tips and pointers appreciated.

                                                                                  So in KDE 4.6, it no longer controls CPU speed and thus does not try to control the heat it creates.  There are several modes to look at.  Here is the YaST method to control the CPU...

YaST Power Management - Control Your CPU Energy Usage How To & FAQ - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

Here is another way using the cpufrequtils to do the same thing:

C.F.U. - CPU Frequency Utilitiy - Version 1.10 - For use with the cpufrequtils package - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

Here is another good suggestions from vodoo:

Just saw a great suggestion for a new utility to control power from vodoo. The name of the program is called powertop. It is not installed by default and it is intended for Intel CPU based systems. To install powertop open a terminal session and type in:

sudo zypper install powertop

Enter the root user password and allow the utility to load. To use, open a terminal session and type in:

sudo powertop

Suggestions you can make will be displayed while you watch. It is a very nice utility. To see more on command line options enter the terminal command:

man powertop

for more information. Powertop is most useful with our fellow laptop users, but anyone using Intel can give it a try. Thanks vodoo for your suggestion.

As far as I know, if you run your CPU flat out, it will get as hot as it can. As was pointed out by oldcpu, there are some regressions in the kernel said to cause power usage and thus heat to go up. If you have not done so, you must read oldcpu’s blog on the subject here:

GNU/Linux and openSUSE power management regressions - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

Now I very well know about getting hot outside. We have had the HOTTEST SUMMER on record here in Austin Texas. We just had our first rain at my house in 13 weeks and it was only .5 inches of rain and we are down some 32 inches of rain at the moment. We have had over 90 days with temperatures above 100 degrees F with the average high being 103 (for the days above 100). 30 days were 105 or higher with a top of 112 degrees. It has been so hot I turn off all electronics during the day, not to save energy, but so it will not be above 80 degrees when I use my computer at night inside. Day after day I went to bed only to see the present temp still at 95 degrees F outside. Now this is not supposed to be Las Vegas here in Austin, but I think we were trying to match them this year. And, I just read an article that indicated this could go on another eight or nine years, until everything here is dead.

Now, your computer is not so hot is it?

Thank You,

3

James I am trying the first method using the yast2 power management route suggested first. I selected “balanced low latency” and we will see (a) if it has any effect. (b) I understood the instructions for setting up and actually got the service started. :expressionless:

4

jdmcdaniel3 wrote:

> Now I very well know about getting hot outside. We have had the
> HOTTEST SUMMER on record here in Austin Texas. We just had our first
> rain at my house in 13 weeks and it was only .5 inches of rain and we
> are down some 32 inches of rain at the moment. We have had over 90 days
> with temperatures above 100 degrees F with the average high being 103
> (for the days above 100). 30 days were 105 or higher with a top of 112
> degrees. It has been so hot I turn off all electronics during the day,
> not to save energy, but so it will not be above 80 degrees when I use my
> computer at night inside. Day after day I went to bed only to see the
> present temp still at 95 degrees F outside. Now this is not supposed to
> be Las Vegas here in Austin, but I think we were trying to match them
> this year. And, I just read an article that indicated this could go on
> another eight or nine years, until everything here is dead.
>
> Now, your computer is not so hot is it?

AH, the memories of Austin in the early 50’s! Sounds like history is
repeating itself - again.

James, I know it’s old fashioned and all that but the quaint old swamp
cooler offers an effective - and cheap - alternative to those extremes. It
may not chill you to 70 degrees (my wife insists on icycles in the summer)
but 4-6000 CFM air exchange rates work wonders.

Now go read some history. When that spell broke in '56, we had a lake from
New Mexico as far east as San Angelo for a while.

–
WHonea

5

AH, the memories of Austin in the early 50’s! Sounds like history is
repeating itself - again.

James, I know it’s old fashioned and all that but the quaint old swamp
cooler offers an effective - and cheap - alternative to those extremes. It
may not chill you to 70 degrees (my wife insists on icycles in the summer)
but 4-6000 CFM air exchange rates work wonders.

Now go read some history. When that spell broke in '56, we had a lake from
New Mexico as far east as San Angelo for a while.

–
WHonea

So I have been told of those old stories but I was hoping to not relive the past. And, as stated before, we have now broken all recorded records since they were being kept. 1956 has nothing on 2011. Though its hard to celibate such a thing.

Thank You,

6

I am about ready to pay someone to repot my CPU. I tried the route of adding

pcie_aspm=force

to my menu.lst. The CPU temp immediately shot up into the mid 50 C range. The power management controls I added to YAST don’t seem to do much. I am going to have to get my manual out and look at my BIOS settings and see if I can do something there.

I AM doing a lot on this machine I have lots of stuff open and 8 desktops the higher temps I am seeing may just be something I have to live with.

James to clarify. This is not the machine I have locked to 3.2 GHz. That is not a Linux machine. It’s a 6 core Phenom II running Windows 7 it it runs in the 33 c to 35 C range usually.

7

I am about ready to pay someone to repot my CPU. I tried the route of adding
pcie_aspm=force
to my menu.lst. The CPU temp immediately shot up into the mid 50 C range. The power management controls I added to YAST don’t seem to do much. I am going to have to get my manual out and look at my BIOS settings and see if I can do something there.

I AM doing a lot on this machine I have lots of stuff open and 8 desktops the higher temps I am seeing may just be something I have to live with.

James to clarify. This is not the machine I have locked to 3.2 GHz. That is not a Linux machine. It’s a 6 core Phenom II running Windows 7 it it runs in the 33 c to 35 C range usually.

Well, besides the links I have posted already, about the only other thing to do is to blow out the CPU heat Sink, the Video Card Heat Sink and the Power Supply. On Laptops, the best you should do is to blow out all of the vents, But on a desktop, its time to pull the cover and leave no heat sink unblown. I use the cans of duster spray, but dry compressed air below 20 psi will work just fine as well.

Thank You,

8

It’s clean I do that every two weeks. It’s visually inspected to make sure none of the vanes are clogged too. Fanless video card so it’s just dusted. I changed one BIOS setting but I don’t think it’s going to do much as it only effects what the computer does when it’s sleeping and this thing never sleeps. Right now it’s running 51 C and it’s 76 F in here. I have a java app that is using LOTS of CPU on a few cores right now.

I may just be over worried about this the machine will shut down if the temp gets to high.

9

It’s clean I do that every two weeks. It’s visually inspected to make sure none of the vanes are clogged too. Fanless video card so it’s just dusted. I changed one BIOS setting but I don’t think it’s going to do much as it only effects what the computer does when it’s sleeping and this thing never sleeps. Right now it’s running 51 C and it’s 76 F in here. I have a java app that is using LOTS of CPU on a few cores right now.

I may just be over worried about this the machine will shut down if the temp gets to high.

So cleaning every two weeks is way more often than I do it. Two or three times a year is more like it and often when I change out some computer part for some reason. I suggest that you need to inspect all fans and make sure they are running. Keep the side panel open and look within (for desktops). Shine a flashlight into each fan and make sure it is running. Besides going bad, sometimes they just get unplugged. Finally, if there are any fan slots left without a fan, it may be time for an added case fan of some sort. And, on my PC, I went out and got a new Corsair Hydra water cooler for my CPU. It brought the CPU temp down under load and the kit was under $50 US, they seem to have numerous kits and I just got a single fan radiator type. On my main PC I have two front fans, one top fan, one side fan and two back fans, if you count the power supply fan. And I have the fan on the video card and the water cooler fan on the CPU. It sounds like a lot, but the custom tower case was only $100 with four fans included, power supply was $80 with fan and the CPU cooler under $50. Its not that much for good cooling though my room temp is another matter and when its hot outside it starts to get hot inside my room and in my computer. Space temperature is another consideration though most of us do not live in hell thankfully.

Thank You,

10

Yea I have all the fan holes with fans except the one on the side of the case. 2 front 1 top and 1 back all fans are spinning No counting the power supply in the bottom of the case. I am going to boost the air flow some more by setting them all on high speed but that will not lower the CPU temp by much it will just move more air and increase the fan dBm in here some more. I’ll look into running the CPU fan full tilt to as this can be set from BIOS. I’ll look into replacing the stock AMD fan on the CPU cooler too.

The DE and kernel are the culprits here. None of the devs must be running AMD 955s :P. 11.3 and it’s KDE version and Kernel version just ran many degrees cooler in all respects. All your suggestions are very good. I am going to be poor for a while so no more computer parts in the near future. I just got a replacement 22 inch LED LCD monitor and passed on my old 20 inch LCD to my wife and bought a 1 Terabyte drive for this machine. I have my allowance spent for the next month and November is a poor month for me allowance wise.

11

Reading about on Google links to my search terms this isn’t as hot as these things get to running under a good load load. I am still a bit cooler than some. I have to remember than Celsius degrees are different than Fahrenheit degrees as well. I am only conditioned to deal with Fahrenheit.

I may need to think about a aftermarket CPU cooler and fan assembly down the road. I need something that already has thermal compound on it. I think I may have used too much on this one and that may be part of my problem here. Last time I tried to get the heat sink assembly off a CPU the CPU came away from the socket with the heat sink assembly :expressionless: . No fun but the socket and CPU were not damaged t least.

12 
                 Reading about on Google links to my search terms this isn't as hot  as these things get to running under a good load load. I am still a bit  cooler than some. I have to remember than Celsius degrees are different  than Fahrenheit degrees as well. I am only conditioned to deal with  Fahrenheit.

I may need to think about a aftermarket CPU cooler and fan assembly down the road. I need something that already has thermal compound on it. I think I may have used too much on this one and that may be part of my problem here. Last time I tried to get the heat sink assembly off a CPU the CPU came away from the socket with the heat sink assembly :expressionless: . No fun but the socket and CPU were not damaged t least.

Well you can use thermal compound that not very good and which can dry out, but normally if you put too much, it just squeezes out around the edges of the CPU and makes a mess for you next time, but otherwise its not a problem. Most new CPU coolers come with thermal compound, but if you want to buy it separately I have had good luck with Zalman Thermal Grease ZM-STG1.

Thank You,

13

Thing is I can’t remember if this was the machine I got a DOA motherboard for when I built it. If it is then it’s not a stock coating of AMD thermal compound which is pre-applied and works pretty well. It’s Arctic Cool compound and it was a just a tiny bit more then the BB size they recommended as I am (a) not good at getting things right exactly in the center by eyeball (b) not good with those syringes it comes in. If this was not that motherboard it’s the stock AMD thermal solution that comes pre-tinted with compound.

I thought of another solution which would be to under clock this CPU to 3.0 GHZ from 3.2 GHz. But its’ been running 3 instances of a java applet that will use 100% of a core at times for hours now and it’s stayed under 52 C. I think I am OK. I do not relish the idea of removing the motherboard from this case so I can replace the CPU heat sink assembly or re-pot it with new thermal compound.

14

Hi
You only need a thin layer, too much and it won’t work as it should. I
use Artic Silver ceramique.

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.4 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.37.6-0.7-desktop
up 6 days 22:37, 3 users, load average: 0.58, 0.26, 0.19
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - Driver Version: 280.13

15

Ceramique is what I used last time I had to use thermal compound. It’s good stuff. I really don’t think it’s what is on this system. I think I have the stock AMD cooler on this system with the factory dope. The Ceramique is on the other system with the 945 and it’s running ten to eight C cooler than this machine on essentially the same motherboard memory case and power supply set up. It has a fanless video card as well but it’s a Nvidia 9500. It also lacks the front case fans this system has. My temps went up with the change to 11.4. They are 12 C under the maximum safe temp which is a lot. I think I am worrying less about it right now than I was.

I thin layer looks pretty thick when you are paranoid about it.

16

jdmcdaniel3 wrote:

>
>> AH, the memories of Austin in the early 50’s! Sounds like history is
>> repeating itself - again.
>>
>> James, I know it’s old fashioned and all that but the quaint old swamp
>> cooler offers an effective - and cheap - alternative to those extremes.
>> It
>> may not chill you to 70 degrees (my wife insists on icycles in the
>> summer)
>> but 4-6000 CFM air exchange rates work wonders.
>>
>> Now go read some history. When that spell broke in '56, we had a lake
>> from
>> New Mexico as far east as San Angelo for a while.
>>
>> –
>> WHonea
>
> So I have been told of those old stories but I was hoping to not relive
> the past. And, as stated before, we have now broken all recorded
> records since they were being kept. 1956 has nothing on 2011. Though
> its hard to celibate such a thing.

I’ve been looking at that since I have to drive down to near Victoria in a
week or so and the a/c in my old pickup is getting tired. I may just wait a
few weeks.

I bought my daughter a roll-around unit which is a evaporative cooler
designed for use in auto shops or other temporary locations. At $75 and
running from household 110 it was as much an experiment as anything but it
did the job for her. While Colorado Springs is nowhere near as bad as
Central Texas, 103 F is still uncomfortable so the 20-odd degree temperature
drop she got was worth the price just for the decrease in noise from her
complaining :wink:

I hope they get the power stuff back up to snuff in 12.1 - even my dual-core
AMD 3600 displays a definite temp increase with 11.4 over 11.1 or 2.

–
WHonea

17

@flamebait: perhaps you could try a kernel downgrade? On AMD dual core CPUs with cool-N-quiet enabled I experienced no relevant change in temp between oS versions as reported by KDE temperature monitor widget or the sensors command. I do see a large drop in temp (except at 100% CPU, of course) compared to cool-N-quiet not enabled.

Oh, and is the fan control stuff disabled in BIOS? The “quiet” part, I mean.

18

Fan is on “auto” in BIOS. My 945 didn’t experience any increase in temp from 11.3 really either the 955 did.

19

AFAIK the “auto” setting will slow down the CPU fan (and perhaps the case fan if it also has a 4-cable connector) when the CPU is idle. This do increase the overall system temp, and affect the CPU temp when it’s not under full load. If it is constantly above the cutoff temp the fan will be at max rev and it won’t matter, but if it’s idle a considerable part of the time you’ll get higher temps. Perhaps that’s what you’re experiencing.

20

I just disabled the CPU “auto” setting in BIOS to see running it full tile will effect it any. The front case fans and room fans drown it out so I don’t notice :stuck_out_tongue: