cpu overheating

[Mike McCarty]

Gordon Messmer wrote:

Well, I had more-or-less convinced myself not to try
to respond to this anymore. But I guess I'm weak.
Here I am writing another message.

> Mike McCarty wrote:
> 
>>
>> I give up. Linux is a religion. Linus is the Pope. No one can
>> question it. Heretics are vilified and run out of town on a rail.
>>
>> Here we have a chance to take 5 minutes to run top, and see
>> what the CPU utilization is. It would literally take five
>> minutes.
> 
> 
> No, it isn't.  In fact, I personally think that Linux is pretty awful. 
> It's less awful than some alternatives, but awful all the same.

Well, it's not a religion to you. It's not a religion to all.
But it is a religion to some, seemingly.

We agree on the assessment of Linux.

>> It costs actually considering the possibility that Linux might
>> have one line of code which is not perfect.
> 
> 
> Linux has lots of imperfect lines of code.  We all know that.  That's 
> not the reason that we're trying to convince you that the problem is 
> cooling.

I don't need convincing. I know he has a cooling problem.
I simply suggest that if Linux is causing his machine to overheat,
we should take five minutes to ask him to run top and see what,
if any, process is eating a lot of CPU. Here's the message I sent
which started the controversy:

---------------------------------------------------------------
It is a well-known fact that faulty software can overheat CPUs.
You might investigate the GIMPS which has a test program intended
specifically to ascertain whether it can run on a machine, or
will in fact cause it to overheat. If he somehow got Linux or some
part of it into a tight loop due to a software defect, it might very
well have caused the overheating.

Don't toss this aside lightly. Give it due consideration. It is
likely not a fault of Linux, but don't just disregard this.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Nowhere do I state that he doesn't have a hardware problem.
He does. I know that. The hardware problem may be one he can
correct, by cleaning air ports, or freeing a stuck fan, or
cleaning out lint from the fins of a heatsink. It may be one
which he *cannot* fix because his cooling is underdesigned.

I happen to own a machine which cannot run GIMPS. It overheats.
It is underdesigned. What can I say?

However, it behooves us to find out what is causing his CPU to
heat up. It may be that he is running GIMPS or sth like that
which is known to eat CPUs. Almost surely it is not a defect
in Linux or X or other parts of the system which have run away.
But *something* is happening.

On my machine, I run 4% to 10% utilization, usually mostly
X.

> 
>> It's futile to suggest actually to collect any data on Linux behavior
>> if there is any threat it might reveal a wart on its nose, because
>> the suggestion will be rejected out of hand.
> 
> 
> There's no point in collecting data.  The OP already told us that the 
> system overheated when he was running an application that uses a lot of 
> CPU time.  Beyond that, Linux does lots of things that Windows doesn't, 

AAAK! I missed that post, or missed that line of a post. Because that is
the only thing I've been promoting. Find out what is causing the heat.

I was sure it would not be Linux or sth distributed with it, but thought
we ought at least to find out what the source of the heat was.

Ok, then we have already covered that.

Sorry.

> and will use more CPU resources.  Off the top of my head: all the 
> default cron jobs (possibly run at another time of day by anacron), and 
> beagled on the Gnome desktop.

Yes. I ran some benchmarks on my machine when I first got it. I tried
runing the DHRYSTONES usingg MSDOS with DJGPP, Linux, and Windows.
Not surprisingly, it ran fastest with MSDOS, Windows came in an
almost undetectable second, and Linux was some ways behind.

> Looking around for software culprits will only distract the OP from the 
> problem: the CPU isn't sufficiently cooled.  That needs to be corrected.

Well, if he already knows the culprit, then that has been done.

[snip]

> Overheating is always a failure of the cooling system.

I never said otherwise. Of course it is.

> I don't mean to be rude, but have you considered that Linux is not a 
> religion, and that there is no conspiracy to suppress the wisdom that 
> you bring, but that you're simply wrong on this one point?

See above.

Mike
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