Bouts of Extreme System Slug

[Tim]

On Thu, 2009-04-16 at 09:56 -0400, Oliver Ruebenacker wrote:
> Apparently, my problem was heating related. My laptop is sitting on
> a table with an uneven plastic table cloth, and since I raised it
> slightly up from the table by putting bottle caps under the rear feet,
> I have not experienced any problems any more.

It strikes me that many laptops are designed very badly.  They feet are
too small (you can buy bigger adhesive rubber feet from electronic
stores, so you can do a neat upgrade), and they put the vents on the
bottom instead of the side (making it nearly impossible to actually use
some on your lap).

>   The connection between heat and sluggishness was not that obvious.
> Before the raising, I had installed temperature displays, and when I
> run at full load, the temperature would first go up to 90-something,
> then fall again, and only after that it would start to slow down. If
> the slowing down is from a deliberate slowdown to decrease
> temperature, the response seem to come too late and to strong.

Possibly the delay taken before heat propagates/dissipates.  I'd suspect
that if you were getting such an extreme response, and with a long
delay, that perhaps there's a problem with the cooling system (blocked
fans or ducts, badly fitting heatsinks, loss of heatsink paste between
the heatsink and the hot device, etc.).

-- 
[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.27.21-78.2.41.fc9.i686

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