Re: Losing Power GRX600K

Just happened again.  Temperature was 43C.  Rebooted, temperature was
then 44C it did it again, rebooted temperature was then 43C booted up
fine.

My temperature log has shown an average temperature of 40C at all
times.  Highest temperature recorded is 52C.

System load average at the times leading up to this fantastic poweroff
(thanks to logging uptime also) was 0.04 0.02 0.02.




On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 23:30, Andreas Kostyrka wrote:

> Well, I've got the problem with two FX201, and I've noted some things:
> 1) it's frustrating.
> 

Yes.

> 2) it's random: the laptop of my wife showed it after some months
> (formally it would have had warranty then, but Sony is not to helpful to
> Linux users :( ) My laptop started to show it after 2 years during
> summer.
> 

It's after several months, laptop is still within warranty, but Sony is
not acknowleding the problem.  And it's getting worse/happening more and
more often.

> 3) I cannot get the FX201 to read the temperature via ACPI correctly.
> Sometimes it doesn't even find the sensor at bootup (my theory is, that
> this depends upon how hot the cpu is during bootup -> too hot -> no
> sensor found). If it finds it, the temperaturs seems to be measured very
> seldom (keeping the temperature for 15 minutes or longer, even when I
> can feel on my hand that the CPU is HOT).
> 

Similar problem sometimes.  It reads the temperature sometimes and not
others.  It does not appear to be related to bootup -> too hot -> no
sensor found. It reports 0 C as temperature for some reason randomly.

> 4) I've solved the problem by opening the laptops up, cleaning away the
> dust in the cpu cooler (I've removed in the process all kinds of
> fascinating objects. Like a mummified fly ;) )
> Then I reapplied the coolers with thermal paste, and all ills are away.


Under warranty, so not going to do that.


> Well, my experience is, that it is SO sporadic and random, that it's
> extremly difficult to diagnose.
> 

I really want to Diagnose this.  If I can prove its a problem and what's
causing this, it's possible Sony will actually /FIX/ it (fat chance).

> Idea for future BIOS: save a marker somewhere that the system was
> emergency shutoff and show it at the next boot up.
> 

Good idea.

> Additionally, the problem might not show as strongly with Windows as
> with Linux, because Windows probably more finely tuned to control cpu
> temperature.
> 

Perhaps.  But I have a crontask monitoring temperatures and adjusting
thermal stepping as appropriate.

> The fact that it shows at rest also means nothing. Especially with Linux
> you never know if something has producing load in the background. My
> personal experience suggests that my laptop died often not during but
> some time after a compile. But extreme load (kernel compiling) is not
> necessary: My wife's laptop seldom has to do anything heavy
> (occasionally perhaps a short run of latex ;) ), and it still showed the
> symptoms.

See above.

> 
> Best regards, 
> 
> Andreas

Thanks,

Jay