Cycling of computer, loud fan

A

a59303

Hi,

I have an old laptop running FreeBSD 9.2 and the computer cycles every minute or so which is evident by the fan starting to increase in volume.

I did some investigation and while logged in as root I get /var/log/cron

Code: 
Dec 17  15:25:00 arhtur /usr/sbin/cron[1238]: (root) CMD (/usr/libexec/atrun)
Dec 17  15:30:00 arhtur /usr/sbin/cron[1246]: (root) CMD (/usr/libecec/atrun)
Dec 17  15:33:00 arhtur /usr/sbin/cron[1274]: (operator) CMD (/usr/libexec/save-e
ntropy)

I see that in /etc/crontab, atrun runs every five minutes and save-entropy runs every eleven minutes. I also see, in that file, mention of adjkertz which adjusts the clock to sync with the CMOS. According to adjkerntz() if the file wall_cmos_clock is there then the clock has to be adjusted. Which it is. Is there something I can do about the noise? The fan is clean (relatively) and the time is set, the computer is not running particularly hot. I just upgraded the computer from 9.0 to 9.2 and there was the came thing then (in FreeBSD 9.0).

Thanks,

a5'
 
ps -A | grep power yields nothing. It doesn't appear in top but I think I am only looking at some of the processes.

I was going to add that sysctl -a | grep adj yields
Code: 
kern.timecounter.smp_tsc_adjust: 0
machdep.adjkerntz: 18000

Thanks,

a5'

--edit--
in /etc/defaults/rc.conf

Code: 
powerd_enable="NO"
is set

--
 
so I set
/etc/rc.conf
Code: 
powerd_enable="YES"

powerd_flags="adp"

powerd is now running pid: 715
still the same behavior.

-a5'
 
Setting the flags like that will not work.

Some modules may be needed for power management on a Sempron, or it may not be supported.
 
Some modules may be needed for power management on a Sempron, or it may not be supported.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply,

Sticker on machine says celeron M. I looked around and found this:

http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/hi ... rs/celeron

http://ark.intel.com/products/27143/Int ... 00-MHz-FSB



It appears, after some investigation of cpufreq() that this machine, by default installation, does not have things that are required by cpufreq().

sysctl -a | grep timecounter
among other things includes
Code: 
kern.timecounter.choice: TSC(800) ACPI-fast(900) i8254(0) dummy(-1000000)
kern.timecounter.hardware: ACPI-fast

Looked here because, on the man pages for sysctl(), and cpufreq(), I saw indications that I could find info there.


cpufreq manpage
The frequency cannot be changed if TSC is in use as the timecounter.
This is because the timecounter system needs to use a source that has a
constant rate. The timecounter source can be changed with the
kern.timecounter.hardware sysctl. Available modes are in
kern.timecounter.choice sysctl entry.
Click to expand...

also

The following device drivers offer absolute frequency control via the
cpufreq interface. Usually, only one of these can be active at a time.

Code: 
acpi_perf   ACPI CPU performance states
est            Intel Enhanced SpeedStep
ichss         Intel SpeedStep for ICH
powernow  AMD PowerNow! and Cool 'n' Quiet for K7 and K8
smist         Intel SMI-based SpeedStep fro PIIX4
Click to expand...


Actually after looking at this I am not sure if this means that TSC is the "timecounter". I looks more like ACPI-fast is. I saw no mention of that though.


Thanks for the help,
a5'
 
wblock@ said:
Setting the flags like that will not work.

Some modules may be needed for power management on a Sempron, or it may not be supported.
Click to expand...


I found from looking at the powerd() man page and @vermaden's HOWTO (Thread 172) that I have to set the flags thus:
Code: 
powerd_flags="-a adp -b adp -i 100%"

Where 100 is a percentage that was an example and adp is the Adaptive setting for AC power and Battery power.
I think this is correct.

This is the setting on the laptop as I write this and it does not seem to make any difference. I experimented a bit with it.

Where would I discover what modules I would need?

Thank you,

a5'

Also, I posted to the freebsd-acpi mailing list and I will have to wait to see what happens there.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The -i option should be just a number, no percent sign.

I don't know what power management is possible on that system, the ACPI mailing list will hopefully have answers.
 
Just for a positive note, I just got the suspend acpiconf -s 3 to work on it and in general it is really remarkable how well it gets configured by default.

Thanks for the help.

a5'
 
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