Temperatures, CPU frequency and fan control on an HP laptop

[TimR]

I am new here so I'll start out by saying hi to everyone!

I am not a 100% newb to Linux but compared to most here I probably am

I just installed the latest Openbox version on an older laptop. It's an HP nx9420 with Centrino Duo 2.17Ghz. Going to use it for some development and various testing. I have some issues with the cpu's running very hot, all the way to a forced shutdown at 102C. It dual boots into XP sp3 and the temps there are fine, ranging from 50C to 80C at big cpu loads. I have read through other threads here and on other forums as well but solutions I found doesn't quite seem to work for this laptop.

To solve this issue I've looked at two things. Fanspeed and CPU frequency.

Fanspeed:
Windows seem to regulate with many fanspeeds, noticed at least 4 different speeds. Ultralow, Low, Medium and High. Booting into PCLinuxOS the fanspeed never goes beyond (low medium) medium even if cpu temps are rising towards a forced shutdown. I have installed lm_sensors but can not figure out how to regulate fanspeeds when driver is reported as virtual acpi. I load the coretemp module but I am stuck as to how to regulate fanspeeds in sensors.conf. All I need to do is to have medium fanspeed kick in a little earlier and (a new) high speed at 15 to 20 degrees more. Is there a way to do this without lm_sensors?

CPU frequency:
I installed the cpufrequtils package and tried to follow the steps I found in another thread here. What happens is when I try to modprobe acpi-cpufreq I get a "device not found" error message. I can however load p4-clockmod just fine(?). Ok, so I try to do a cpufreq-set -g ondemend after p4-clockmod is loaded. No errors but cpufreq-info tells me that current frequency is still 2.17Ghz and Governor is still performance, no luck with the ondemand governor. If I try cpufreq-set -g powersave cpufreq-info reports that I am indeed in powersave at minimum frequency. However, it is extremely sluggish and more importantly, it does not seem to affect cpu temeratures at all (if the frequency is reported correctly). They continue to rise slowly without an increase in fanspeed. I am wondering if p4-clockmod is the right module to load? Or, is there other boot time instructions I can/should pass to the kernel in regards to acpi? Or maybe I should downgrade to an older kernel?

Temperatures doesn't seem to be influenced by running processes either. They rise regardless of what I have going on.

I am a bit lost here. Don't seem to be getting anywhere with the two main things influencing CPU temps. I have cleaned the inside of the laptop and as I said earlier it runs pretty cool in Windows. Any help and hints here are greatly appreciated.

/tim

[coffeetime]

Post back [from Terminal]:

Code: [Select]

uname -r

Code: [Select]

cpufreq-info

Code: [Select]

cat /etc/release
As su:

Code: [Select]

dmidecode | head -15
Latest BIOS update for HP 9420:

F.1D
11 Jul 2008

[TimR]

Post back [from Terminal]:

Code: [Select]

uname -r

Code: [Select]

cpufreq-info

Code: [Select]

cat /etc/release
As su:

Code: [Select]

dmidecode | head -15
Latest BIOS update for HP 9420:

F.1D
11 Jul 2008

uname -r

2.6.38.8-pclos3.bfs

cpufreq-info

cpufrequtils 008: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2009
Report errors and bugs to cpufreq@vger.kernel.org, please.
analyzing CPU 0:
  driver: p4-clockmod
  CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0
  CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0
  maximum transition latency: 10.00 ms.
  hardware limits: 271 MHz - 2.17 GHz
  available frequency steps: 271 MHz, 542 MHz, 813 MHz, 1.08 GHz, 1.35 GHz, 1.63 GHz, 1.90 GHz, 2.17 GHz
  available cpufreq governors: ondemand, conservative, powersave, userspace, performance
  current policy: frequency should be within 813 MHz and 2.17 GHz.
                  The governor "performance" may decide which speed to use
                  within this range.
  current CPU frequency is 2.17 GHz (asserted by call to hardware).
analyzing CPU 1:
  driver: p4-clockmod
  CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 1
  CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 1
  maximum transition latency: 10.00 ms.
  hardware limits: 271 MHz - 2.17 GHz
  available frequency steps: 271 MHz, 542 MHz, 813 MHz, 1.08 GHz, 1.35 GHz, 1.63 GHz, 1.90 GHz, 2.17 GHz
  available cpufreq governors: ondemand, conservative, powersave, userspace, performance
  current policy: frequency should be within 813 MHz and 2.17 GHz.
                  The governor "performance" may decide which speed to use
                  within this range.
  current CPU frequency is 2.17 GHz (asserted by call to hardware).

cat /etc/release

PCLinuxOS release 2011 (PCLinuxOS) for i586

dmidecode | head -15

# dmidecode 2.11
SMBIOS 2.4 present.
23 structures occupying 1032 bytes.
Table at 0x000F3D6D.

Handle 0x0000, DMI type 0, 24 bytes
BIOS Information
   Vendor: Hewlett-Packard
   Version: 68YAF Ver. F.12
   Release Date: 06/21/2006
   Address: 0xE0000
   Runtime Size: 128 kB
   ROM Size: 1024 kB
   Characteristics:
      PCI is supported


It's the original bios from when it was new.