<Solved> Get Open Office locks up machine

[wedgetail]

Errrhh, got carried away a bit. In 2009 I used gkrellm, it is in synaptic, install it and the plugins, I only did 2 of the number I found by searching on gkrellm. See attached pics.

Then I configured the gkrellm to show the temps as shown on picture.  For me it worked.

[dickey601]

Everything is OK now. I believe there may have been three different problems working together at the same time.
     Tex was probably onto something when he mentioned something about time between upgrades in a different post. The initial install of 2010 was done in April with no upgrades done until first part of July. (I was away for several weeks) I remember over 290 files were added/deleted/upgraded in synaptic and took a couple of hours.
Restoring backup files into new /home folder after new upgrade seemed to have issues also.     
     Several hard shut downs caused corruption of some files and kernel panics thus, putting loads on system that lead to cpu overheating and caused mother board to do partial shutdowns.
     Wedgeling was definitely onto something with idea of checking issue of overheating and board component to socket connections. I found heat sink on top of AMD cpu had substantial blockage to airflow. That was causing overheating under high loads. And, while cleaning, some pressure on and jostling of the cpu may have addressed a connection issue. I say this because the machine had been starting and running in Nvidia's "analog" mode instead of "digital" mode for quite some time. (Even before upgrade issues) Now it starts in "digital" mode every time and is soooooo much faster. I'm not sure about the connection thing but something addressed the start-up thing and I don't think it had anything to do with overheating because this is done before bios and booting and there would be no time to heat up.
After the many hours of dealing with this, I believe I will not forget these events for future reference. (even with my CRS) You know that memory thingy.

Thanks to all the responders. Your time and contributions are appreciated. Genuine concern for another fellow in need and a willingness to help is a rarity these days.

Wedgeling........ I finally got temp monitoring set up and working now. I had tried lm_sensors but could not get it to show cpu temps. I found that after install (as root in terminal) run "sensors-detect" and it will run a check of the mother board and utilize those sensors for monitoring. After looking at BIOS I found that my board only has one sensor for cpu and one for the board and lm_sensors is looking for three because of the triple core processor but, for now I can watch the temp. I see your reply about gkrellm now, so, I may try that later. The machine is working so good now........ I'm leaving things as they are !!!

[wedgetail]

Congratulations dickey601

Let it run for a while but may I suggest you are not quite finished yet after having read your last post.

Since you are running AMD and have had restrictions on your air flow around the processor, that concerns me.  Running at high temperatures takes a good bite off the life of your processor. What are your ambient temperature generally and what temperatures are you running now?  

If you cleaned your heatsink that is likely to be the main cause of "repair' around the cpu. The heatsink must be working properly and must be tigtheded or secured properly. Is the fan speed/load controlled or does it roar full speed all the time? The heatsink doing the correct job is reflected in the cpu temperature.

Since you have had cpu up at high temperatures I recommend you may have to lift the heatsink off and inspect the thermal grease. First perhaps tell me what is your running cpu temperature now? And under what sort of workload.

Was there any sign of heat discolouration on the heatsink? Distinct change of colour in broad areas?

I have listed one reference dealing with temperature, fans and heatsink mostly because there is a picture of what to look for if you do remove the heatsink.   

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,65840.15.html


lm-sensors, I have some notes around the place if they did not disappear with my disastrous exercise with my backup drive. Thanks for mentioning this I may be able to find my own posts about this in forum to recover some knowledge.  From memory I had to do some fair tweaking and programming of the interface to make it look ok, you don't want empty figures in extra sensors.

Are you actually running lm-sensors?    

[dickey601]

Congratulations dickey601

Let it run for a while but may I suggest you are not quite finished yet after having read your last post.

Since you are running AMD and have had restrictions on your air flow around the processor, that concerns me.  Running at high temperatures takes a good bite off the life of your processor. What are your ambient temperature generally and what temperatures are you running now?  

If you cleaned your heatsink that is likely to be the main cause of "repair' around the cpu. The heatsink must be working properly and must be tigtheded or secured properly. Is the fan speed/load controlled or does it roar full speed all the time? The heatsink doing the correct job is reflected in the cpu temperature.

Since you have had cpu up at high temperatures I recommend you may have to lift the heatsink off and inspect the thermal grease. First perhaps tell me what is your running cpu temperature now? And under what sort of workload.







Was there any sign of heat discolouration on the heatsink? Distinct change of colour in broad areas?

I have listed one reference dealing with temperature, fans and heatsink mostly because there is a picture of what to look for if you do remove the heatsink.   

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,65840.15.html


lm-sensors, I have some notes around the place if they did not disappear with my disastrous exercise with my backup drive. Thanks for mentioning this I may be able to find my own posts about this in forum to recover some knowledge.  From memory I had to do some fair tweaking and programming of the interface to make it look ok, you don't want empty figures in extra sensors.

Are you actually running lm-sensors?    

I did remove the heat sink. I removed it, cleaned and inspected (no signs of excessive heat), applied new coat of thermal compound and re-installed. All is well since then. The mother board controls the fan speed (although you can manually set it at certain speeds in the BIOS set-up) and since the cleaning it stays at about 2,550 RPM.

I have tried to load the cpu and watch the temp but, around 40% of capacity is about all I have been able to load it with cpu temp bumping as high as 118.5 degrees F. (about 48 C.) It doesn't stay there very long. That's with ambient temp at about 74 - 75 degrees F. I haven't had much time to try other monitoring software for now.

 I will be leaving in a couple of days on an extended stay away from this machine again for several weeks so, I have other things to do. But, I did need for this machine to function properly while away. I believe it will.  Thanks for all your help.

[wedgetail]

That sounds good, I think that your hardware is fine, 48 C is not bad for some loading.
Have good time away, and I will have finished something on the partitioning. If I don't leave it in your topic I will leave a link.   

[dickey601]

OK..... I'll watch for it.