LXDE 2010.10; Power management on HP NX9005 Laptop.

[BJF]

Sorry to be a PITA with yet another question, but I haven't found an answer to this in the Forum so far.

It's a new install on my venerable old HP NX9005, and is working seriously well after its traditional stumbles around things like setting up the No-Name Wifi dongle (the first time Joble and I got passionate about something), but I digress.
The fan runs all the time. All the time. I checked the boot-up list and found that acpid, apmd, and apmiser start on boot but only acpid is actually running. Attempting to start the other two I am greeted with the colouring of the button as though my wish has been acknowledged but the fan goes on chugging and the app. remains stopped. Rebooting doesn't change anything in that respect. The fan exhaust feels cooler than room temperature.
Has anyone got an incantation, or pointers to one, that will make the fan obedient to power management please?

And thank you Neal and the other Grown-up's for making LXDE for us, once again. 

John.

[melodie]

Hi,

Have you considered trying other PCLinuxOS versions to this machine to compare the behavior ? Maybe trying Kde4 Minime would be a good idea ?

One other thing would be to look at what process or processes use most cpu and how much of it, from within htop. While fan is running, is actually the cpu hot ?

[Yankee]

The fan runs all the time.

This is a longshot but sometimes programs try to autoupdate or autoconnect all day long.
If you can find out which one(s) they are and disable them from that the fan may go off then.

Patrick013

[melodie]

Hi,

Do you have packages with name "beagle" in it ? If yes, what about trying to remove them ?

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,82528.msg691078.html#msg691078

[BJF]

Melodie: No beagle app's are installed, and since I sorted out the Wifi dongle (see other post) the fan activity has died off to a constant low-speed running which produces air flow out of the machine at arguably below ambient. I think that what I have now is probably "normal". What the battery and I would really like to match is the way my Eeepc behaves with the Eee-Control package installed. The fan stays off almost always, and the processor sits around 55 unless things get hectic. Failing that, some way to externally influence operation of the fan would be a big plus. I'll keep looking....

Thanks.

[parnote]

BJF,

If you've gotten the fan down to a low whir, count your blessings. A quick search led me to all kinds of reports about this machine. Here's one link from HP about the same issue.

I hope this helps!

parnote

[BJF]

Here's one link from HP about the same issue.

Ahhh. Yes. OK. That this machine is too old to have a Fn-button for Suspend and resents attempts to induce it with power managers should have been seen as evidence of a basic level of intelligence. It was given to me some years ago glugged up with XP and has been doing really well under KDE3 and now LXDE. I shall content myself, and stop pretending I can do better. Thanks.

[Yankee]

Hi

I read some posts awhile back about Acer's notebook fans constantly running but the problem with that
and this Asus EeePC900 I'm using was that too many general programs were running on automatic to
do something.  Once those processes were disabled it take several hours for the fan to start
running.   Not too bad for just reading some webpages on a netbook.

LXDE has a temperature panel icon that might shed some light on the fan too.


Regards,

Patrick013

[BJF]

Patrick: There are, as expected, quite a few things running natively after boot-up. I'll set to and copy them and put them up for scrutiny when I get several moments for some two-finger typing.
Meanwhile.... I've looked unsuccessfully for the LXDE panel icon in Synaptic. Could I have directions please.

Thanks.

[melodie]

Meanwhile.... I've looked unsuccessfully for the LXDE panel icon in Synaptic. Could I have directions please.

Thanks.

Hi,

If I understand well, you are looking how to change the icon set ? I
I think this is a wrong direction. PCC is for system, not for desktop configuration. f you have installed one or more icon-theme packages, rather look into "Menu > Applications > More configurations > Lxde appearance". It should be there.

[BJF]

Melodie: Non. If I understand Patrick, there is somewhere an applet/widget to display cpu temperature on the desktop. I do not want to change anything else. Merci.

[Yankee]

Melodie: Non. If I understand Patrick, there is somewhere an applet/widget to display cpu temperature on the desktop. I do not want to change anything else. Merci.

The panel usually on the bottom has a right click function that enables the add panel icon
selection to appear.  Go in there and you will see a CPU temperature selection.   Click add
and it will appear on the desktop panel.  You can move it and change colors and so forth
by right clicking that icon.  The default settings are probably adequate.

Have you looked at the manufacturer for a BIOS or driver update?  It probably has a better
thermal setting for the fan to go on if the normal temperature is OK (below 80 degrees I
would guess).

Post back then and let us know what it says.


thx

Patrick013

[BJF]

Patrick: I did the instructed, and have a CPU monitor active now. Taking its word for what's happening, I register ambient not-much-happening temperatures of low 50's. The highest temperature seen so far was 59 during the install phase of the Synaptic update session last night. I don't do rendering or heavy number crunching with the thing. During all this the fan whirrs away continuously and steps up to about 3/4 of full blast for the odd minute duration seemingly unconnected to the indicated temp. I base my guess at full blast against the burst the thing produces for about 5 seconds when the Go button is first pushed and the bios is read.
The bios version gleaned from F2-ing at startup is KAM 1.42. The HP site is seemingly vague about bios updates and it isn't something I willingly tinker with if I don't have somebody's hand to hold doing it. I will try our local HP representatives and seek information. Please, feel free to add to your considerable help so far!

Thanks.

[Yankee]

Hi,

Well the thing is definitely going on at too low a temperature.   The BIOS or driver update
you need should install automatically from the HP website.  Just be sure it's the right one for your
exact model number.   Follow their instructions and no more thermal problems with the fan.


Patrick013

[BJF]

Patrick: The New Zealand site doesn't accept my explicit model description. Can't find a search result. I'm still looking for a real human to talk to about it. HP US Headquarters lists only Windows OS's. I did find a site on Gooooooogle where a nice man described how to get the Windows (I chose XP) update, unpack it under Wine (Eeek!) and write the data file to a floppy. But no explanation of how. It is a V1.6 update and targets battery recognition. I can get the unpacking done by a Window-ed neighbour, but I am seriously unwilling to pop the flop into the thing and turn it loose!!