# system fails: CPU overheats

## o'bogamol

I have been having a problem where my HP laptop (which I gather is notorious for poor ventilation) overheats and shuts down during large emerge operations like emerge -q gnome. ...at least I think that's what is happening. I find out it happened when I go to check the progress and find the system off and the case to be much hotter than normal. Did I miss some kernel setting somewhere that would prevent this from happening? I've found that if I close the lid and set it upside down, to expose all of the vents, it seems to do better but sometimes I just don't have that option.

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## dmpogo

 *bogamol wrote:*   

> I have been having a problem where my HP laptop (which I gather is notorious for poor ventilation) overheats and shuts down during large emerge operations like emerge -q gnome. ...at least I think that's what is happening. I find out it happened when I go to check the progress and find the system off and the case to be much hotter than normal. Did I miss some kernel setting somewhere that would prevent this from happening? I've found that if I close the lid and set it upside down, to expose all of the vents, it seems to do better but sometimes I just don't have that option.

 

Is your fan working OK ?

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## patrikas

See http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/power-management-guide.xml. I suggest configuring CPU frequency scaling for heavy operations like system update. You can configure it to react on current temperature. I have Asus laptop with AMD Turion CPU which seems to have many problems with that so I always scale down the frequency before emerge operations to prevent it from overheating. Video card can also be an issue so I suggest to disable 3d effects when the temperature is high. Cleaning the fan physically might help as well..

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## o'bogamol

 *patrikas wrote:*   

> See http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/power-management-guide.xml. I suggest configuring CPU frequency scaling for heavy operations like system update. You can configure it to react on current temperature. I have Asus laptop with AMD Turion CPU which seems to have many problems with that so I always scale down the frequency before emerge operations to prevent it from overheating. Video card can also be an issue so I suggest to disable 3d effects when the temperature is high. Cleaning the fan physically might help as well..

 

Thanks for the link, I didn't even see it.

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## pedro3

I'd say you have a HP dv6000 laptop. Just out of the blue  :Razz: 

Also, you know those compressed air canisters? I bought one yesterday, used it through the vents, saw almost nothing came out, got pissed off because I thought I'd wasted €10 and then noticed today in the morning I'm compiling KDE at 53ºC (127.4ºF).

Yay  :Very Happy: 

P.S.: if you want to open your laptop I'd recommend you'd watch one HP video showing you how to open it. I can't tell you where they're are at the site but I can tell they were there approximately 6 months ago. Be prepared to remove the keyboard and LCD as well as the harddisk and almost everything that can be unplugged, and a thousand screws in the process.

Assuming it's a dv6000 of course, the others I don't know.

EDIT: an Intel Core 2 CPU is supposed to throttle when the temperature is too high, though a Mobile Pentium IV would ungracefully shut down.

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