Fan does not turn on - Precise 5.7.1 - HP Compaq nx6120

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gruer
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Fan does not turn on - Precise 5.7.1 - HP Compaq nx6120

#1 Post by gruer »

Dear friends,

I've just installed the Precise Puppy 5.7.1 on my HP Compaq nx6120 laptop, but when the grub options are shown the fan stops.

I know that the fan is working (hardware) because it is turned on when the computer is started, but it turns off (and remains this way) as soon as the grub options are displayed.

I've already searched the internet foruns and tried a couple of alternatives without results, because these options where designed for Ubuntu or other distributions, but not specifically designed for Puppy.

Thanks in advance if you could help me!

Regards!
Alexandre.

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rjbrewer
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#2 Post by rjbrewer »

I have a Dell D810 with the same processor.
The fan only needs to run if the laptop is actually getting hot.

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Hogweed
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#3 Post by Hogweed »

Agree with answer above

On the old laptop of similar vintage I'm using now the fan virtually never goes off under Windows. It's off most of the time under Linux. Try playing a few youtube videos full-screen at decent resolution and the fan will come on if needed.

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nubc
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#4 Post by nubc »

Pentium M class processor runs very quiet, often at very reduced speed. Some P4 Dell desktops have what is called a "leafblower mode" (fast, roaring fan) when first booting up, and then the OS begins to load and things quiet down dramatically. I dunno, maybe it's the BIOS or Windows kernel that kicks in.
Last edited by nubc on Thu 07 Nov 2013, 16:09, edited 8 times in total.

Hogweed
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#5 Post by Hogweed »

The fan in a Compaq nx6120 is not supposed to run constantly. It should not normally be running after leaving the bios from a cold boot.

If the fan is running constantly in one of these laptops when cpu is idle then there is something wrong. Some bios/motherboards spin the fan up during startup but it is then normal for it it switch off immediately the O/S starts to boot.

If you search the HP website for nx6120 technical support it actually tells you that the fan running constantly indicates a fault condition.

The support page also suggests if you have fan running constantly issues to make sure your bios is updated to latest version. Apparently an early bios on that model did have fan control issues.

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Keef
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#6 Post by Keef »

I've got a nc6120 (not entirely sure what the difference is between a nx and an nc...) and the fan is generally off or very quiet. Sometimes it runs at full blast at the grub screen, but returns to normal once the OS is booting (what Hogweed said). I wouldn't worry.

gruer
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Fan does not turn on - Precise 5.7.1 - HP Compaq nx6120

#7 Post by gruer »

Thank you guys for the replies. It is very nice to count on this community.

I'll monitor the points that you highlighted. A BIOS update will also be fine.
Only once the laptop reached 100º Celsius (212º F) and the fan still was not triggered, that's why I decided to post the issue here. But most of the times it does not exceed 60º Celsius (140º F).

Regards!

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nubc
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#8 Post by nubc »

Power management issue. Power management passes out of BIOS/kernel control and into userland, then fan cuts off. Solution: Transfer power management control to userland. I just vaguely remember having to append LILO's boot parameters for APM, after disabling both APM and ACPI in BIOS. There is competition (between BIOS and kernel) for power management control during boot, and as a consequence, control is abandoned (fan stops), unresolved and unclaimed, so you have to prevent the competition and reassert control later in the boot process, in the bootloader. Generally, I suggest you disable both APM and ACPI in BIOS (if possible), and append grub (menu.lst) for APM. If the fan is abnormally cutting off, staying off and not doing its job, there is the serious risk of overheating the processor. In my case, I was dealing with a full-sized desktop where fan behavior (shutting off and staying off after POST) was easily observed. I seem to recall the computer ran a Pentium II/III processor, and dated from a time when ACPI was just introduced to replace APM, meaning there were bugs to work out.

Power Management: APM vs ACPI
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Battery-Powered/powermgm.html

Are both APM and ACPI available as options in BIOS? If so, did you try each option exclusively? What are your power management options?
Last edited by nubc on Fri 08 Nov 2013, 22:46, edited 3 times in total.

gruer
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#9 Post by gruer »

Fine nubc, I'll check this information at night and will post here as soon as possible.

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Keef
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#10 Post by Keef »

On my nc6120, there doesn't seem to be any BIOS options for ACPI or APM.
There is though an option to have the fan on all the time when on AC. Changed mine to off, and found that the fan did not seem to come on at all, and CPU temp started to rise. Rebooted and changed it back. Fan mostly runs very quietly and CPU hovers around the 55c mark.
It is always on AC as very limited battery life.

EDIT - Tried the CPU scaling tool and got temp down to mid 40's.
-BIOS-
Date : 11/21/2005
Vendor : Hewlett-Packard (www.hp.com)
Version : 68DTD Ver. F.0C

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rjbrewer
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#11 Post by rjbrewer »

A handy way to keep track of temperature:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 42&t=57480

Inspiron 700m, Pent.M 1.6Ghz, 1Gb ram.
Msi Wind U100, N270 1.6>2.0Ghz, 1.5Gb ram.
Eeepc 8g 701, 900Mhz, 1Gb ram.
Full installs

gruer
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#12 Post by gruer »

Hi guys, I've checked the energy options and my nx6120 it is exactly like Keef told about his nc6120. No way to configure it alternating between the discussed options, only one option exists regarding if the fan will be turned on when on AC.

I guess the tool suggested by rjbrewer will be very handy, but have no idea what to do to solve the issue permanently.

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ally
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#13 Post by ally »

I have a couple of lenovo's that are plugged into a docking station so permanently on ac, I found that removing the battery reduces temp by about 5 degs

battery not being used anyway so whip it out......

:)

Hogweed
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Re: Fan does not turn on - Precise 5.7.1 - HP Compaq nx6120

#14 Post by Hogweed »

gruer wrote:Thank you guys for the replies. It is very nice to count on this community.

I'll monitor the points that you highlighted. A BIOS update will also be fine.
Only once the laptop reached 100º Celsius (212º F) and the fan still was not triggered, that's why I decided to post the issue here. But most of the times it does not exceed 60º Celsius (140º F).

Regards!
Believe it or not 100 C is still actually within the Pentium M 730s normal expected operating spec. 60 C isn't the slightest problem. The processor can run indefinitely at 100 C. It also autoclocks itself down to prevent getting any hotter than 100 C.

There's no need for the fan to be running at 60 C but I would expect it to be running at 100 C, However it shouldn't be harmful if it isn't and you never see a temp above 100.

If you configure a scaling tool to keep the temp to say 40 C you are running the chip well below its design rating, That chip was designed to run fast and hot. It's also designed to run without a fan at all if there is sufficient passive cooling. Should the processor somehow find itself hotter than 100 C it will assert "PROCHOT#" at which time the system should take action such as increasing cooling or shutting down in an orderly manner. At 125 C the processor will assert "THERMTRIP#" and shut itself down.

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentium_M ... FJ%29.html

http://download.intel.com/support/proce ... 526202.pdf
Last edited by Hogweed on Fri 08 Nov 2013, 19:46, edited 1 time in total.

gruer
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#15 Post by gruer »

Once more I'd like to thank you all. After reading the article on APM x ACPI I tried some combinations changing the menu.lst file.

The fan is now running when turning APM=on and ACPI=off.

The problem: apparently the sensors interface is not working anymore :-(
Both the native Hardinfo and CPUtemp applications do not show the temperatures. I guess this behavior is related to turning off the ACPI.

But it seems to be better this way as now I can feel the heat being exausted. No pain no gain :-)

Have a great weekend!

Hogweed
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#16 Post by Hogweed »

As long as you've found something you are happy with that's the main thing.

People used to desktop processor temps often freak out when they see some laptop temps. Temps well above anything that would fry a typical desktop processor are not unusual. Like I said your chip itself won't really panic until it hits 125 C and that requires you to disable its normal automatic down-clocking to get there. The chip always knows its own temperature from its own inbuilt temp monitors.

"The processor protects itself from catastrophic overheating by use of an internal thermal sensor. This sensor is set well above the normal operating temperature to ensure that there are no false trips. The processor will stop all execution when the junction temperature exceeds approximately 125 °C. This is signalled to the
system by the THERMTRIP# (Thermal Trip) Pin." - Intel processor manual.

So at least you know in the event of catastrophic overheating your laptop will probably melt before the chip does :-)

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rjbrewer
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#17 Post by rjbrewer »

gruer wrote: Both the native Hardinfo and CPUtemp applications do not show the temperatures. I guess this behavior is related to turning off the ACPI.

But it seems to be better this way as now I can feel the heat being exausted. No pain no gain :-)
You're forcing the machine to run hotter than normal for the
dubious pleasure of feeling hot air. :lol:

Inspiron 700m, Pent.M 1.6Ghz, 1Gb ram.
Msi Wind U100, N270 1.6>2.0Ghz, 1.5Gb ram.
Eeepc 8g 701, 900Mhz, 1Gb ram.
Full installs

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nubc
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#18 Post by nubc »

I will readily admit surprise at the high temperature tolerance of this class of processor, the Pentium M, and I hear that Pentium M laptops have a good record on longevity. That said, this has to be one of the sorriest strategies for processor heat dissipation, in terms of performance, that is, throttling the processor speed to cool it off. I can just hear the sales pitch, as it might have gone back in the day: "Oh yeah, this baby has the numbers, 1.7 GHz, but you know what, you don't need that kind of blazing speed for normal activity. It does everything just fine operating like a low-end Pentium 3, which is how it runs most of the time. This guy runs quiet, too. Barely hear the fan."

Low speed and performance wouldn't be a problem with Puppy anyway.

So what would be the consequence of running lappy without the throttling? Considering the high tolerance for extreme heat, overheating is probably not a problem, since there is a fan running always ON. Perhaps the fan would fail prematurely, running full-duty, because it's doing much more than its original design. You gotta wonder if this design was planned, or just elaborately explained after the fact. I had a Dell desktop that actually sucked outside air into the backside of the tower, and evacuated the internally generated hot air through perforations in the removable side. This desktop model was notorious for failure related to overheating--it was a design failure. It became a decent computer when air flow was reversed w.r.t. original design.

It might be interesting to see how the program SpeedFan would handle gruer's laptop. If it's a dual boot with Windows, he could try it.

My Pentium M lappy: Dell Latitude D600, Pentium M 1400 MHz (796mhz AC / 587mhz batt), 1 GB DDR ram, 60 GB hdd, WinXP/Slacko5.5 dual boot. With no modification whatsoever, have yet to hear the fan cut off, just keeps whirring quietly.
Last edited by nubc on Tue 12 Nov 2013, 11:04, edited 3 times in total.

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Keef
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#19 Post by Keef »

I let this (my nc6120) go full pelt now, after briefly experimenting with CPU Scaling.
Fan is very quiet any way, and it is the fastest laptop (2ghz) I've had for Puppy use. Worked my way up from an Armada 3500 (P300) > Armada M700 (a 450 then a 700, then a mighty 850mhz) > Toshiba Satellite Pro M10 1.7g. This last one was very noisy, but throttling wouldn't work anyway.
Wandering off slightly...
Some time ago I bought a motherboard/cpu bundle for the desktop PC.
Think it was an ECS755 with an AMD mobile processor. Due to the speed stepping stuff, this 1600mhz chip just ran at 800 - apparently this was a common problem with this setup. It was running XP, and I found a utility called RMClock that cured it. Had to do a lot of fiddling with voltages to get it to run at full speed, but not overheat. Once I got it right, it worked perfectly. Was never able to solve this under Linux, but at the time, 800mhz was plenty for the likes of 3.01, so didn't worry too much.

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