I have an extra machine that no longer has any use to me for either work or play so I have no reason to run windows on it. It may only be used for crunching BOINC projects for the time being unless I find another use for it. It is a AMD Phenom II N870 Triple-Core laptop. I replaced it because it was overheating and constantly rebooting. I discovered TThrottle and now it runs fine because whenever the temp goes over 60C the CPU gets throttled back. Not sure how long it will run now but I was going to send it to recycling so every day it runs is a plus. Anyway I thought I would put Linux on it assuming that there is a program that will run on Linux that can monitor the temp and throttle the CPU if it gets too hot. Anyone know of one? Second question is, I haven't run Linux since some time in the 90's and I know there are different forms out there - Linux, Debian, Umbuntu - so what do you recommend and why? Thanks for your time on this.

---

... replaced it because it was overheating and constantly rebooting...

Don't put Linux on it then... You will get the same hardware overheating problems as for any OS.

Clean out or fix the hardware or scrap it.


Life is too short to waste on unreliable hardware and similarly so for any unreliable software!

(Linux deserves reliable hardware as does any OS!)


Happy cool crunchin',
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Don't understand your point.

.. replaced it because it was overheating and constantly rebooting...

was only part of what I said. I have stopped it from overheating and rebooting by throttling the CPU back when it gets hot.

The machine is running seti and will probably never do anything else. The results I'm getting are error free. It no longer constantly reboots so why scrap it if throttling the CPU will keep it running? The reason for running Linux would be that from what I understand the operating system is more efficient and might give me an opportunity to become familiar with the OS.

I just asked for opinions on which version of Linux would be a good choice and whether it had a program available that could throttle the CPU. I would still like opinions on those questions from someone.

---

... It no longer constantly reboots so why scrap it if throttling the CPU will keep it running? The reason for running Linux would be that from what I understand the operating system is more efficient and might give me an opportunity to become familiar with the OS...

By being 'more efficient', that means you get more work done and so the CPU is worked at maximum effect...

If you have a system that is prone to failure, then it will give you a very bad result for any OS where the CPU fails on you all the time. Hence, you will get a bad impression of that whatever OS because you will repeatedly see the unreliable hardware crash.


For Linux, you could try Ubuntu (Apple-looks) or Kubuntu (Windows-looks) and set the power settings for maximum "powersave". However, if the hardware is going to crash on you then it will crash.

A good test is to see if your hardware passes all the tests for:

Memtest86+
HDD surface scan
GIMPS primes "torture test"


Otherwise, best is to clean out the dust and replace any failed capacitors or simply scrap the system for something new. Life is too short to waste on unreliable systems...


Happy cool reliable crunchin',
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Thanks for the advice on Linux systems, I get what your saying but its not like I would actually buy another computer if I scrapped it as it already has been replaced. I have taken it apart and cleaned it and its not worth doing anything more to it than that. So far its been running throttled on windows 7 without any reboots for a few weeks. I've got the hardware tests which you mentioned but since my purpose is to have the machine run seti for as long as it is able I'm not into trying to fry it. I might leave it on windows 7 if I can't find a throttle program for Linux because power saving settings aren't going to work, at least they did not in windows 7.

---

Look up limiting the CPU clock freq in the Linux power save...

One trick could be to set as though always running on battery. You should also be able to force to always run at a lower clock freq to give an always throttled effect. However, note that is something that is not normally done and so you'll need to look up changing the settings.


Good luck!

Happy cool crunch in,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Thanks! I'll look into that.

---

I think the main point is finding the root cause of overheating rather than just trying to work around it by throttling. I presume the thing has been opened for a thorough clean-out of dust. If so, then I wonder if the heat-sink itself might be faulty.

I have a Core 2 laptop that originally had WinXP (whose shell is not very demanding for the GPU) and I wanted to switch to Kubuntu (where the shell uses more of the GPU resources). When trying the latter, it would shut down within minutes and I discovered the GPU was overheating (it's a discrete Radeon). It turned out the pipe connecting the heat-sink to the GPU was no longer transmitting heat effectively as I noticed it was relatively cool while the GPU end was very hot. It took a bit of effort in finding a replacement part but after switching it the GPU temperatures stabilised. The laptop itself is still very useful to me to this day.

As for which Linux distribution to use, I don't think there's an easy answer to that as everyone has their own preferences (and the incredible number of choices was initially a barrier to me - which one to choose?). Though far from a comprehensive list, I found the Major Distributions article at Distrowatch to be a handy starting guide (it's updated from time to time). Another thing to consider is what desktop environment you prefer - GNOME 2 vs 3, KDE, Unity (Ubuntu), LXDE, etc. Some distributions will only come with certain desktops (though setting them up with alternatives should be possible, albeit with varying degrees of effort) while others are more flexible and that can also affect your choice.

---

Soli Deo Gloria

Thanks for info, had no idea there were so many versions of linux out there. Looks like I have a bit of reading to do. I have done a through cleaning of the machine but that didn't help. Not sure I want to invest the time or effort into doing much else with it. I once built and repaired machines but not really into doing that much anymore and I especially don't like taking apart laptops. I had already purchased a new laptop and about to send the machine to recycling when a friend told me about tthrottle so I tried it and to my surprise the machine has been running very well. I've been watching it and for the most part the machine hangs around 95% of capacity running nothing but SETI. Now since I had this extra machine I thought it would be an excellent time to try Linux if I could find a way to throttle the machine on Linux, I don't see a version of tthrottle for Linux but the previous poster gave me some ideas on that. As a matter of fact I was so impressed with tthrottle I have it monitor the temp on all my machines so hopefully I will catch any overheating problems before they become any real problems occur.

---

I am running SETI@home and Einstein@home on a HP 635 laptop 24/7 using SuSE Linux 13.1. The only change I did was to upgrade the RAM to 8 GB and to install a 250 GB SSD by Samsung instead of a 320 GB hard disk at 5400 RPM.
Tullio

---

Thanks will consider that also

---

If the main objective is to learn Linux I might recommend Slackware. I picked it years ago because it seemed the most secure and the most like Unix. I have not regretted it. On the other hand if learning more about Linux is only secondary and you plan to use a GUI to interact with the OS rather than the command line, I might look at something else. I have tried the GUI at various times and it seems to bog down on older machines with limited resources just as much as Windows does. That might be true of all Linux flavors but Slackware is the only one I have had experience with.

As far as heat goes I did write a short bash script to check the temperatures with “sensors” every 10 seconds and kill the boinc process if the CPU exceeds a set temperature. That is a little more drastic than throttling, but my Linux server normally runs at 100% on all cores without exceeding 65C so it is really only a fail safe measure.

There are however a lot of suggestions on how to actually throttle the CPU out there that you can find using Google without much difficulty. I used “linux throttle cpu” as search terms and the first page was full of choices that look like they could be useful.

Also thanks, Lots of versions out there. I haven't done anything yet - waiting for a free weekend. And thanks for the info on throttling, I found some useful info.

---