CPUWorks50-99AfterUpdate

Hi, first of all I would like to congratulate the Gnewsense developers for working on a fully free distribution.

Now, my question: after updating the system yesterday my CPU is working at around 40% with just the system-monitor open. Using other applications makes it go up to almost 100%. The CPU gets very hot and the fan is running at full speed almost all the time. This situation seems to be even worse using KDE. The thing is that previous to yesterday's update everything seemed to work perfectly (I had updated the day before yesterday as well and did not observe any problem). I have been trying to search for the problem and it seems there is some sort of bug in Ubuntu which causes this when you install on some (quite a few as I have realized) laptops (I can't find now the thread at the Ubuntu forum where I found a possible soulution -didn't work-. In any case this sort of overheating in Heron is well documented in Ubuntu forum). Now, this overheat does not happen neither with Debian (lenny) nor Windows and, as I said, it did not start in Gnewsense until I updated yesterday. Does anyone know what the problem might be or, at least, if it is possible (and how) to reverse the last update which is what seems to be causing the problem (a few packages were updated but cannot remember which ones).

Thanks a lot.

Sorry, I forgot to say it is a Toshiba Satellite A60 (P IV).

Thanks.

I have rebooted into Gnewsense and things seems to have come back to normal (or so). After installing the sensor applets it shows a temperature of 48-50º C and system-monitor shows a CPU usage of 25-30%. Although the situation has improved I still wonder whether the CPU usage is not a bit high (I believe that I would not even hear the fan previous to the above mentioned update).

I enclose the results of PowerTop just in case it helps to decide whether everything should be considered to work properly or not:

     PowerTOP version 1.9       (C) 2007 Intel Corporation

                                      P-states (frequencies)
                                        2,80 Ghz     0,0%
                                        1,60 Ghz   100,0%

< Detailed C-state information is only available on Mobile CPUs (laptops) >

Wakeups-from-idle per second : 347,6 interval: 10,0s no ACPI power usage estimate available

Top causes for wakeups:

  37,8% ( 57,5)   USB device 1-1.2 : USB Optical Mouse (A4Tech) 
  32,7% ( 49,8)       <interrupt> : ohci_hcd:usb1, ohci_hcd:usb2, ehci_hcd:usb3, ohci1394, yenta 
   8,0% ( 12,2)       <interrupt> : libata 
   7,7% ( 11,7)   gnome-screensav : schedule_timeout (process_timeout) 
   4,7% (  7,1)    gnome-terminal : schedule_timeout (process_timeout)
   1,3% (  2,0)     <kernel core> : clocksource_register (clocksource_watchdog)
   1,3% (  2,0)   multiload-apple : schedule_timeout (process_timeout)
   1,0% (  1,5)    sensors-applet : schedule_timeout (process_timeout)
   0,7% (  1,0)            dhcdbd : schedule_timeout (process_timeout)
   0,7% (  1,0)        pulseaudio : schedule_timeout (process_timeout)
   0,7% (  1,0)    cpufreq-applet : schedule_timeout (process_timeout)
   0,7% (  1,0)         nm-applet : schedule_timeout (process_timeout)
   0,7% (  1,0)   hald-addon-stor : schedule_timeout (process_timeout)
   0,3% (  0,4)   <kernel module> : <dcabb255> (irlmp_discovery_timer_expired)
   0,3% (  0,4)       gnome-panel : schedule_timeout (process_timeout)
   0,3% (  0,4)     <kernel core> : neigh_table_init_no_netlink (neigh_periodic_timer)
   0,2% (  0,3)   <kernel module> : neigh_table_init_no_netlink (neigh_periodic_timer)
   0,2% (  0,3)   gnome-power-man : schedule_timeout (process_timeout)
   0,1% (  0,2)       trashapplet : schedule_timeout (process_timeout)
   0,1% (  0,2)     <kernel core> : page_writeback_init (wb_timer_fn)
   0,1% (  0,2)       gvfsd-trash : futex_wait (hrtimer_wakeup)

Suggestion: Disable 'hal' from polling your cdrom with: hal-disable-polling --device /dev/cdrom 'hal' is the component that auto-opens a window if you plug in a CD but disables SATA power saving from kicking in.

Thanks.

Again a change of situation: as I was writing this, just closing (I think) the terminal has made run the CPU to full speed (100% in use / 2.79 GHz) and it does not go down (right now just open a window of Epiphany) and temperature rising (68º C)and fan also at full speed. I believe I still need help. Go to reboot before it gets hotter!

I have Open PowerTop again before rebooting and this is the message:

Top causes for wakeups:

 100,0% ( 12,1)       <interrupt> : libata 

Note: libata was the thing which stood at the the top as well the firs time I run PowerTop.

Thanks.