toshiba hangs during cpu-intensive emerges

endgamer

i've got a toshiba satellite 2410-s205 laptop, and i've noticed this problem: anytime i want to emerge something large (usually openoffice, but yesterday even bittorrent), my system (running latest gentoo) will freeze. Freeze as in, screen goes off, the keyboard/touchpad will not respond, and funniest of all, the CapsLock light blinks on and off...

It does this whenever i leave a big emerge on overnight, but it happened yesterday a couple of times right in front of me (i go away for a couple of mins and whoops...). I thought it might be because it was getting too hot, so i installed acpi and ... tried to mess with it a little, but gave up and just raised it over the desk by putting a couple of books under it, and stuck it next to a big tablefan going full speed (high tech, eh). Went to sleep for 4 hours and woke up, it had frozen again the way i described above. very odd...

besides that, the only other thing preventing this box from being purrrfect is that i don't know how to set up hibernate/standby (so i donot have to reboot everytime i go somewhere with it and loose everything i was doing...).

if anyone has any ideas or has seen this b4, i'd appreciate ur insight.

kha · n00b Joined: 19 Mar 2003 Posts: 41

Just curious :

Does it get locked if you let it on all night without trying to compile something hudge ?
If so then you have a problem with your ACPI/APM system.
I assume you have a Pentium 4, so normally it should throttle down by itslef if the temperature rised (no need of an OS intervention for this).

Kha
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endgamer · Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2003 5:07 am Post subject:

no, if i leave it sitting alone for long periods of time doing nothing, it doesn't have any problems.

another odd thing is: my system is never idle. If i'm not using any cpu power, the system load is always 100%. is that normals?

Liathus · Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2003 6:29 am Post subject:

Are you using the gentoo-sources? I also have a toshiba p4 laptop and my system load is always 100% as well. I have been trying to discover what is going on with this.

i have a satalite 5105-s501 and I do not have the problem with large builds locking the system, so I dont know what to tell you there :(

azote · Guru Joined: 17 Sep 2002 Posts: 415

hi I have a toshiba too .. and all my problems are gone now .. that im running the kernel 2.5.65 ...

Im so glad !! I never notice that by laptop was going to explote !!! it was allways VERY hot!! and the fan always running .. (there was a system load of 95% allways ....)

type "top" and see the system overload with nothing runnig
this is what i get now:

Cpu(s): 2.6% user, 1.3% system, 0.0% nice, 96.1% idle, 0.0% IO-wait

before I had like 96% of system...

I just love the kernle 2.5 ..

it also fix my acpi problem ...

give it a try!!
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Liathus · Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2003 7:33 am Post subject:

i have never liked running the beta linux kernels. I have always had too many problems in the past. I am currently running the "vanilla-sources" of 2.4.20 and everything on my laptop is running great. acpi works to some extent (at least i can get battery status). I have been thinking about trying the acpi-sources.

I would, however, really like to run the gentoo sources for the pre-emptive kernel and the low latency. Every little bit of desktop performance helps!

endgamer · Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2003 4:30 pm Post subject:

yeah, i'm using gentoo sources.. i've read somewhere here that they are somewhat un-nice to laptops (acpi especially). so today, i'll try re-installing gentoo w/ the vanilla kernels.

and yes, i've noticed that the fan is _always_ on and it always has a very hot exhaust... which has been freaking me out forreal.

one question: can i in gentoo installation choose to select this 2.5 beta kernel? it's not like i've got anything to lose (cpu life...).

thanks yo

(ps. by the way, using the gentoo sources and after emerging acpi, i can see my battery status (ac/% of batter).)

Liathus · Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2003 5:33 pm Post subject:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=251184#251184

It looks as if this problem has been going on since at least feb. Looks as if the 2.5 series kernel will indeed fix the problem. But I would think that the "stable" kernels should work without attempting to assisnate my cpu :)

kha · n00b Joined: 19 Mar 2003 Posts: 41

I have seen this problem before, it is just that the CPU_IDDLE calls are
1-) Counted as effective operation dans therefore keeping the OS alive which in return won't let the PC goes to sleep.
2-) Probably incomplete implementation of ACPI standard. Some sleep operations are done through APM, and under the linux 2.4 kernel those two are mutually exclusive or close.

If you really want to keep your 2.4 kernel should try to compile it in APM only or to play with "make cpu iddle call when iddle" and allow "interrupts through bios APM call"(out of my memory not from the kernel so correct depending on what you find).

But if you are using a laptop you should really consider switching to 2.5.65. Most of the time it is much more stable than 2.4.x (on laptops :) ). Crappy ACPI implementations that are out of standards and have been tested only under winx are legions there.

Kha
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azote · Guru Joined: 17 Sep 2002 Posts: 415

I would recommend you to :

Liathus · Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2003 1:15 am Post subject:

Yeah, I switched to 2.5.65 and everything seems to be ok now. System seems to run a lot faster as well which is always nice... Now i just need to get myu sound to work... but that shouldn't be that bad I wouldnt imagine.

Thanks for the tips!

endgamer · Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2003 3:24 am Post subject:

ooo wee!!! nice nice!! thx man. now to emerge x and stf, and then

openoffice it is!