Dell Inspiron and 7900GS = High temperature

[Sam3457]

Hello,

I've a problem with my laptop Dell Inspiron 9400 and its nVidia 7900GS graphic card.
The temperature of the card is 70 °C minimum in normal use (internet, music, ...). It seems that the fan of the graphic card is always off.

System : Linux Ubuntu 7.04 Festy Fawn
Driver Nvidia : 100.14.11 (installed by Envy script)
Laptop BIOS : A09 (last bios available)

I try to use i8kutils, Coolbits (for underclock the card) and nVClock but nothing resolv my problem.
If you have any idea, your welcome

Samuel

P.S : Sorry for my english, i'm french

[Go7300]

Look at this page from the Dell 9400 Service Manual and you will see the video card gets it's cooling from a metal conductor that reaches over to the second fan to cool by conduction. It's a heat sink. http://support.dell.com/support/edoc....htm#wp1006368

So, the smaller fan is the one to check. http://support.dell.com/support/edoc....htm#wp1000550

You should be able to feel the air flow if the fan is running. If it's not running, does it work in your Windows system? If not, then you have a hardware failure. Call Dell hardware support.

If it runs in Windows, then it should work in linux too .. even without the i8k module.

HTH,

[Sam3457]

Thanks for your answer, but i haven't Windows installed on my computer so I can't check if the fans is already ok.

I installed Ubuntu recently, and under Windows I had no problem of temperature, all fans run properly and system control frequency automatically.

It is really damage that it have no tool like PowerMizer for Linux.

Thanks,

Samuel

[Kanor]

Hello
I have the identical problem on my Inspiron 9400 that Sam3457 but with Geforce Go 7800
There isn't command line to launch the fan ??

[Sam3457]

Thanks for your visit on my post Kanor

I've test my laptop with Dell 32 bits Diagnostics utility, and it appears that all fans and sensors works properly. The problem come from Linux Ubuntu or graphics drivers.

Any idea ? Thank you in advance,

Samuel

[Go7300]

When you say you tried i8kutils, did you know you have to 'modprobe i8k ' for the i8k-utils to do anything? Also, to load i8k module, it may be necessary to use 'force=1' parameter. For example,

[paul@localhost:~]$ modinfo i8k (07-26 17:53)
filename: /lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/kernel/drivers/char/i8k.ko
license: GPL
description: Driver for accessing SMM BIOS on Dell laptops
author: Massimo Dal Zotto (dz@debian.org)
srcversion: 93314FD48E8039D7997DB2E
depends:
vermagic: 2.6.20-16-generic SMP mod_unload 586
parm: force:Force loading without checking for supported models (bool)
parm: ignore_dmi:Continue probing hardware even if DMI data does not match (bool)
parm: restricted:Allow fan control if SYS_ADMIN capability set (bool)
parm: power_status:Report power status in /proc/i8k (bool)

[paul@localhost:~]$ sudo modprobe i8k (07-26 17:47)
FATAL: Error inserting i8k (/lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/kernel/drivers/char/i8k.ko): No such device
[paul@localhost:~]$ sudo modprobe i8k force=1 (07-26 17:49)
[paul@localhost:~]$ lsmod | grep i8k (07-26 17:49)
i8k 7320 0

Once you successfully insert i8k, then you will see a file at /proc/i8k, which shows this on my system. I actually don't have 2 fans, so don't need it. But the i8k-utils should let you control the fans.

[paul@localhost:~]$ cat /proc/i8k (07-26 17:50)
1.0 A17 849D5C1 44 -22 1 27660 72660 -1 -22

HTH

[Sam3457]

Thanks for your precision Go7300.

I'm not sure, but I try to use modprobe before and it seems that fan run a few seconds and stop. My graphic card is always 70 °C, never less. I try also gkrellm, but I can't force the fan of the graphic card.
for example, i try : $ i8kfan 2 2
and laptop do : 2 1 for a few seconds

I will explore different links i found when I try to understand your post ;o)
Thanks a lot.

[BashfulTux]

I use this to set the fan speed to 50% increase the number on the end to get it to run faster.

nvclock -f -F 50

[Sam3457]

Thanks for your help BashfulTux, but it seems that nvclock can't managed Geforce Go 7900 GS

[BashfulTux]

Originally Posted by Sam3457

Thanks for your help BashfulTux, but it seems that nvclock can't managed Geforce Go 7900 GS

That sucks I'm out of ideas then.

[Sam3457]

It doesn't matter, thanks for your help BashfulTux

I hope nvidia will release a new driver with tool like PowerMizer