On 5 August 2010 09:17, Adam Bower adam@thebowery.co.uk wrote:

Is it just the cpu is being taxed sometimes and never was before? The other option is that it might be some flash content in a banner or advert on the page. I've encountered flash content before that will immediately peg the cpu to 100% and the only way to return the machine to a usable state is to close that tab in the browser. The cause for this is that people writing flash banner ads don't really care about user experience so they do it quickly and don't test it (I presume)

Another CPU drain is Javascript - both New Scientist and the Guardian websites have been guilty of that one, though it is probably also the adverts doing the silly things.

Straw poll : Who uses AdBlock? Who thinks perhaps they should use it?

Tim.

It has always worked just fine, and in almost all ways except this still does. *snip* cpu temperature starts to rise quite rapidly to the high 50s, and the fan gets very loud indeed.  I don't know how far it would go, because one of us closes the browser fairly soon when this happens, and eventually the temperature falls to below 50.

*snip* It does do it when rendering some pdfs.  Particularly, it did it with a graphics intensive pdf of some sort.

***Another machine is an old 754, and it does not happen on it.***

Hi Peter,

At the wish of pointing out the obvious, if you use moving parts for cooling, those moving parts will need to be serviced (ie: cleaned/repaired/replaced) at some point. Like a car, you may get away with not doing, but you may not.

The first thing I'd do with an overheating problem that happens when the machine is under stress, independent of software, is look at the cooling. Dust the fans and heat sink grooves out first, make sure the case has its cover on and that any exhausts have decent clearance - see if that solves the problem (it has for me many times). Remove the dust from the rest of the machine if so, this will only gather back at the fan otherwise

Replace/repair any bits that aren't working properly - if you can measure individual temps and see that something like the GPU is getting super-toasty, this might include reseating the heat sink with a bit of thermal paste - some of the coolers those blighters are very heavy and moving the machine a few times might have hurt the bond - again, something that's saved me replacing components before now.

I'd say a swift look at the cooling has solved such problems for me "quite often", so it's worth having a look.

Also, consider liquid cooling if you buy new kit, as it doesn't get this problem so much, obviously. Good luck.

On Thu, 2010-08-05 at 08:31 +0100, Peter Alcibiades wrote:

Any ideas on this?

Its a socket 754 machine, something like a 2Ghz Athlon, 1G memory. Debian Squeeze. It has always worked just fine, and in almost all ways except this still does. What has just now started happening however is that the owner has started to read the papers online. Sometimes, it doesn't seem to matter which paper or which browser, there will be a page with 'the wrong kind' of graphics. Its not clear exactly what the wrong kind is, some are fine, others seem not to be. Gradually, the fan will start to speed up.

If you now start up gkrell, you can see that cpu temperature starts to rise quite rapidly to the high 50s, and the fan gets very loud indeed. I don't know how far it would go, because one of us closes the browser fairly soon when this happens, and eventually the temperature falls to below 50.

There are two separate issues here:

1. Why do some web pages require so much CPU capacity while others don't.

2. Why does the CPU run so hot when it is being worked.

In the first case this is down to poorly written content. Whenever the designer of a web page is allowed to write procedural steps they have the opportunity to write accidental infinite loops and lazy busy polling loops. Javascript and Java Applets both provide the ability to do this and I wonder if flash does to.

In the second case you need to establish what the maximum permissible temperature is and whether it is being approached. If so better cooling design is required, whether specifically from the CPU fan/cooler or the case design.

HTH, Steve.

Thanks guys for suggestions on this. Yes, you are probably right that the AMD processor of that generation run hotter. I have opened it up and got rid of dust, though there wasn't much.

It is doing it on both the FT and the Guardian, in both Firefox and Konqueror, and it also did it when rendering a large and heavily graphical PDF. So it is probably hardware.

One lesson of this is to be more careful about barebones in future. I thought of fitting a new cooler, but the problem is, there is so little clearance. Also, when you open it up, the airflow is clearly not the greatest because the case is fairly crammed full of psu and opticals. The main board is custom - this is the price of that nice compact form factor, so the natural lazy and cheap solution of buying a new mainboard bundle from Novatech is out.

Oh well, it was a good one while it lasted. There is another reason for changing it out, so maybe this is a good excuse. You young fellows will discover as you age, probably many years from now, a preoccupation which may be quite remote and novel at the moment. You find you cannot take for granted your continuing ability to manage technical things for other people. So one of the things you tend to do is, set up systems for them, and buy things for them, with half an eye out to the possibility that at any moment, they may find themselves on their own with it. As the Bible says, in the midst of life we are in death.

I am guessing that an i3 with lots of memory, Debian installed, clear simple instructions on keeping it up to date, well, it will give a few years... Best I can do, in any event.

Al