[sf-lug] semi-OT: help with dying disk

[Rick Moen]

Quoting matt.price at utoronto.ca (matt.price at utoronto.ca):

> well, my machine runs INCREDIBLY hot, so i suppose that's the answer.
> it's gotten to the point where, if i want to watch a movie, i get an
> icepack out of the freezer first.  i don't even really know how to
> diagnose this -- shouldn't some kind of temperature control be kicking
> in?  can i tell what's generating al lthe heat somehow?  but i've
> definitely been aware of the problem for a while -- tried to get some
> feedback from the ubuntu lists about a year ago but got no responses,
> iirc, and haven't dealt with it efficaciously since then.

Sometimes, the machine runs hot because the hardware just _is_ that way.
Let's be optimistic, and assume not.

Hmm, the problem is, I keep forgetting where all this stuff is.  One 
place I look to refresh my memory is ThinkWiki, e.g., on 
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_make_use_of_Power_Management_features 
Stuff linked from there:

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_make_use_of_Dynamic_Frequency_Scaling
...explains how to vary the CPU frequency on the fly.  (Running the CPU
at a lower clock rate makes it cooler.)

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_make_use_of_Harddisk_Power_Management_features
talks about HD power management, including the spindown feature made
briefly infamous by the aforementioned Ubuntu hoo-hah.

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_make_use_of_Graphics_Chips_Power_Management_features
covers varying graphics chip frequency on the fly, with effects like
those of doing the same thing for your CPU(s).

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_reduce_power_consumption
has a bunch of miscellaneous tips to reduce power draw.


Also, the Gentoo guys (as usual) have some really good documentation on
the subject:  http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/power-management-guide.xml