When running intensive apps like blender my CPU can get up to 80.C I can manually underclock the CPU from the BIOS but I would like to have my pc detect when the CPU temp gets too high and slow things down until everything cools down. Is there a way to do this automatic or even a manual way to slow the CPU down from ubuntu
From (wiki.debian.org -thermald) there is Debian's (Ubuntu's) write up about thermald A Linux daemon for cooling tablets and laptops. This only works for Sandy Bridge (2nd generation) and newer Intel Cores. Once the system temperature reaches a certain threshold, the Linux daemon activates various cooling methods to try to cool the system.
Linux thermal daemon (thermald) monitors and controls temperature in laptops, tablets PC with the latest Intel sandy bridge and latest Intel CPU releases. Once the system temperature reaches a certain threshold, the Linux daemon activates various cooling methods to try to cool the system.
It operates in two modes:
apt-get install thermald
From Arch Linux:
TLP brings you the benefits of advanced power management for Linux
without the need to understand every technical detail. TLP comes with
a default configuration already optimized for battery life, so you may
just install and forget it. Nevertheless TLP is highly customizable to
fulfill your specific requirements.
Please read the full Arch Linux TLP link above. There are issues with Nvidia that require configuration changes.
After many trials and errors with other packages, I've had great success using TLP. It gives superior fan control and works seamlessly with thermald and p-states.
As these installation instructions for Ubuntu 15.04+ mention TLP not only reduces overheating but it extends battery life too.
Since installing TLP, Powerclamp (described below) has never been invoked again.
Intel's Powerclamp driver is defined here (kernel.org - Intel Power Clamp.txt) and is part of thermald described above. A direct quote for Powerclamp from the link:
Consider the situation where a system’s power consumption must be
reduced at runtime, due to power budget, thermal constraint, or noise
level, and where active cooling is not preferred. Software managed
passive power reduction must be performed to prevent the hardware
actions that are designed for catastrophic scenarios.
Currently, P-states, T-states (clock modulation), and CPU offlining
are used for CPU throttling.
On Intel CPUs, C-states provide effective power reduction, but so far
they’re only used opportunistically, based on workload. With the
development of intel_powerclamp driver, the method of synchronizing
idle injection across all online CPU threads was introduced. The goal
is to achieve forced and controllable C-state residency.
Test/Analysis has been made in the areas of power, performance,
scalability, and user experience. In many cases, clear advantage is
shown over taking the CPU offline or modulating the CPU clock.
Powerclamp might only show itself once a year when your fan vents get too much dust & lint. So how do you know it's actually running in the background? Use:
lsmod | grep intel
And you should see a list similar to this:
btintel 16384 1 btusb
bluetooth 520192 29 bnep,btbcm,btrtl,btusb,rfcomm,btintel
intel_rapl 20480 0
intel_powerclamp 16384 0
(.... more intel drivers ....)
snd 81920 18 snd_hwdep,snd_timer,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_pcm,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_seq_device
If you see intel_rapl and intel_powerclamp you know it's working and simply waiting temps to exceed 85C.
Here is a screen shot when Powerclamp injects sleep cycles:
Normally on this system CPU clock speed is 2400 Mhz to 3400 Mhz when watching HTML5 video and 10 Chrome tabs open. Normally CPU utilization is about 9% to 12% across 8 CPUs. When things get too hot (86C) Powerclamp kicks in and this happens:
x is from 0 to 7. For the first 8 CPUs.The Powerclamp driver runs until temps drop below 85C again. While the driver is running you might have split second pausing in your videos and possibly split second keyboard and mouse lag.
Back in the "cool old days" of Ubuntu 14.04 Intel Turbo Boost was broken so my processor speed fluctuated between 1200 Mhz and 2400 Mhz. After upgrade to Ubuntu 16.04 it would go up to 3400 Mhz (3.4 Ghz) because Turbo Boost was finally working. But it also raised the heat.
To disable Intel Turbo Boost use:
echo "1" | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/no_turbo
To "band-aid" fix this problem I pulled the old laptop cooler pad with dual fans out of the closet and popped under the laptop. This dropped temps to 63C under the same workload.
The next step will be compress air in vents. After that the final step will be new Cooling Heatsink with pipes for CPU and GPU. Good thermal paste such as Arctic Silver 5 is also needed in that operation. A new fan was already installed last year and that seems to be running ok.
Blew out fan vents with compressed air and temps dropped from 63C to 56C. This is still using the laptop cooling pad mind you.
Have been using TLP (described above) for many months now and temperatures are steady around 50C and fan performance is optimal.
Because this is a Dell I had installed I8K Fan Monitor / Control in hopes it would speed up the fan sooner and faster. When I type sensors I get:
$ sensors
dell_smm-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
Processor Fan: 3963 RPM
CPU: +63.0°C
Ambient: +49.0°C
GPU: +54.0°C
Other: +79.0°C
acpitz-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1: +27.8°C (crit = +106.0°C)
temp2: +29.8°C (crit = +106.0°C)
coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Physical id 0: +65.0°C (high = +87.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 0: +65.0°C (high = +87.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 1: +64.0°C (high = +87.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 2: +63.0°C (high = +87.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 3: +57.0°C (high = +87.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Ignore the virtual temps, they are out to lunch. Under Ubuntu 14.04 the were accurate and I used temp 1 in Conky display. After Ubuntu 16.04 upgrade I had to refer to a third temperature not displayed on this screen. To see the REAL temps you can use this command:
$ cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone*/temp
27800
29800
62000
When I type:
$ lsmod |grep dell
dell_wmi 16384 0
sparse_keymap 16384 1 dell_wmi
dell_laptop 20480 0
dell_smbios 16384 2 dell_wmi,dell_laptop
dcdbas 16384 1 dell_smbios
dell_smm_hwmon 16384 0
wmi 16384 1 dell_wmi
video 40960 3 dell_wmi,dell_laptop,i915
I see the dell_smm_hwmon kernel module / driver. When I google that driver and I8K people report the two drivers cause system freezes for a split-second every 10 seconds or so. I was having this problem myself so had to remove I8K fan control.
There are lots of other utilities and cooling methodologies but this is getting TL;DR.
