[nmglug] dmesg output

[Nick Frost]

On Jun 1, 2012, at 8:26 AM, BrianO'Keefe wrote:

> Thanks much Ted. I checked out the man pages and manual and will have to study them to understand Nice. What I don't understand is why I should invoke it?

invoking re-nice is effectively CPU throttling for a given process in this case, limiting the % of CPU and thread consumption through lowering the process priority, I think the idea in this case being presumably to reduce heat by throttling the process eating up CPU cycles (firefox?).  Top is another interface to invoke renice for a process.  If one runs "top" and hits "r" it then top will prompt "PID to renice?" at which point one enter the PID to renice (listed in left column in top) and then one is prompted for a value.  In my case the squeezebox server has a priority of 20, so entering 20 renices it to 39 since the  original nice value was zero (becomes 20).  Repeating the process and using "0" restores the natural queueing priority for that squeezebox process..

With renice, positive numbers decrement a process priority,  negative numbers increase it…so positive integers for slowing someone thing down, negative for allocating higher resource priority.

It sounds like the Toshiba L305-S5917, similar to the The HP dv2000 has the problem of degrading CPU thermal paste causing overheating. As mentioned by Brian previously Arctic Silver has the best thermal dissipation of any paste I've used. 

I elected not to repair the dv2000 that was brought to me for the third time (locking up, graphics issues) because it (GPU) showed signs of component stress due to overheating.  The disassembly process can be time consuming and while I'd not discourage one from trying it, if the laptop is > 2 years old one can get a new Asus Core i3 for $650 from Newegg.  

I say this because I did a complete teardown and  rebuild of a Xerox Phaser 8200N printer some time ago and while the repair was successful the printer lasted about 6 months before breaking again and so I would have been better served in terms of time and money purchasing a new printer.  I've repaired enough hardware in 20 years that is was less educational and more a waste of time due to misplaced curiosity of my part (I have a thing for thermal wax printers). Nevertheless, laptop repair is usually if not always a learning experience and so if one is strongly motivated to economize and tinker then I'd endorse the suggestion to go ahead with the thermal paste replacement and hope the overheating goes away and laptop continues to provide reliable operation.

Good luck,

-Nick

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Nicholas S. Frost
7 Avenida Vista Grande #325
Santa Fe, NM  87508
nickf at frostitute.com
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