[GRLUG] random loss of local keyboard

megadave megadave at gmail.com
Fri Jul 6 03:47:00 EDT 2012


Error: Printer^H^H^H^H^H^H Keyboard on fire?

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 6:40 PM, Michael Mol <mikemol at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 5:07 PM, John-Thomas Richards <jtr at jrichards.org> wrote:
>> On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 04:34:05PM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
>>> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 4:25 PM, John-Thomas Richards <jtr at jrichards.org> wrote:
>>> > On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 04:05:32PM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
>>> >> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 4:03 PM, John-Thomas Richards <jtr at jrichards.org> wrote:
>>> >> > On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 03:53:06PM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
>>> >> >> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 3:45 PM, John-Thomas Richards <jtr at jrichards.org> wrote:
>>> >> >> > On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 03:37:35PM -0400, John-Thomas Richards wrote:
>>>
>>> [snip]
>>>
>>> >> >> >> Jul  5 14:32:19 auerbach kernel: [19029.452136] [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> This is the line you should really care about. You have failing
>>> >> >> hardware somewhere, and the kernel logged it.
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> I think this page would set you in the right direction to identifying
>>> >> >> what's going on:
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Check_Exception#Decoding_MCEs
>>> >> >
>>> >> > Thanks!  I'm checking it now.
>>> >> >
>>> >> >> ...but a random stab. The weather's been crazy hot lately. Is that
>>> >> >> machine in a well-cooled room?
>>> >> >
>>> >> > It's in my office...so no.  It's not.  AC is running but I'm still
>>> >> > sweating.
>>> >>
>>> >> Semi-related. Do you have power management configured? I.e. CPU
>>> >> underclocked when not in use, GPU underclocked when not in use, that
>>> >> kind of thing? If not, that would probably be a good idea for now.
>>> >
>>> > Yes; I just checked the logs again and saw this:
>>> >
>>> > Jul  5 15:59:52 auerbach mcelog: Processor 7 heated above trip temperature. Throttling enabled.
>>> > Jul  5 15:59:52 auerbach mcelog: Please check your system cooling. Performance will be impacted
>> [snip]
>>> > Jul  5 15:59:52 auerbach mcelog: Processor 5 below trip temperature. Throttling disabled
>> [snip]
>>> > (I just installed mcelog in response to your suggestion.)
>>>
>>> Set your CPU governer to "conservative" or even "powersave" until the
>>> heat wave passes. You've got eight cores, you'll be fine. :)
>>
>> It's currently on "ondemand"; I almost never see it running at full
>> speed (2.2GHz) but most often at either 800MHz or 1.3GHz.  Now to find
>> out how to change from ondemand to conservative...
>
> There's an entry somewhere under /proc, I expect. Though I usually
> just use a widget from XFCE, GNOME or whatever.
>
>>
>>> Similarly, find out if your GPU has power settings you can tweak downward.
>>
>> That's running at Adaptive mode.  Curiously, I'm not running any video
>> or graphically demandings apps (an xterm, Chromium, and the nVidia app)
>> and it keeps jumped up to the highest performance level.  Not sure
>> why.
>
> A lot of apps are starting to tap into the OpenCL backend (so, using
> the GPU for more general calculations), so that'll have an impact.
> Otherwise, yeah, there are any number of reasons Chromium might tax
> your GPU.
>
> Are you using a compositing window manager? Compositing window
> managers give apps the continual perception of their being visible.
> Consequentially, they draw updates far more often than they do when
> invisible, and the compositing window manager directs these draw
> operations into a texture. Then the compositing window manager will
> have the GPU continually blend each app's "texture" into its region of
> the screen. So, app redraws (even when minimized) may also cause load
> spikes for your GPU.
>
> I'd probably see about pinning the GPU to a lower performance mode.
> Your GPU is going to consume more energy (and thus generate more heat)
> than any other component in your system.
>
> You might also turn down the brightness controls on your LCD or LED
> display. (So, via the controls on the display, not via your computer's
> software.) My 22" LCD screen's PSU label indicates a 200W draw. I get
> huge gains from, e.g. my cell phone by turning down the backlight
> brightness. The same would likely apply to a desktop monitor.
>
> One last place you might be able to get some gains...configure your
> system to spin down your hard drives when they're idle. The gain from
> this will only be about 1-5W per drive, though, so YMMV.
>
> --
> :wq
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