Toshiba L300D laptop overheats if in anything else but "Powersave" mode.

Bug #670707 reported by Chris Eineke
18
This bug affects 2 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
linux (Ubuntu)
Expired
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

I run Ubuntu 10.10, which i dist-upgraded from 10.04, on my laptop, a Toshiba Satellite L300D. The CPU fan only comes one when the BIOS initializes. Once the kernel is loaded the fan stops spinning and will never spin again at any time my laptop is running or at any CPU temperature.

According to the temperature sensors, the CPU cores are sitting at an idle temperature of ~66C, whereas the hard-drive is sitting at ~48C. My laptop will generally shut down if left in the "On Demand" or "Performance" performance profile, because the temperature goes up to ~98C and will trigger the emergency power down.

This is a regression from 10.04, where the CPU was idling at around 38C with the fan sometimes (but not all the time) kicking and cooling it properly.

It makes me nervous to think what this is doing to the lifetime of my hardware.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: linux-image-2.6.35-23-generic 2.6.35-23.36
Regression: Yes
Reproducible: No
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-23.36-generic 2.6.35.7
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-23-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.23.
AplayDevices:
 **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: ALC268 Analog [ALC268 Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: ALC268 Analog [ALC268 Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: ceineke 1685 F.... pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'SB'/'HDA ATI SB at 0xd6300000 irq 16'
   Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC268'
   Components : 'HDA:10ec0268,1179ff6a,00100003 HDA:11c11040,11790001,00100200'
   Controls : 12
   Simple ctrls : 7
Date: Wed Nov 3 20:04:55 2010
Frequency: Once a day.
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=f1799db9-cfe2-4e42-8dcb-1bce4e94c1cd
MachineType: TOSHIBA Satellite L300D
ProcCmdLine: root=UUID=e7fb9713-5f13-4dea-b461-0fe019929ceb ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_CA.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
RelatedPackageVersions: linux-firmware 1.38
RfKill:
 0: phy0: Wireless LAN
  Soft blocked: no
  Hard blocked: no
SourcePackage: linux
WpaSupplicantLog:

dmi.bios.date: 06/04/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: Insyde Corp.
dmi.bios.version: 1.60
dmi.board.asset.tag: No Asset Tag
dmi.board.name: Portable PC
dmi.board.vendor: TOSHIBA
dmi.board.version: Base Board Version
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Tag
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: AMD
dmi.chassis.version: None
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnInsydeCorp.:bvr1.60:bd06/04/2009:svnTOSHIBA:pnSatelliteL300D:pvrPSLC8C-06601R:rvnTOSHIBA:rnPortablePC:rvrBaseBoardVersion:cvnAMD:ct10:cvrNone:
dmi.product.name: Satellite L300D
dmi.product.version: PSLC8C-06601R
dmi.sys.vendor: TOSHIBA

Revision history for this message
Chris Eineke (chris.eineke) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Chris Eineke (chris.eineke) wrote :

Could somebody delegate/wrangle this?

Revision history for this message
Chris Eineke (chris.eineke) wrote :

I'd like to add something peculiar.

If the fan isn't running when the system boots, the fan will never spin up.

But if I restart the system when it's really hot and wait at the GRUB boot prompt until the fan kicks in, the fan will stay on and not change speeds.

Brad Figg (brad-figg)
Changed in linux (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Paul Gortmaker (paul-gortmaker) wrote :

A quick google search and you will find this is a common problem with these Toshiba models all over, even in the BSD variants. The threads are in linux forums and even toshiba forums.

Having one myself -- and having it get hot and shutdown without a warning is the only reason I happened onto this thread.

THere is lots of possible hints online, ranging from BIOS updates to various boot arguments. People are even trying to manipulate the ACPI tables. If it works for you, great -- if not then read on, to see what I learned:

Here is what I know, having experienced this on an L300D with "AMD Athlon(tm) X2 Dual-Core QL-60":

BIOS was 1.60 -- upgrade to 1.80 was success, but did not change anything for ACPI CPU fan. (linux does not see and does not control fan -- the "hack" to let it spin up while idle in grub, and then boot linux was as close to success that you got... meaning that it might be OK if you left the CPU 75% idle...

Options you will see in forums, like "acpi_osi=linux acpi.no_check=1" did nothing for this thing -- CPU got to 80+C temps. More if loaded 100%. No real workable solutions here. :(

In the end, the only workaround I found "acceptable" was to boot with "acpi=off" while on AC power, and do the grub-wait-for-the-fan-to-spinup hack while on battery, and then limit battery speed to 1/2 max frequency. Agreed, this is lame, but it is the best one can do with such borked hardware it seems.

Revision history for this message
Chris Eineke (chris.eineke) wrote :

This problem persists with 11.04 as well.

If I suspend the system and turn it back it on, the fan will properly kick in at high CPU temperatures and will stop spinning at normal CPU temperatures.

The fan also has a tendency to get plugged up with dust, so I started air-spraying every couple of weeks which helped by reducing the CPU temperature more quickly.

Revision history for this message
Thomas Majewski (thomasjmajewski) wrote :

My L300D fan will not work unless I add the " acpi_osi= " code to grub when I boot. The other way I get the fan working is to start up and then suspend which is a little better because most of the acpi functionality is retained. It's a work around and good enough to get the hardware working but now the issue I am having is that when the system gets loaded down and the temps get high, the wifi disconnects. It's happening more frequently these days. Not sure if these issues are related.

Revision history for this message
Ben Campbell (eyeballkid) wrote :

Just to add that I'm also seeing this problem under Ubuntu 11.10 on the L300D.

I think the fan is usually off upon first booting.
When I suspend and then resume again the fan will turn on and stay on.

When the machine is too loaded, it will overheat and just power off (very annoyingly, one time, causing my filesystem to be mostly trashed).

Happy to investigate further, but really have no idea where to start. I'm guessing the fan control for this model of toshiba laptop needs a little reverse engineering work - anyone have any pointers on where I should start looking? Disassembling ACPI tables?

Revision history for this message
penalvch (penalvch) wrote :

Chris Eineke, thank you for reporting this and helping make Ubuntu better. This bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? As per https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/PowerManagementASPM a patch was issued to address overheat. Can you try with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/ .

If it remains an issue, could you run the following command from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p linux <replace-with-bug-number>

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

Changed in linux (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Incomplete
tags: added: natty
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

[Expired for linux (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

Changed in linux (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Expired
Revision history for this message
Jürgen (j-w-ott) wrote :

I have the problem with quantal too Toshiba L300D.

On suggestion I have from the internet was to run a

echo low > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_profile

on every start.

For me this does the trick !

I tried to compare powertop before and after but couldn't find a decrease in power-consumption (just below 30W) as expected, but the temperature according to sensors is definitly down.

Revision history for this message
penalvch (penalvch) wrote :

Jürgen, if you have a bug in Ubuntu, could you please file a new report by executing the following in a terminal:
ubuntu-bug linux

For more on this, please see the Ubuntu Kernel team article:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/KernelTeamBugPolicies#Filing_Kernel_Bug_reports

the Ubuntu Bug Control team and Ubuntu Bug Squad team article:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/BestPractices#X.2BAC8-Reporting.Focus_on_One_Issue

and Ubuntu Community article:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Bug_reporting_etiquette

When opening up the new report, please feel free to subscribe me to it.

Please note, not filing a new report may delay your problem being addressed as quickly as possible.

Thank you for your understanding.

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