Advanced

Linux Wireless Woes Overheat Notebook Computers

Posted by gsh on · 7 comments
OSWeekly.com; By Matt Hartley 		Mail this story
Print this story

As I finish my testing on three different Linux supported wireless cards from Edimax running them on Ubuntu Gutsy, I discovered something that I think some people lose sight of. Because all three of these cards are using Ralink-based drivers of one sort or another, they tend to run a bit hot. And bundle that with a notebook not sitting on a notebook cooling pad and you have yourself one very overtaxed piece of hardware.

Besides known issues with network-manager and the now famous ipv6, more often than not, a clear case of overheating will take connectivity down to its knees. And this is especially true with some Linux drivers, since the cards they run may actually run differently on Windows - sometimes with better power management.

Full Story

  Nav
» Read more about: Story Type: Editorial; Groups: Linux

» Get new stories by e-mail: nightly or as they are published

« Return to the newswire homepage

  Related stories
» More like this

Comments (7)

extradudeguy ·
This is a good point and it does help for sure with throttle control. If memory serves, powernowd and cpufreqd are conflicting options, which would mean that one has to be selected over the other? Honestly, I am unsure. I am currently using powernowd on my notebook.

Feedback is appreciated.
ColonelPanik ·
My old hand-me-down Averatec was a real waffle burner of a lap top. Did cpufreqd and now it won't even keep my hands warm. Er, it has that RT2500 WiFi.

My AcerPower 1000 (Broadcom AF1) was hotter then the hinges of Hell and the cpufreqd worked like a charm. I assumed that the WiFi cards were causing the cpu to run harder? Quien Sabe?

extradudeguy ·
Yeah, the notebook is an Averatec 3200. Definitely agree that it could be harnessed as a source of heat for anyone going cold this winter. ;)

Mine came with integrated Broadcom wireless. I have a wide array of wireless cards for my notebooks computers, ranging from rt2500 to rt61, even a couple of rt73USB options. I had rt73USB working like a champ after running a little script I cooked up.

#! /bin/sh -f echo 'blacklist rt2500usb' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

Now the rt2500 PCMCIA card runs fair enough, but the rt61 card, which uses rt61PCI in Gutsy, tends to get a bit warm. I found that it dramatically reduced network drops with the use of an Argus notebook cooling pad. But to be fair, these little AMD powered notebooks get pretty hot anyway.

Will swap out powernowd for cpufreqd. Also, I think cpufreqd needed some extra modules for throttling if memory serves? Did you find it needing anything extra?
extradudeguy ·
BTW, before signing off - Merry Christmas. :)

Thanks again for your thoughts.
ColonelPanik ·
cpufreqd/cpufrequtils and ya can't have one without the other. Automagic.
extradudeguy ·
Sweet, will install tonight. Thanks again.

Post a comment

A free account is needed to post. Write your comment here first: your text is kept in this browser while you sign up or log in, and is waiting for you when you come back.

Your message:
|||||
10
Markdown: **bold**, *italic*, [text](https://link), - lists, > quotes, $x^2$ for math. Formatting help

Sign up and post (it is free)  or  Log in and post