Sudden unwanted shutdowns when playing

[tremforumuser]

Hi there,

since a few weeks, I experience the following, very annoying problem when playing trem: After playing for a while (lets say 20 min), the system (Debian Linux with kernel 2.6.26.5) reacts as if I had issued the shutdown command, i.e. the it starts a _regular_ shutdown. It does not simply crash or power down (although I had that yesterday). I happens every game now. When I reboot, I can play again for a while, but then the same occurs.

I also have this problem when playing OpenArena, and even when compiling a new kernel (although that triggered the process much faster). I suspect it has to do something with high cpu load (compiling kernel=constant high cpu load, playing trem=moderate, infrequent high load).

Has anyone experienced the same? If it is because of high cpu load (and overheating), how can it be that there is a regular shutdown, and not simply a poweroff? (However, sometimes there _is_ a poweroff instead of a shutdown, it is a big mystery to me.)
Christian

[David]

My guess would be heat, and the system has its limit set slightly lower than the hardware limit, and so shuts down before the hardware pulls the plug.
Get something that can monitor temperature and see what it says.  If it is overheating, then make sure all the fans are spinning, and aren't full of dust.  I get 40C off my graphics card just by pulling dust out.

[tremforumuser]

Ok, I installed a temperature monitoring utility (wmgtemp) and started a kernel compilation. Without any load, my cpu temp is shown as ~55 °C (fan is hardly heard) and during comilation, it climbs up to 75°C (fan becomes louder). Then is shuts down.

I think I am starting to realize that my temperatures are way too high, because there is a read warning light shown next to the cpu temp. Or are 55 degrees normal?

It is a laptop, by the way. Have laptops higher temperatures in general?

Thanks for your help,
Christian

[kevlarman]

Ok, I installed a temperature monitoring utility (wmgtemp) and started a kernel compilation. Without any load, my cpu temp is shown as ~55 °C (fan is hardly heard) and during comilation, it climbs up to 75°C (fan becomes louder). Then is shuts down.

I think I am starting to realize that my temperatures are way too high, because there is a read warning light shown next to the cpu temp. Or are 55 degrees normal?

It is a laptop, by the way. Have laptops higher temperatures in general?

Thanks for your help,
Christian

it depends a lot on the laptop, mine goes up to 55 under heavy load, i've heard of laptops with good gpus clearing 100 during normal operation though.

[Archangel]

My old Dell laptop IDLED at 75C.