Bug 714474

Summary: radeon driver default power profile causes laptop overheating
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Pasi Karkkainen <pasik>
Component: xorg-x11-drv-atiAssignee: X/OpenGL Maintenance List <xgl-maint>
Status: CLOSED NEXTRELEASE QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: unspecified Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: rawhideCC: drtl, jglisse, xgl-maint
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: Unspecified   
OS: Unspecified   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
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Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2011-06-20 13:37:28 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
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Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
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Description Flags
F15 live CD lspci
none
F15 live CD lspci -vvv
none
F15 live CD kernel dmesg
none
F15 live CD Xorg.0.log none

Description Pasi Karkkainen 2011-06-19 14:20:10 UTC 
Description of problem:
HP EliteBook 8530p laptop with ATI/AMD Radeon HD 3650 graphics runs very hot as a default and causes laptop overheating and thermal shutdowns.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
Fedora 15, Fedora 14, RHEL 6.1 WS.

How reproducible:
Always.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Boot Fedora 15 live CD.
2. Feel the laptop become very hot and overheat, even when there is no CPU usage and the system is idle.
  
Actual results:
Laptop runs very hot, and overheats every now and then causing thermal shutdowns.

Expected results:
Laptop runs cool like in Windows.

Additional info:

$ cat /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_profile
default

Changing the power_profile to "mid" or "low" makes the temperature go down at least 10 degrees celsius:
$ echo low > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_profile

This sounds like a driver bug, or unimplemented feature, because some people report using the proprietary Linux fglrx driver doesn't have this overheating problem..

Or could it be something to do with the graphics adapter VBIOS settings/configuration?
Comment 1 Pasi Karkkainen 2011-06-19 14:41:17 UTC 
Created attachment 505463 [details]
F15 live CD lspci
Comment 2 Pasi Karkkainen 2011-06-19 14:41:41 UTC 
Created attachment 505464 [details]
F15 live CD lspci -vvv
Comment 3 Pasi Karkkainen 2011-06-19 14:42:19 UTC 
Created attachment 505465 [details]
F15 live CD kernel dmesg
Comment 4 Pasi Karkkainen 2011-06-19 14:43:28 UTC 
Created attachment 505466 [details]
F15 live CD Xorg.0.log
Comment 5 Pasi Karkkainen 2011-06-19 14:57:20 UTC 
There's a related overheating bugreport here (for an iMac with radeon graphics): https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=702953

Some additional data:
- On Windows 7 this laptop runs cool as a default. You can easily feel the difference when you have the laptop on your legs. On F15 the laptop feels very hot, while on Windows it doesn't feel hot.

- I noticed over 10 degrees (celsius) CPU temperature difference on an idle system when switching the radeon power_profile from "default" to "low". I was measuring the temperature change with these methods:

1) CPU temperature goes down over 10 degrees celsius when monitoring /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone3/temp.
2) The laptop doesn't feel so hot anymore.
3) The fans go down.

# cat /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone3/device/path 
\_TZ_.CPUZ

# uname -a
Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.38.6-26.rc1.fc15.x86_64 #1 SMP Mon May 9 20:45:15 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Any idea why the default power_profile is making the GPU so hot, on an idle system ?
Comment 6 Pasi Karkkainen 2011-06-19 15:19:49 UTC 
Btw even with the power_profile set to "low" the laptop runs more hot in Linux compared to Windows.. 

CPU temperatures on an idle laptop:
- Fedora 15 radeon power_profile "default": 88-98 degrees celsius.
- Fedora 15 radeon power_profile "low": 74 degrees celsius.
- Windows 7 default settings: 64 degrees celsius.

Not sure if that remaining 10 degrees difference is caused by the radeon power_profile settings, or if it's some other setting..
Comment 7 Jérôme Glisse 2011-06-20 13:37:28 UTC 
We are hopping AMD will be able to release more documentation on power saving, there is nothing we can do until then
Comment 8 Tobias Lippert 2011-07-14 21:25:13 UTC 
Is Bug 682851 a duplicate of this one?