laptop gets very hot while running debian

[kristof_v]

hi,

i installed debian on my lappy.
it's an acer aspire 1300

but, however, when runnign debian my laptop gets very hot.
after a minute or 2 the fan starts blowing like mad.
this problem doesn't occur while running windows.

this is my cpu_info:

processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 6
model : 8
model name : mobile AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1400+
stepping : 0
cpu MHz : 1200.559
cache size : 256 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse syscall mp mmxext 3dnowext 3dnow
bogomips : 2375.68


these are the things that i did so far:
-i installed powernowd but it won't start
-my kernel version is 2.6.8
-/sys/ is populated so that should be ok?
-apt-get install acpid
-/proc/acpi/ is populated (cpu temp is 80 degrees celcius)
-apt-get install acpi

but i don't what to do next or how to configure things.

any help would be much appreciated!!!

[mr.MikyMaus]

I am not an expert in power management, but I think
you should check your kernel for acpi and apm and
make sure only acpi is loaded (since they conflict each
other) and things like fan, processor, battery, etc. are
either compiled into the kernel or available as modules.
If you are using an original Debian kernel package, most
of these things should be compiled as modules.

# lsmod

will tell you about loaded modules.

Then try google for 'power management tools' or something
like that...

I also recommend upgrading your kernel, since I've heard
somewhere (and thus it's not affirmative) kernel 2.6.8 has
some acpi bug.

-M.

[Sterling]

My suggestion, only if you cannot get it working in Debian, is to run Ubuntu. Ubuntu is very similar to Debian, being that it is based on Debian. Power management, if detected, is automatically loaded. I just setup both Debian and Ubuntu on my laptop for comparrison purposes, while I did get it working in Debian, it took a little time and research.

Try these:

• Verify your kernel has cpu-frequency-scaling support. Either modular or compiled in directly. Along with respective governors (i.e. powersave, ondemand, userspace, etc).
• Verify your configuration of powernowd. (Read their documentation for more instruction.)

[Freedom]

My only idea would be to look through your BIOS and see if you can lower power a bit without killing performance. Only idea I have.

[Zelmo]

What output do you get when you run

powernowd -v

as root?