[Bug 570589] Re: Lucid: Overheating due to no PM for ATI KMS

[Klaus Doblmann]

@Jeremy:

I'm using the latest version of Ubuntu 10.04 and can test on three different machines, all of which exhibit the problem (two in extreme, one in not critical ways). 
Upstream-testing is currently going on with the 2.6.34-series where some portions of the PM code have been added which already works. Further code is currently being prepared for merging into 2.6.35 once the merge window opens. 
I tested this on all three machines with 2.6.34-rc5 and ATI KMS PM works when /etc/modprobe.d/radeon-kms.conf is altered to say "options radeon modeset=1 dynpm=1". On two machines dynamic clock setting works as it should, however on my main working machine (which doesn't get too hot on the 2600XT anyway) I need additional patches which allow me to manually set the clock speeds as dynpm doesn't work due to the settings in the atomBIOS table of my card.

So, in short: The issue has been fixed upstream (and is heavvily worked
on right now) but is obviously missing from lucid's kernel.

To test the latest upstream PM code, apply these patches on top of the
drm-next tree: http://people.freedesktop.org/~agd5f/pm3/

** Tags removed: needs-upstream-testing

** Tags added: apport-collected

** Description changed:

  As you know the code in Lucid's -32 kernel doesn't have support for
  power management on ATI cards with KMS (which is default). This is not a
  problem for desktop users, but laptop users with beefy cards may run
  into severe overheating issues. I expect the forums to flood with these
  problems once lucid is final. I have experienced this on two (laptop)
  machines at home: GPU and CPU share a heatsink thus the CPU gets very
  hot too when idling. In one case this lead to the CPU (both are C2Ds)
  being constantly stuck at 800 MHz a few minutes after booting (Once it
  went over 75° or something like that), in the other case the CPU temps
  went up to 80° in idle even with the fans at full speed. Switching to
  fglrx OR a newer kernel and PM OR UMS and PM fixes this, but I feel KMS
  on ATI as a default is a bad decision right now. I hope this gets fixed
  with 10.10 as the PM code hits MMs kernel.
  
- Most likely we won't be able to do anything about this bug (unless
- there's a kernel upgrade in one of lucid's point releases) so I guess
- the purpose of this bugreport is more or less to track this issue during
- the development of MM.
+ Most likely we won't be able to do anything about this bug (unless there's a kernel upgrade in one of lucid's point releases) so I guess the purpose of this bugreport is more or less to track this issue during the development of MM.
+ --- 
+ Architecture: amd64
+ DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
+ InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha amd64 (20100113)
+ Package: linux (not installed)
+ ProcEnviron:
+  LANGUAGE=de_AT:de:de_DE:de_CH:de_LU:de_LI:de_BE:en
+  PATH=(custom, user)
+  LANG=de_AT.utf8
+  SHELL=/bin/bash
+ Tags: lucid
+ Uname: Linux 2.6.34-rc5-klausi x86_64
+ UnreportableReason: The running kernel is not an Ubuntu kernel
+ UserGroups: adm admin audio cdrom dialout dip fax floppy fuse lpadmin netdev plugdev sambashare tape vboxusers video

-- 
Lucid: Overheating due to no PM for ATI KMS
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/570589
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