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Friday 26 October 2007
By aldeby on Friday 26 October 2007, 11:27
Gnome
sensors-applet is aimed at showing hardware temperatures into a pretty
deskbar applet.
Current stable version available in source flavor is 1.8.2 whereas the one
shipped with Ubuntu gutsy 7.10 is only 1.7.12, several changes have occurred
between these two versions, most notably: - support for new sensors - new tango
icons.
Furthermore the version available from Ubuntu repositories does not support
nVidia thermal sensors.
Sebastian (comment #6) has provided a precompiled package here:
http://www.wains.be/pub/sensors-applet_2.2.1-1_i386.deb
Many thanks!
Here is a quick how-to for quickly building an updated package of this applet
with nVidia thermal sensors support: (commands in bold)
- download latest sources from http://sensors-applet.sourceforge.net/index.php?content=source
- unpack them via tar xzf sensors-applet*.tar.gz
- install some required extra packages and their dependencies via apt:
sudo apt-get install libgnome2-dev libpanelappletmm-2.6-dev
libgtk2.0-dev mesa-common-dev build-essential checkinstall
- download latest nvidia-settings sources form here ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nvidia-settings/ or via apt
apt-get source nvidia-settings
- build the libNVCtrl library cd nvidia-settings*/src/libXNVCtrl
xmkmf make clean make
- install libNVCtrl and related headers sudo cp *.h
/usr/local/include/ sudo cp *.a /usr/local/lib
- enter sensors-applet folder cd sensors-applet* run
./configure
--prefix=/usr
--with-nvidia
- now, if you just want to install them run make and then
sudo make install whereas if you want to build a deb package
run sudo checkinstall and follow the step by step
instructions.
- after having installed the applet you have to rightclick on the deskbar and
choose add to panel then select sensors applet.
- Finally you have to configure the sensors by rightclicking on the applet
icon and selecting properties. enjoy a thermal monitoring station on
your computer!!
PS: average high warning values are: for Hard Disk drives ~55°C for CPU ~85°C
for nVidia GPU ~110°C
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Wednesday 24 October 2007
By aldeby on Wednesday 24 October 2007, 13:16
using laptop-mode in conjunction with other hard disk monitoring software needs
some attention in order to minimize disk's spin-ups.
hddtemp so far queries the hard disk for temperature status
every 60 seconds, thus wakening it from standby status that often. Unless a
workaround is found it would be a wise thing to remove it.
smartmontools (smartd) queries the hard disk for S.M.A.R.T.
status every 30 minutes. This can be configured in order to not query the disk
if it is in standby or sleep mode. edit /etc/smard.conf and at line:
DEVICESCAN -m root -M exec /usr/share/smartmontools/smartd-runner add
option: -n standby,q note that the given option can be
added to any line you have configured in this .conf file.
excerpt from 'man smartd.conf':The '-n' (nocheck)
Directive specifies if smartd's periodic checks should still
be carried out when the device is in a low-power mode. It may be used to
prevent a disk from being spun-up by periodic smartd
polling.
The allowed values of POWERMODE are:
never - smartd will poll (check) the device
regardless of its power mode. This may cause a disk which is spun-down to be
spun-up when smartd checks it. This is the default behavior if
the '-n' Directive is not given.
sleep - check the device unless it is in SLEEP mode.
standby - check the device unless it is in SLEEP or STANDBY mode.
In these modes most disks are not spinning, so if you want to prevent a laptop
disk from spinning up each time that smartd polls, this is
probably what you want. idle - check the device unless it is in SLEEP,
STANDBY or IDLE mode. In the IDLE state, most disks are still spinning, so this
is probably not what you want. When a self test is scheduled (see '-s'
Directive below), the '-n' Directive is ignored, and all tests
are carried out. When a periodic test is skipped, smartd
normally writes an informal log message. The message can be suppressed by
appending the option ',q' to POWERMODE (like '-n standby,q'). This prevents a
laptop disk from spinning up due to this message.
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Saturday 29 September 2007
By aldeby on Saturday 29 September 2007, 23:03
1. ondemand vblank interrupts. The X xorg.conf subsection for
the video driver needs this line: Option "OnDemandVBlankInterrupts" "true" I
just tested it and must say it is indeed effective! the 60 wakeups per second
that wakened up my system before due to the vertical refresh (of 60Hz) are now
disappeared! I still have to find out how mouch does this mean in terms of
watts/minutes saving but it is indeed a good news! nvidia-readme snippet:
Normally, VBlank interrupts are generated on every vertical refresh of every
display device connected to the GPU(s) installed in a given system. This
experimental option enables on-demand VBlank control, allowing the driver to
enable VBlank interrupt generation only when it is required. This can help
conserve power. Default: off (on-demand VBlank control is disabled)
2. CoolBits frequency tuner refer to this post
3. PowerMizer auto frequency adjusting refer to this post Artem has also
written a very useful explenation on how to manually tweak those power profiles
here:
http://tutanhamon.com.ua/technovodstvo/NVIDIA-UNIX-driver/
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