[COLUG] Computer overheating

[William Yang]

David McGlone wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Can anyone give me some help here. I am completely stumped. My desktop 
> computer keeps shutting down when anything too much is done on it. the system 
> log says it is overheating. But here is where I am completely stumped kubuntu 
> is reporting my system temperature as -270 C (-454 F) which in my opinion 
> would be the hardest block of ice on earth and when it shuts down, the system 
> log says the temp was critical at -264 C. In my opinion it's still darn 
> frozen. 

At -270C (3K), you're talking about the core being so cold as to almost
cause gaseous helium to condense to a liquid state at 1 atmosphere
(1.1K).  Put another way, it's obvious that something's wrong with your
sensor or the code that's reading it.

My guess is that the sensor modules (can be in kernel, may be a config
issue for lm_sensors or something similar) you're using are not correct
or are buggy for the hardware you're using.

I'd be looking for software causes for a thermal shutdown, in terms of
direction.

	-Bill
-- 
William Yang
wyang at gcfn.net