Re: Hot processors...

George Bonser (grep@shorelink.com)
Wed, 19 May 1999 18:10:51 -0700 (PDT)


On Tue, 18 May 1999, Riley Williams wrote:

> Hi Trevor.
>
> > Are Cyrix MII-300 [...] known to be major heat sources?
>
> My experience has been that all Cyrix processors generate far
> more heat than the equivalent Intel, and these in turn generate
> slightly more heat than the equivalent AMD processor, although
> there's little to choose between the last two in this regard.
>
> I understand some fan manufacturers have separate fans for Cyrix
> and non-Cyrix processors for precicely this reason.
>
> You may wish to check whether your Cyrix processor has a non-Cyrix
> fan on it, as that could easily be the cause of your problem.
>
> Best wishes from Riley.

By default the Intel shuts down (goes into a lower power mode) when it is
idle (the halt-on-idle thing). By default, Cyrix does not but you can get
the set6x86 pacakge in most distributions or your favorite Linux FTP
archive to set the bit in the Cyrix control register to duplicate the
Intel behavior. The CPU will then run much cooler and save your power
supply too.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/