Re: dbcool, envsys, powerd shutting down my machine

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

>>> In general, I personally don't think it ever makes sense to
>>> shutdown by default when the temperature is exceeded, since most of
>>> these sensors aren't really all that reliable [...]
>> I disagree with this.
>> On my IBM ThinkPad z60m, the fan is so knackered it [...]  If it
>> gets hotter then it powers itself down.  I would much rather the
>> system shutdown gracefully compared to having the power rudely
>> yanked.
> Wouldn't the correct solution then be to kill the process-intensive
> jobs, instead of shutting down the whole system?

Maybe for some applications.  But it sounds to me as though this is
talking about BIOS and hardware, not OS, and the BIOS and the hardware
can't kill individual processes without OS cooperation - and if you
have OS cooperation, then the whole thing is moot because the OS can do
whatever it wants.

But I too would much rather the hardware power itself down than fry.
It would be still better for the OS to cooperate, but that requires
that the OS have data reliable enough to base its decisions on.

If the hardware has reliable sensors the OS doesn't, of course the best
fix is to pass the accurate data to the OS, but that's often possible
only with cooperation of the hardware maker.  It's also possible the
hardware has a binary "emergency over-temperature" sensor that's
accurate enough to power down based on, and a less-accurate temperature
sensor the OS can access.

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