Bug 353438

Summary:	acpi spam in messages log and unable to write trip points
Product:	[openSUSE] openSUSE 11.0	Reporter:	matthias sweertvaegher <matthias.sweertvaegher>
Component:	Kernel	Assignee:	Thomas Renninger <trenn>
Status:	RESOLVED WONTFIX	QA Contact:	E-mail List <qa-bugs>
Severity:	Normal
Priority:	P4 - Low
Version:	Final
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	x86
OS:	openSUSE 11.0
Whiteboard:
Found By:	---	Services Priority:
Business Priority:		Blocker:	---
Marketing QA Status:	---	IT Deployment:	---
Attachments:	acpidump output

Description matthias sweertvaegher 2008-01-11 21:33:54 UTC

hello,

since the beginning of my suse install, I noticed annoying acpi spam in my /var/log/messages.

Example: 
Dec 13 22:07:51 sushi kernel: ACPI: Transitioning device [FAN] to D0
Dec 13 22:07:51 sushi kernel: ACPI: Transitioning device [FAN] to D0
Dec 13 22:07:51 sushi kernel: ACPI: Unable to turn cooling device [dffefd9c] 'on'
Dec 13 22:07:57 sushi kernel: ACPI: Transitioning device [FAN] to D0
Dec 13 22:07:57 sushi kernel: ACPI: Transitioning device [FAN] to D0
Dec 13 22:07:57 sushi kernel: ACPI: Unable to turn cooling device [dffefd9c] 'on'

as you can see, the message is repeated _every 6 seconds_, which kinda generates a lot of useless logging ;)

In my search on the internet, I found a possible workaround: change the trip points so that the acpi module does not feel the need to enable this fan. However, I have tried every possible format, but don't succeed in rewriting the trip points.

example: echo -n "80:0:75:60:50" > /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/trip_points
does not work. I am not sure if this example is a sensible one, I just copied one of my try-outs out of my bash history

although you could blame my bios for reporting wrong information, I think it should at least be possible to rewrite the trip points (or is this too a limitation of my bios?). 

please provide a fix / workaround

Comment 1 Alexey Starikovskiy 2008-02-04 14:28:01 UTC

please provide acpidump output from your machine.

Comment 2 matthias sweertvaegher 2008-02-04 20:01:50 UTC

Created attachment 193102 [details]
acpidump output

i have added the requested acpidump output

Comment 3 Alexey Starikovskiy 2008-04-28 05:00:35 UTC

Well, not being able to turn fan on is fairly critical for most people out there,
as it means that their machine is going either to melt or make a thermal shutdown
in very near future.
thermal trip points were made read-only some time ago to prevent misuse, which you were going to do, for the reasons above.
your ACPI thermal code makes heavy use of some thermal monitor chip, and this may
conflict with some of the hwmon/lm_sensors drivers.
Do you have any of them loaded? If you do, please try to blacklist them, or somehow else disable their loading.

Comment 4 matthias sweertvaegher 2008-05-05 20:47:53 UTC

how do I know if one of them is loaded? I just reinstalled, so I have a pretty standard suse system now. It seems to come with lm_sensors installed, but it does not seem started (service is not enabled). I did not find anything related to hwmon.. which process would that be?

I don't think it is necessary to make the trip points read-only. Theoretically, you're right, but in practice you need to be able to work around bugs in software ;) I don't think any user will try to change trip points, unless he knows what he's doing. Particularly in my case: the soft/system thinks there is some extra fan I don't have and tries to disable it every 6 seconds. I am very sure all fans are blowing :) so I just want to get rid of the log spam.

thanks for your help. what to do/try next? :)

Comment 5 matthias sweertvaegher 2008-10-16 20:10:38 UTC

this problem is still present in opensuse 11.0. Do I need to file a new bug for that or do we just 'upgrade' the version for this bug?

Comment 7 Thomas Renninger 2010-09-21 07:15:56 UTC

This bug is really old.
I am closing this one won't fix for 11.0.
You might want to reopen against 11.3 if the issue is still present there.