OLPC XO 1.5 overheating problems

Tiago Marques tiagomnm at gmail.com
Sat Oct 3 12:16:30 EDT 2009


On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 4:19 PM, Ed McNierney <ed at laptop.org> wrote:
> Tiago -
>
> Well, everyone gets to contribute something to thermal problems :-)

Indeed!

> But the CPU's the main source and also provides internal throttling mechanisms to
> manage it (along with the external heatspreader mechanisms, of course).

I hope that the heatspreaders might fit in your budget for the
machine. I've seen all kinds of bad happen to machines where
throttling was necessary.

>The A-phase boards were designed to get the thing up and running, and for
> A-phase machines (produced only in the dozens) it's completely OK to tell
> folks to do all kinds of funky things to keep them running.

Of course. I was hoping a more robust solution would be put in place
for the subsequent versions but I was a bit apprehensive when I read
the report on B2.
I know it's not much, or anything even, but if someone there ever
needs any help with issues like those, do contact me, I'd love to help
where I can(brainstorming solutions maybe?). I have a good experience
about cooling electronic components from years dealing with parts not
very well engineered from perhaps every computer hardware manufacturer
there is.

>
> No, the FTL is integral to the microSD card itself, so we're not using (and
> don't need) an external FTL for it.

Ok, tks!
Keep up the great work.

Best regards,
Tiago Marques

>
>        - Ed
>
>
> On Oct 3, 2009, at 10:56 AM, Tiago Marques wrote:
>
>> Hi Ed,
>>
>> I was wondering if it's related to the CPU or Northbridge. I said the
>> description was unclear to me because it didn't mention where the
>> overheating was from, or if you had already found the problem. Some
>> videos of pre production units were shown running with just a square
>> of thermal interface material acting as an heatspreader and I found
>> that odd, even for alpha level units, that Quanta was shipping them
>> back to you that way.
>>
>> Also, I'd like to ask something off topic(better to post another
>> mail?) but I couldn't find any description on the wiki about the flash
>> controller. Are you still using one - and if so which - or are you
>> just using the microSD card's FTL?
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Tiago Marques
>>
>> On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Ed McNierney <ed at laptop.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> Tiago -
>>>
>>> Sure, but what kind of elaboration would you like?  These are
>>> pre-production
>>> machines and have an assortment of problems, this being one of them.  I
>>> think the description is pretty clear; if you have a question about it
>>> please let us know - thanks!
>>>
>>>       - Ed
>>>
>>>
>>> On Oct 3, 2009, at 10:13 AM, Tiago Marques wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> Hope this is the appropriate list to post this, I apologize if not.
>>>> Please be kind to redirect me to the appropriate one if so.
>>>>
>>>> Referring to:
>>>>
>>>> "The B2 prototypes have shown a tendency to overheat. We are working
>>>> on a more respectable solution than simply throttling back the
>>>> processor. In the meantime, be aware that the laptop may begin to
>>>> function erratically if it gets too hot. This usually manifests itself
>>>> as problems reading/writing the internal SD card. "
>>>>
>>>> Can someone please elaborate on this?
>>>>
>>>> Best regards,
>>>> Tiago Marques
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Devel mailing list
>>>> Devel at lists.laptop.org
>>>> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
>>>
>>>
>
>



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