Acpi

[DemonPhantom]

I have a question.. and it might also help me solve my problem.. Oh.. I recently cleaned it out, removed some dust.. sure theres some left though

My PC randomly freezes up it's been doing that for a year. I never found out why but I'm guessing it has to do with some heating issues. I got SpeedFan and I've manage to find out how to lower the temperature to most of these that show over heating issues. The only one I never managed to cool down is the "ACPI" but thats because I have no idea wtf a ACPI is. I thought it was a piece on the PC or something but google never shown me an actual image, I also wiki'd it but that didn't seem to help at all..

Can anyone out there help me out in finding out what the ACPI is if it's a chip or something on the PC and help me find a way to cool it down. So far the temperature on SpeedFan said it was 56.5C I also noticed that everytime it got that hot was when my PC froze.

If you need info on my PC.. this is what I know so far, don't know if it'll help.
[b]
Compaq Presario SR1000Z
AMD Athlon XP 2800+
2.08 GHz
960 MB of RAM

[Paul Komski]

ACPI usually means Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Configuration_and_Power_Interface)

Some PM is controllable by the OS and some hardware has different temperature zones on the motherboard. Section 3.10 (http://www.acpi.info/spec30a.htm)

ACPI allows the OS to play a role in the thermal management of the system while maintaining the platform’s ability to mandate cooling actions as necessary. In the passive cooling mode, OSPM can make cooling decisions based on application load on the CPU as well as the thermal heuristics of the system.
OSPM can also gracefully shutdown the computer in case of high temperature emergencies.

The ACPI thermal design is based around regions called thermal zones. Generally, the entire PC is one large thermal zone, but an OEM can partition the system into several logical thermal zones if necessary. Figure 3-5 is an example mobile PC diagram that depicts a single thermal zone with a central processor as the thermal-coupled device. In this example, the whole notebook is covered as one large thermal zone. This notebook uses one fan for active cooling and the CPU for passive cooling.

So maybe you have an option under APM in windows to enable, disable, modify at what temp the PC invokes a shutdown. If the system is freezing rather than shutting down it sounds like the temperature rise is too fast for this to happen or it is not being invoked early enough.

[DemonPhantom]

Ahh sounds kinda complicated for me =P
I'm not that good with PC's.

But I'll see what I can do, also..

Any idea where I might find this option to enable, disable or modify the temp thing?

It doesn't shutdown, it just freezes up.

[Paul Komski]

Is the ACPI result/reading coming from SpeedFan or elsewhere?

What temps do you get if you look at the BIOS setup directly? 56.5 C is on the high side for any component and since you have discovered that freezing and a high temp are related you should look at ways of cooling things down.

Are you sure all fans are functional and when cleaning out dust the dust in the heat sink is particularly important to clear.

[DemonPhantom]

I get the temp. reading from SpeedFan and PC Wizard 2008.

I get the same temps when I check the BIOS as well, but I have no idea on how to cool it down.. So far the only thought that came to mind was removing the side cover and finding a way to attach a mini fan to cool things down but I don't think that would help much since I have no idea what part I'm supposed to cool down.

[Paul Komski]

The two most common temp areas to consider are (a) generally within the case and (b) the temp of the CPU itself. The former can be helped by opening the side or adding accessory fans and the former require that the PC is not overclocked, that air flow through the HSF (HeatSinkFan) is not impeded and that there is good contact between the HSF and the CPU.

[DemonPhantom]

I think I managed to cool it down for the time being.. but sure if it'll work permanently.

So far I removed the side cover, and checked which areas felt hot. I noticed a chip was really hot and created a separate fan using one from an old dead PC and placed the fan near the chip in hopes that the little fan would cool it down a bit.. Although I'm not 100% sure if it is working though since it's my 1st day testing the theory out.. but so far the reading on SpeedFan says 48 °C and PC Wizard 2008 got a reading of 48 °C as well..