CPU getting hot or maybe not

[drago01]

On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 4:59 AM, Frederic Muller <fred at cm17.com> wrote:
> Hi!
>
> As written in my previous message my laptop gets shutdown within minutes
> (below 15 minutes) after using it under Rawhide. This is not something I
> experienced under F16, though I have 2 add a bit of context:
> - this is a T60 thinkpad (rather old piece of hardware)
> - I never had fan issues under the fan broke down (or the sensor) and I
> replaced it with a new one
> - This happened at the same time I switch distro from Debian / Ubuntu (I was
> going back and forth) to F14.
> - Since my early usage of Fedora I have noticed some thermal issue
> preventing me at times to restart my machine after long hours of usage or a
> yum update. This had never happened before but I don't want to blame Fedora
> for it at all (and rather identify the root cause of the problem).
>
> So now that I am with Rawhide since yesterday this thermal issue has hit me
> big time making my machine unusable. TOP sometimes gives very high CPU usage
> for xorg (up to 65%) but not every time. Most time xorg is at around 14% CPU
> time. I have disabled my external monitor thinking it might help to ease
> xorg's pain.
>
> Now I do touch my laptop to see if it feels hot and it is not really hot as
> it could have been when I experienced the issue in the past with F14/15/16.
> It could be though, that the heat didn't have enough time to propagate to
> the 'outer' parts.
>
> How would you guys go on and troubleshoot the issue? (and yes the fan is
> turning as I can heart it).
>
> Thanks a lot.

That sounds like some process for whatever reason stresses the CPU and
your hardware is broken to the point where it cannot really run at
full load.
Now people will start telling me "this is how laptops are" but I still
call BS ... if you can't run it at full speed and still under warranty
contact the vendor and demand a fix/replacement. Otherwise try to
remove dust and or check your heatsink / cooling.