Overheating problems in OtherOS?

Investigation into how Linux on the PS3 might lead to homebrew development.

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theBishop
Posts: 16
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2005 4:22 pm

Overheating problems in OtherOS?

Post by theBishop »

Shortly after coding in the OtherOS environment, I've been experiencing symptoms indicative of a GPU overheat. In games, I'm getting shimmering effects on certain textures, and various artifacts/glitches. I'm not sure if this is thanks to some game pushing the hardware too hard, dust, or something else.

I was wondering if there's some glitch in the OtherOS hypervisor might tax the GPU heavily so that leaving it on over night might cause an overheat.

Any other PS3 linux coders getting overheating problems? Its probably just a fluke hardware defect, but PS3 has a pretty good reputation for reliability. I'm especially pissed because I have a 60GB with hardware BC, and I don't want to give it up :(
Compound
Posts: 48
Joined: Thu May 12, 2005 10:29 am

Post by Compound »

how are you rendering the games? could be something to do with rasterizing on the frame buffer?
theBishop
Posts: 16
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2005 4:22 pm

Post by theBishop »

No, I meant "official" PS3 games. Sorry. I do coding and gaming on my PS3...
Nismobeach
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Aug 16, 2007 1:31 pm

Re: Overheating problems in OtherOS?

Post by Nismobeach »

theBishop wrote:Shortly after coding in the OtherOS environment, I've been experiencing symptoms indicative of a GPU overheat. In games, I'm getting shimmering effects on certain textures, and various artifacts/glitches. I'm not sure if this is thanks to some game pushing the hardware too hard, dust, or something else.

I was wondering if there's some glitch in the OtherOS hypervisor might tax the GPU heavily so that leaving it on over night might cause an overheat.

Any other PS3 linux coders getting overheating problems? Its probably just a fluke hardware defect, but PS3 has a pretty good reputation for reliability. I'm especially pissed because I have a 60GB with hardware BC, and I don't want to give it up :(
It sounds like your GPU is going bad. I've heard of a few people having similar problems, and their only recourse was to replace the motherboard on their PS3.

Your should contact Sony and see if they can replace the board with a spare 60GB unit. It should cost you about $165.
jimparis
Posts: 1145
Joined: Fri Jun 10, 2005 4:21 am
Location: Boston

Re: Overheating problems in OtherOS?

Post by jimparis »

theBishop wrote:Shortly after coding in the OtherOS environment, I've been experiencing symptoms indicative of a GPU overheat.
Hi theBishop,
I've seen similar on my 60GB. I first noticed the problems after having OtherOS loaded for a few days. The texture problems are most commonly seen in Warhawk, but I've seen problems in Burnout and even once in Folding@Home.

I'm not sure OtherOS is the cause, as it seems unlikely that the hypervisor would handle e.g. fan management incorrectly during OtherOS. I always assumed it was just a coincidence, although maybe it's more common than I thought?
Frek
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Dec 06, 2007 3:13 pm

Post by Frek »

The only game I've seen similar graphical glitches in so far is in Pixeljunk Monsters, (but unlike jim above I haven't seen any glitches in burnout paradise; And I've been playing it quite extensive lately- nor warhawk, but I don't play warhawk that often to be honest.).

I don't know if it's related to OtherOS or even heat related problems, I'm running firmware 2.10 (if it's firmware related or anything); My PS3 runs linux about 40 hours a week, compared to GameOS about 4-8.

The only thing I noticed so far with OtherOS vs GameOS is that the machine generally seems slightly less noisy in OtherOS- possibly because RSX isn't used as heavially as in gameos I suppose?
unsolo
Posts: 155
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Location: OSLO Norway

Post by unsolo »

My ps3 has ruffly been doing about 80+ hours a week at minimum in other OS since march 2007
Not any problems so far one freeze in drakes and one in R&C both after about 6 hours+ continous gameplay
Don't do it alone.
jimparis
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Joined: Fri Jun 10, 2005 4:21 am
Location: Boston

Post by jimparis »

Frek wrote:The only game I've seen similar graphical glitches in so far is in Pixeljunk Monsters
If it's just a brief flash of one or frames, I think that's actually a bug in Pixeljunk Monsters; I've seen it on two PS3s including one that never has problems :)
Frek
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Dec 06, 2007 3:13 pm

Post by Frek »

jimparis wrote:
Frek wrote:The only game I've seen similar graphical glitches in so far is in Pixeljunk Monsters
If it's just a brief flash of one or frames, I think that's actually a bug in Pixeljunk Monsters; I've seen it on two PS3s including one that never has problems :)
Yes it is.
ps2devman
Posts: 259
Joined: Mon Oct 09, 2006 3:56 pm

Post by ps2devman »

What we definitely need with homebrew on next gen consoles are a few apis allowing to survey cpu and gpu temperatures. So we can display them, trigger alarms, etc...
jimparis
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Location: Boston

Post by jimparis »

Geoff suggests that some thermal info might be available in the logical performance monitor.
d-range
Posts: 60
Joined: Fri Oct 26, 2007 8:22 pm

Post by d-range »

If I run a typical 'emerge -U world' in Gentoo on my PS3 to compile all up-to-date packages, the fan definitely goes up a few notches on long & heavy compiles. So the fan & temp control definitely seems to work ok. Never had any overheating or glitches. Also I don't see how PS3 linux would overheat the GPU, seeing that it's not actually doing much all the time. Do you have the PS3 in a cabinet? The fans on my PS3 used to go into top speed after 10 minutes of gameplay already, now that i've taken it out the fans don't even go above level 2 or something. I'd sooner expect GameOS to slowly fry your PS3 GPU if it's faulty.
jimparis
Posts: 1145
Joined: Fri Jun 10, 2005 4:21 am
Location: Boston

Post by jimparis »

Yeah, I suspect the otheros stuff is a red herring. It's probably a badly attached heatsink or gunk in some fan or vent... I'll open it up at some point and figure out what's going on.
(I see the problems even before the fan gets to full speed, so it's not just that the PS3 is trying to cool the system and not able -- it doesn't seem to recognize that further cooling is necessary).
jimparis
Posts: 1145
Joined: Fri Jun 10, 2005 4:21 am
Location: Boston

Post by jimparis »

I disassembled and cleaned my PS3, and reapplied thermal paste to the CBE & RSX heatsinks. I haven't seen the problem since.
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