On Mon, 2010-02-01 at 17:22 -0500, Stephen Powell wrote: > I don't pretend to know anything about this, but isn't there > internal circuitry present in the machine that will automatically > shut the machine down if it gets too hot? I'm thinking of older > operating systems, such as DOS for example, that generally didn't > have any kind of sensor management software built in. Being > able to manage that kind of thing in an operating system is a nice > feature, but I'm not sure if it's essential for safe operation. > It seems to me that if the machine were designed properly it > would have some default operating characteristics that it will fall > back on if it is not being managed by an operating system.
You would think so wouldn't you? However, I believe it's all done in software via System Management Mode. I once worked on an OS which we ran on PC hardware for development purposes, and the CPU would regularly 'disappear' off somewhere for a millisecond or more, making it impossible for a modern PC to even keep a bog standard 115kbit/sec serial port UART from underflowing. :-( -- Tixy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org