Ubuntu 10.04 running too hot.

[KeeperOfThePizza]

Not sure what I should do as far as this goes, It's getting pretty hot and hasn't been running log under Ubuntu. I know this is some kind of kernel problem.. but is there any fix for this? Here's a screenshot... I have compiz running, CPU Scaling enabled and set to On Demand, Laptop Battery is out, Not doing anything intensive except music and browsing and chat. Not sure why it gets so heated, Windows 7.. it runs very cool. It seems like the fan hardly ever shuts off. It seems to be always running when using Ubuntu.

[fix-this!]

not sure what to tell you, linux always ran hot on my netook & laptop.

[KeeperOfThePizza]

not sure what to tell you, linux always ran hot on my netook & laptop.

Yeah, in Windows my laptop runs cool and quiet. Hardly ever seen my hard drive hit 40c. and the CPU doesnt hit anywhere near 60c. Another thing the heat production from Ubuntu isn't good on the hardware.

[markwolfe Veteran]

I am not sure there is a fix for this. I have heard this a lot before, and it might be related to ACPI issues on laptops (desktops seem fine, for some reason) :unsure:

You have scaling enabled, and it looks like your CPU is being properly throttled back when not needed to run at full speed. Looks to me like you have everything set up properly.

Something to keep an eye on, and make sure it doesn't get too hot.

[deadite66]

there's a know bug where a task called background is running 100% cpu, try running top and see if its running.

[ViperAFK]

What is your video card, and what driver are you using? If you have an ati card and are using default open source drivers they have no power management. You can get some basic power management (still not very good) by doing this:

For Ubuntu users, I've modified info' from a post by Nerd King, & placed it below. This is a how-to for upgrading your kernel & the other packages required, to those that will always be newer than any supplied in the most current Ubuntu version. It is now followed by a quick how-to for getting Power Management working courtesy of a post in this thread by

The Procedure:

1. System -> Hardware Drivers -> Deactivate any ATI drivers and restart

2. Go to http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/

& pick the version of the kernel you want to use, be careful with your choice, having a read of this thread will help you with that choice. (I am on Arch & using the current kernel .34-git & the -git versions of the other required packages with no problems. So keeping an eye on the last parts of this thread should let you know just what should be safe to use.)

3. Download and execute the following (in this order, switch to 64 if need be)

- linux-headers...all.deb

- linux-headers..generic..i386.deb

- linux-image....i386.deb

4. Restart

5. Add the xorg-edgers PPA (https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa), update, upgrade.

6. Reboot.

7. Profit.

Power Management:

This is how I set it up in Kubuntu (10.04 with kernel 34 and xorg edgers as per your instructions in first post)= steps 1 -> 7 just above:

Code:

sudo kate /etc/modprobe.d/radeon-kms.conf

(use gedit instead of kate if you're not running KDE)

That file should already be there, add dynpm=1 at the end of it. Mine now looks like that:

Code:

options radeon modeset=1 dynpm=1

I did this yesterday and temps seem a little bit better (still not as good as fglrx or windows) but it is REALLY freakin hot here and my ac isnt in yet:

Or you can install the proprietary driver, fglrx which gives better power management.

[KeeperOfThePizza]

What is your video card, and what driver are you using? If you have an ati card and are using default open source drivers they have no power management. You can get some basic power management (still not very good) by doing this:

I did this yesterday and temps seem a little bit better (still not as good as fglrx or windows) but it is REALLY freakin hot here and my ac isnt in yet:

Or you can install the proprietary driver, fglrx which gives better power management.

I have an Intel IGP. 4 Express Series. aka Intel x4500m

[KeeperOfThePizza]

I have an Intel IGP. 4 Express Series. aka Intel x4500m

Also what is your hard drive temp looking like?

[ViperAFK]

I have an Intel IGP. 4 Express Series. aka Intel x4500m

Hmmm cant imagine an igp causing it to run that hot then. Linux support for laptop power management is still pretty iffy overall though. I run mine plugged in 90% of the time so it isnt a huge issue for me luckily.

[KeeperOfThePizza]

Hmmm cant imagine an igp causing it to run that hot then. Linux support for laptop power management is still pretty iffy overall though. I run mine plugged in 90% of the time so it isnt a huge issue for me luckily.

Well. It seems to be running a little cooler today, also reinstalled with the Final version, was using the RC, Hard Drive temperature is sitting at 43c and the CPU is sitting at 40-45c. Do you use Compiz? would it cause a difference in temperature if used?

[rkenshin]

Actually, surprisingly enough, I've noticed the same issue with my Dell e1505 laptop. Ubuntu runs a bit hot compared to Windows 7.

Even so, my wireless doesn't like this new release (10.04). It intermittently drops a signal and loses the connection to my router, where-as 9.10 didn't have this problem.

They need to squash some bugs in this release still, I think.

[Motoko.]

I get the feeling it's some sort of misread

on Win7 my ASUS notebook got 34-36

on Lucid Lynx I'm getting 44-46

My fan hasn't churned up any different from loading apps than Windows has.

[KeeperOfThePizza]

I get the feeling it's some sort of misread

on Win7 my ASUS notebook got 34-36

on Lucid Lynx I'm getting 44-46

My fan hasn't churned up any different from loading apps than Windows has.

Yeah that's about right for me too.

[Motoko.]

Yeah that's about right for me too.

I got the same IGP too an X4500MHD w/ a T4400 CPU

[KeeperOfThePizza]

I got the same IGP too an X4500MHD w/ a T4400 CPU

Yup. Mines a Lenovo G530 with 3GB of Ram, and a T3400+x4500m

[Motoko.]

Yup. Mines a Lenovo G530 with 3GB of Ram, and a T3400+x4500m

How has your Lucid Lynx experience been so far?

[KeeperOfThePizza]

How has your Lucid Lynx experience been so far?

Overall great.. Everything works out of box except Brightness, and I had to install the drivers for my Broadcom 4312 Wireless.

[Elv13]

I think it's time to run powertop for a small debugging session, then gather some stat out of the raw data in a OpenOffice Calc document to nail down the problem, and submit a bug report. Those kind of bugs are quite high in the priority order these day.

[KeeperOfThePizza]

I think it's time to run powertop for a small debugging session, then gather some stat out of the raw data in a OpenOffice Calc document to nail down the problem, and submit a bug report. Those kind of bugs are quite high in the priority order these day.

Yeah. I'll have to try doing it. I'm not very experienced with Linux yet.

This is what I'm seeing so far.. how exactly do i proceed with debugging?

Updated, Had to run in Sudo.

[Rob2687]

The Wakeups-from-idle is extremely high in those screenshots.

Let powertop sit for a few minutes and do not touch or run anything on your system. It should be much lower. Something in the area of 100 or less when idle. Not in the thousands.

[markwolfe Veteran]

Just for a comparison, from what Rob was saying, here is a powertop of my PC. I am browsing and playing music from Pandora in the background.

[KeeperOfThePizza]

Okay I'll do it right now, and I'll post back.

[KeeperOfThePizza]

Not sure what's going on.

[Rob2687]

Something doesn't seem right. The 'Top causes for wakeups' shows a list of top activities (both software and hardware) during the sampling period. In the screenshots the 'Wakeups from idle' is very high yet the top causes don't seem to show anything unusual. The CPU stats at the top show that it is dropping to the lowest idle state so I don't see any reason why the CPU would be running hot.

You could follow the suggestions that pop up at the bottom which will enable/disable certain things that might help improve power savings. If you're lucky one of the suggestions might happen to be the thing that was causing the problem. e.g. Enabling USB suspend. In your second screenshot it says the USB camera was active 100% time which shouldn't happen unless you were using it at the time. It could be some other hardware that isn't using CPU time but is still active in the background for whatever reason.

[Motoko.]

Overall great.. Everything works out of box except Brightness, and I had to install the drivers for my Broadcom 4312 Wireless.

I actually figured out how to get the full brightness on my laptop.

Strangely I hit my fn key and decreased the brightness (this action usually doesn't do anything but I decreased it all the way down to zero and for some reason it just flashed to full)

Pretty crazy