Arch Linux

CheesyBeef

Member

Registered: 2008-06-04

Posts: 190

CPU hot and fan running (faster than usual) all day

Hi,

I've just set up Arch Linux last night for the first time in about a year.  Everything is looking great, no big show-stopping errors for me this time.  However, I have noticed, since I've been on my computer configuring my Openbox/Gnome desktop all day, that my fan has been constantly blowing relatively fast (literally it has not let off) and my CPU has been no where outside of the 60-61 C range.  In my other distribtions (not trying to compare distributions here), my fan only goes on every once in a while and my pc is usually 45-50 C.  Also note that my CPU usage today has hovered around 0-10%, rarely going over 30%.  I am using Conky to monitor this information.

I tried searching recent threads (for a possibility of this being a bug) and all I could find was this: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=64156 where users are claiming that this just happened recently with a newer kernel.

Does anyone know what might be happening?

System info:
Dell Inspiron 1501 Notebook
AMD Turion x64 TL-50 1.6ghz
2GB ddr2 ram
ATI Radeon 1150 Integrated Graphics

Arch Linux 2009.02 (updated yesterday, but there is a new kernel I am about to upgrade to - maybe this will fix it?)
Kernel 2.6.28-ARCH
Openbox-Gnome Desktop

CheesyBeef

Member

Registered: 2008-06-04

Posts: 190

Re: CPU hot and fan running (faster than usual) all day

Awesome.  I installed cpufreq-utils as per this wiki page: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CPU … cy_Scaling

I was so surprised because in a matter of minutes, my cpu temperature went from 63 C to 43 C.  It might still be headed even lower.  Have to remember, cooler hardware = longer-lasting hardware!

I am assuming this is what I had installed in the other distributions which kept my cpu temperature lower.

R00KIE

Forum Fellow

From: Between a computer and a chair

Registered: 2008-09-14

Posts: 4,734

Re: CPU hot and fan running (faster than usual) all day

cpufreq-utils is a must for laptop/notebook users, also keep an eye on fam if you use it ... for me it sometimes used hang using 100% of cpu time (until I changed to gamin ... which lately has some problems with when used together with pcmanfm (and used to have problems with medit) ... something is not going well there too, we are trying to figure it out thought ).

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R00KIE
Tm90aGluZyB0byBzZWUgaGVyZSwgbW92ZSBhbG9uZy4K

CheesyBeef

Member

Registered: 2008-06-04

Posts: 190

Re: CPU hot and fan running (faster than usual) all day

Thanks!

I'm really, really enjoying Arch Linux so far.  I haven't really forced myself to use openbox before, so I always stayed with the easy-to-use Gnome.  Now that I kind of stuck myself with openbox as the WM and gnome as the DE, I am really liking my system!  My memory usually hovers around 6% when I first log in.  Openbox itself uses like .5% memory - that is amazing.

I really appreciate this system and all those behind Arch Linux, as well as the people here on the forums who combined make this such a great distribution.

Not to mention, the wiki here has pretty much every answer I need.  The install guide/beginners guide left me with little to no questions left, since they covered them so well.  I also found my answer to this question in the wiki with minimal effort needed.

Also my s2ram works perfectly on this x86-64-bit environment! Amazing.