[Solved] Laptop Temperatures Higher in Arch

ayalgu · 2009-06-18 16:56:43

I have a Gateway M-6862, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 and Intel Processors (64-bit).

I recently installed three different distros (in a row, not concurrently) on my laptop: Ubuntu, openSUSE and Archlinux.

On Ubuntu and OpenSUSE: Running for about a half-hour (sometimes less) led to the computer heating up and shutting down.
On Arch: Computer does not shutdown, BUT gets very hot, to the point that if I reboot into windows immediately after running Arch for a short while, the laptop shuts down as soon as Windows starts (presumably due to overheating).

On Windows, temperatures are usually around 55 degrees Celsius for both processors. On Arch, on average the temperatures are 76 degrees Celsius.

I have two questions:
1) The overheating is clearly Linux-related, as it happened on all three distros yet not on Windows. How can I find out what's causing this? How can I fix it?

2) Is it possible that auto-shutdown on overheat is something that is done through software, explaining why my laptop shut down on Ubuntu and OpenSUSE and in Windows when I boot to it straight after Arch, yet not in Arch? Do I need to install something to ensure that my laptop shuts down when it overheats in Arch?

Additional information:
Using the Open source ATI drivers (xf86-video-radeonhd)
I can't see my fan speeds in Windows or Linux
Have cpufrequtils installed, usually both processors on both OSes are at 1000Mhz

Last edited by ayalgu (2009-06-22 20:57:03)

R00KIE · 2009-06-19 19:04:48

First I would say that it seems the cpus should idle at a lower speed ... check your /etc/conf.d/cpufreq and comment the min and max frequencies if if haven't done so yet.

The other problem is the graphics card power management, it will always run at max speed if not told otherwise, I'm not sure if the driver you are using already supports forcing it to a low speed, lower power mode.

Try adding

Option      "ForceLowPowerMode" "On"

in your xorg.conf "Device" section then restart X (or your computer to make all changes take effect in one go, I know no real need to restart but I'm lazy and Arch boots quite fast ) and check if it gets as hot. You may want to try the catalyst drivers just to debug this problem (check the AUR for the PKGBUILD).

combuster · 2009-06-19 19:47:56

Does your fans work under linux? Check out for errors by typing "dmesg|grep acpi" in the terminal...

sainth · 2009-06-22 13:11:02

regarding (2), it sounds like the laptop is just cutting power and shutting off to save itself. This should happen regardless of the OS you're running. It may be that you just didn't quite hit the shutoff point in Arch. Most Intel Core 2 processors I've seen are rated to run up to 90 degrees celsius. If it exceeds that it will shut off.

On some older Dell laptops I've had to set the fan speed manually to keep it cool. Newer laptops though removed this ability so it may not be an option.

The xf86-video-radeonhd may not support hardware video acceleration on your chipset which means doing certain things may cause more CPU load. You could try using catalyst binary drivers from AUR. I've always been frustrated with the state of ATI drivers in Linux.

ayalgu · 2009-06-22 20:56:35

Weirdly enough, using compressed air to clean the fans has solved the problem. Though I can't seem to understand why; Shouldn't the fact that it was a problem on Linux but not on Windows point to it being a strictly software problem? What am I missing here?

Daenyth · 2009-06-22 22:50:56

It may be that it was hardware, but windows has some method to work around the hardware issue in software.. No clue.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-06-18 16:56:43

[Solved] Laptop Temperatures Higher in Arch

#2 2009-06-19 19:04:48

Re: [Solved] Laptop Temperatures Higher in Arch

#3 2009-06-19 19:47:56

Re: [Solved] Laptop Temperatures Higher in Arch

#4 2009-06-22 13:11:02

Re: [Solved] Laptop Temperatures Higher in Arch

#5 2009-06-22 20:56:35

Re: [Solved] Laptop Temperatures Higher in Arch

#6 2009-06-22 22:50:56

Re: [Solved] Laptop Temperatures Higher in Arch

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