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mistafeesh
January 8th, 2012, 11:17 PM
Right, I've been meaning to post about this for ages but I suggested a friend move over to ubuntu after ******* problems and he's got the same issue...

My laptop fan is constantly going at full blast when it's in Ubuntu - it sounds like it's going to take off sometimes! I have a fairly old HP Compaq 6720s. I'm not sure which laptop my mate has but it's not the same one.

Anyone got any idea what could be causing this?


Thanks,
Dan
Bucky Ball
January 8th, 2012, 11:28 PM
Perhaps look here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=5031046

The fix is in post #2. I had an older HP laptop which I needed to apply this fix to.
Mark Phelps
January 8th, 2012, 11:29 PM
Anyone got any idea what could be causing this?

Yes -- HEAT! Recent Linux kernels don't allow the CPU to idle, thus, since it's running all the time, it's getting HOT -- and that causes the fan to run louder as well.

See below for more info:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/901232
KdotJ
January 8th, 2012, 11:29 PM
What is the temperature like? Does it feel hotter than usual?

You can check the temperature by installing the sensors...


sudo apt-get install lm-sensors

Then detect the sensors in your machine...


sudo sensors-detect

And follow the instructions it provides you (tey are yes/no questions). You can then view the temperatures of your hardware with..


sensors

Paste the output here if you like.
KdotJ
January 8th, 2012, 11:31 PM
Yes -- HEAT! Recent Linux kernels don't allow the CPU to idle, thus, since it's running all the time, it's getting HOT -- and that causes the fan to run louder as well.

See below for more info:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/901232

Urgh.. I had this issue with Arch, managed to solve it with cpufreq but obviously that's what the bug is about. It took me a lot of messing around.
mistafeesh
January 11th, 2012, 10:58 PM
Okay... I think I'm totally in over my head here! I get the general gist of what you're saying and it sounds like it's not too bad an issue. Running smartctl on my hdd seems to say it's healthy. I have loads of other stuff to sort out at the moment so I'll come back to this one when I've got some headspace! Sorry