Overheating

[Evil Larney]

Hi all,

I have installed Ubuntu 12.10 today on my laptop. When Im just browsing the web or doing something simple my laptop gets really hot and overheats. The fan is also acting like crazy. I dont have this problem on Windows 7 though.. Can anyone help me figure out the problem?

[QIII]

Hello and welcome to the Forums!

It would be quite helpful if you could post the specs of your machine, such as OEM, model, hardware (especially graphics).

Thanks,


QIII

[ppjdee]

You may also want to install something like pSensor or lm-sensors to monitor your system temps.

[Evil Larney]

I have an intel i3 2.1ghz quad-core with an ATI mobility radeon HD 5165 and 4gb RAM. And its a Toshiba sattelite 500. Windows 7 64-bit.

I know that these arent the best specs but I just watch movies or browse the web on my laptop, and I have a strong PC for all the gaming and the hard work.

Thank you for trying to help me =]

[Evil Larney]

So, no one can help me?

[QIII]

Hello again!

Please remember that we are a world-wide community of people who do this voluntarily and on our own time as we have time. Don't take a delay to be a slight. It could be that the person with the best answer for your issue lives in Kolkata or Oslo and is either asleep, eating, working or spending time with family at the time that you post. The general expectation is that users will wait 24 hours before bumping to let the post make the rounds.

OK.

Do you have the proprietary ATI fglrx driver installed?

[Evil Larney]

Im sorry for that, it wont happen again.

I am completely new with this kind of stuff so I dont exactly know what I am doing. That said, I dont have that installed, I cant find information on the AMD site if my graphics card is supported or not. I did find a guide on the ubuntu wiki on how to install it.

again, thank you for your help.

[QIII]

No need to bother with the AMD site at the moment. Your GPU is supported -- if you are running 12.04.1 or earlier. That series is based on an overclocked HD 4000 series (mysteriously, AMD calls that a "Mobility HD 5000 series), which is not supported from 12.04.2 forward without a kernel patch, the legacy driver and a downgraded X Server.

Does your machine have Intel graphics as well, or just the ATI graphics?

[Evil Larney]

It has just the ati graphics card. So is this easy to fix for someone like me?

[QIII]

Which version of Ubuntu are you using?

Edit -- I looked back up at your first post.

You have three options:

1. Continuing to use the open Source Radeon driver and adding a utility called Jupiter to manage power consumption (and, thereby, heat).

2. Attempting to install the ATI proprietary driver to see if it will work with that GPU.

3. The option I recommend highly against: Using one of the many scripts that will patch your kernel, downgrade X Server and install the ATI Legacy driver.

Would you like to try Jupiter first?