Ubuntu 9.04 hotter than vista?

hi, I installed ubuntu for the first time on my laptop and I notice that it seems to be much hotter. also the finger print read gets almost unbearably hot I was wondering if someone knew why?

 

Do you have integrated graphics or a dedicated GPU? If you have a dedicated GPU you probably need to tweak a power setting. For example my NVIDIA GPU would run at full speed and get very hot but I tweaked the PowerMizer setting in my xorg.conf and it runs very cool now unless I have a 3D app or game running.

Edit: For example here's the option line from my Device section for my NVIDIA GPU:

Code:

Option		"RegistryDwords" "PowerMizerEnable=0x1; PerfLevelSrc=0x3322"

This will keep it on minimal power (on battery power only) until a 3D app runs. It will run full speed on AC. If you want both battery and AC mode to have minimal power until a 3D app runs:

Code:

Option	"RegistryDwords" "PowerMizerEnable=0x1; PerfLevelSrc=0x3333;"

 

Thanks but what about the fingerprint reader, any ideas on that?

 

Probably just ambient heat from either your hard disks or whatever?

 

I am sorry, but could you possibly explain the graphics power any more, I am completely new to ubuntu

Nevermind ignore this, and thanks, the temp is cooling almost immediately

although the finger print reader is still hot, but the graphics is somewhat cooler

 

Nice, I think the ambient temp from your GPU was probably making everything run hotter, give it some time and hopefully the FP cools down

 

I've noticed my Precision Laptop runs slightly cooler, if anything, just to give you a broad answer to your question. I do monitor the temps in both environments.

 

Is your laptop's CPU running at full speed all the time? Check the frequency via the system panel applet. I'm not too sure if 9.04 has acpi_cpufreq already but do a sudo apt-get for that if necessary and load the ondemand profile that'll make your CPU run at higher frequencies only when needed.

To cool the system a little more, use an undervolting patch like linux-phc to decrease the VID for each frequency multiplier. Google around for some background info before you actually start playing with it though since it could render your system unstable if incorrectly used.

 

Something I noticed too. My idle power consumption with XP is as low as 6W. Ubuntu's powertop shows me 8W minimum. That 2W equates in extra heat.

I'm not sure what it is about Ubuntu, whether it keeps active some other devices or what. ASUS 1000H users noted that Ubuntu gives lower battery life, with ASUS even giving lower battery life figures for Linux over XP for their netbooks.

I would take a guess as it perhaps being Windows having better drivers. The Linux Intel graphics drivers are being majorly redeveloped so may not be fully optimized as yet.

 

Have you seen Ubuntu Netbook Remix? It's compiled using LPIA options to maximize battery life on Intel ULV CPUs that support it (like the Atom N270, etc). From what I've seen it is on par or better than 'doze for efficiency.