Tuesday, May 1, 2012

How to fix ubuntu high CPU temperature

There is a common problem with some laptop owners  with Ubuntu OS installed on their laptops to have high CPU heat issues. Especially after heavy load of applications running (especially 3D/Multimedia/Webcam applications), CPU temperature may rise through 70-80 celcius degrees. And that is a real dangerous and critical situation for hardware health.  Dynamic CPU function at Ubuntu or the lack of hardware driver support that manufacturers share for Linux is causing that issue according to talks at Ubuntu Community Forums.

There are lots of complains about that situation and most of em were reported to Ubuntu developers but unfortunately yet Ubuntu has not shared any fix against that. Fortunately there is a solution for that.


Well this does not guarantee solving your heat issues but at least this solution worked for a lot of users (check Ubuntu community forums).

First of all be sure about that your laptop fans and components are cleaned because most of the cpu heat issues are related with that. 

If you think that Ubuntu is the reason that causes the problem then you can try this solution. It worked for my Dell Inspiron N5010 laptop.

1) To monitor you cpu and other other components, install lm-sensors;
Open the terminal.

sudo apt-get install lm-sensors
After that ;
sensors-detect 
and type Y to all questions, so it is going to install some modules to your kernel.

By typing sensors you can monitor your components.

2) Instal six important modules to fix your heat issue;

Open the terminal.
sudo gedit /etc/modules
Then add those lines save the editor and close;
#added to fix heat issue
battery
ac
thermal
processor
acpi-cpufreq
cpufreq-userspace


3) Restart Ubuntu and check the temperature values again by sensors command.

4) Try updating your hardware drivers. (Especially graphics card drivers)

If this does not solve your problem, avoid using Ubuntu till a solution for that appears. Because it may cause unfixable damages to your hardware.

3 comments:

  1. This has helped me a huge amount. Thank you for sharing

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  2. mine is a Samsung laptop with UEFI/BIOS, AMD A8 APU, Radeon PCI Graphics as well
    I have dual boot win7 and linux mint 14.
    There is distinct difference in temperature and speed between the two OS.
    Laptop is cool and fast on Windows than it is on Linux.

    I had exchanged my 2yrs old laptop Compaq CQ42 which was getting too hot and battery would run down way too soon. I thought its best to get rid of it while I have some value over buy-back.

    Now, it dawns to me that all this temperature and battery issue could be related to OS/kernel. I had Fedora Core 15 and later upgraded to Fedora Core 17. It was then I noticed heating issues, but I did not doubt the OS at that time.

    Coming back to your post. I followed the steps up to end of step 1. I get the following output that suggests :
    "Sorry, no sensors were detected.
    This is relatively common on laptops, where thermal management is
    handled by ACPI rather than the OS."

    Did you get the same? If it is managed by ACPI, then how would lm-sensors help? Just curious to know more.

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete