Linux Mint Forums

Hi,

I have a bit of a problem with Flash.

Since I installed Linux Mint 13 (MATE version), I've had heating issues while playing Flash videos (from Youtube mostly). Playing Flash videos in a browser (Google Chrome) causes my laptop CPU's to heat up all the way up to 90 degrees Celsius, which is obviously not good. Stopping the video brings the heat down, but starting the video again causes the CPU's go crazy once again.

I installed Minitube, whihc works great with Youtube videos - no heating problems.

Now I'm starting an internet course, which has some online lecture videos that require Flash. Obviously they again heat up the CPU's, so this might be a little problem for me I am not able to download the videos to my hard drive, so I have to watch them in a browser.

Synaptic tells me that the only Flash-plugin I have installed right now is the default mint-flashplugin-11 (11.0.1.152).

I wonder if installing the Adobe's own flash-plugin version and ditching the Mint version would help. The Adobe flashplugin-installer (version 11.2.202.238ubuntu0.12.04.1) is in the package repositories. What is the difference between them? Is there any other options I might use?

EDIT 1:

I went to the Flash settings you get when you right-click on a video and took off the "Use hardware acceleration" option. Didn't help, still the videos heat up the CPU unbearably.

EDIT 2:

Hmmm, interesting. I changed the CPU frequency scaling from "conservative" to "ondemand" while playing a Youtube video, and now it doesn't seem to heat up the CPU's nearly as bad - the temperatures seem to be on an acceptable level.

Although it could also be that I restarted the browser after ticking off the "Use hardware acceleration" option in Flash settings. In EDIT 1 I was still on the same browser session. Maybe restarting the browser did the trick?

Laptop specifications (hardinfo):

Processor: 2x AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor TK-57

I use CPU frequency scaling on the "conservative" setting (I have some heating issues when it runs on "ondemand").

Memory: 2050MB (923MB used)
Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-23-generic (x86_64)

OpenGL

Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Renderer: GeForce 8400M GS/PCIe/SSE2
Version: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 295.40
Direct Rendering: Yes

Yeah, I think it was either maybe the ticking off the "Use hardware acceleration" thing in Flash settings, or the use of "ondemand" instead of "conservative" in CPU frequency scaling settings. Or both of them.

Youtube videos still stir up the CPU's a bit, but at least for now they do not heat them up uncontrollably. Which is nice.

So I guess this is kind of solved for now.

EDIT: Couldn't find the option to mark the thread as "solved", so I put it manually on the subject header.