Mint burns laptops, please don't leave it to another distr

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Stosskraft
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Re: Mint burns laptops, please don't leave it to another dis

Post by Stosskraft »

Ok I am in a new situation. I have a HP G42 as my personal computer, and I am running linux mint 11... I do love it but it does get hot to the point of discomfort and I have to use a large fan pointed at the lap top.

Now the crazy part is my new job just gave me vertially the same laptop (Compaq version) with a small harddrive running windows 7. It has been great to compare WIN 7 to mint and I must say that 7 has come a long way from the vista crap. Or course I love my mint set up, but using the laptops I have come to some conclusions:

1. The windows laptop almost never gets hot.. the mint one is really really hot...even touching the mouse pad is alarming.
2. the battery last at least 40% longer with windows..and I tried this with both batteries on both machines.

In all other respects I prefer mint...but using 2 very similar laptops (and hardware) my linux pc is on the verge of frying itself.

It has an ATI Redeao 4200 HDMI video card.

Any suggestions please?
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grizwald
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Re: Mint burns laptops, please don't leave it to another dis

Post by grizwald »

Hi All,

I earlier posted an item on the forum on this subject, pointing out the most common cause for Laptop computers to overheat is lint clogging up the cooling vents. This lint buildup seriously reduces the flow of cooling air over the components within the laptop causing the internal temperature to rise significantly.

I currently have a Samsung R519 Laptop and yesterday I was finally moved to investigate the extremely hot air coming from the side vents.
Here is what I found.... http://i308.removed/albums/kk327/griz_101/Lint.jpg
This method is obviously not recommended for the inexperienced or non technical user - they can have the problem fixed professionally.
I used a small LED torch to peer into the side vent and saw lint on the far side of the cooling fins so tried using a regular paint brush [used to paint the walls in ones house] to dislodge the dust and lint by pushing the long bristles into the fin assembly. I did this first in the hope that opening up the laptop could be avoided - wrong! Having finally gained access to the laptop...... I found the fan and cooling system attached to the rear of the mother board so removed the fan assembly. The picture above is what I found. The disturbed lint was caused by the brush bristles when I poked them through from the other side of the cooling fins before the laptop was disassembled. Needless to say, a thin coating of lint completely covering the cooling fin opening certainly reduced the air flow allowing the internal temperature to rise. Removing this blockage restored the normal operating temperature.

Merely switching on ones laptop when in this condition will cause it to run hot regardless of what OS it uses.

As an aside, I also own an HP laptop which was allowed to run in a similar condition for a prolonged period of time. This excess heat damaged an internal component resulting in permanent vertical coloured lines on the LCD screen. A fix is more expensive than a new laptop - hence using a Samsung now. A little maintenance would have prevented the problem.

I hope the above is of some help to anyone with a similar overheating problem.

G.
antikythera

Re: Mint burns laptops, please don't leave it to another dis

Post by antikythera »

in addition to grizwald's advice about cleaning, you should also consider trying the AMD Catalyst driver suite. In addition to providing extra functionality and performance over the open-source driver, it contains the PowerPlay functions to help reduce the hit on your notebook's battery and reduce the heat output from the GPU chip.
Stosskraft
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Re: Mint burns laptops, please don't leave it to another dis

Post by Stosskraft »

Thanks for the information and posts. Now I am wondering if I should to something else all together...I love mint...but it does cook my laptop. I have 2 almost identical laptops my personal with Mint 11 and my work on with windows 7. Though windows 7 frustrates the living hell out of me, it runs all day and never gets hot, the same computer with Mint cooks itself... how is this better?

The horror is I find myself using the work/win 7 machine much more often because of the heat issue and battery life.

I love linux and the idea of open source, what other distro's out there are laptop compatible and is as easy as mint?
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ibm450
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Re: Mint burns laptops, please don't leave it to another dis

Post by ibm450 »

Stosskraft wrote:The horror is I find myself using the work/win 7 machine much more often because of the heat issue and battery life.
+1
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axel668

Re: Mint burns laptops, please don't leave it to another dis

Post by axel668 »

powernowd might be curing the symptoms, but let's face it, if your laptop "burns" when CPU is running on 100% for a while, you either got very bad hardware or something is broken (some cooler, fan, etc.)

as for including powernowd by default, this might be a reasonable request for laptop users, however will slow down the system a little for desktop PCs, so I can understand why it has not been done, yet ... maybe we could have a Laptop option in the installer or something, but this is certainly not high priority.

until then feel free to try another distro, Linux is about choice ... the amount of configuration necessary in other distros to, let's say, decently use your Nvidia card or let alone play MP3s will mabye let you appreciate all the stuff that is working out of the box in Mint
grizwald
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Re: Mint burns laptops, please don't leave it to another dis

Post by grizwald »

If you have "two almost identical laptops, why not try to swap the hard drives and see if the heat problem follows the hard drive?
Should you try this test, don't forget to remove the power first. If the battery gets disconnected with power applied you may well cook the laptop permanently. Not a good look. That will rule out clogged cooling system quickly enough, then you can devote your time and effort trying all the software solutions.

G.
Stosskraft
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Re: Mint burns laptops, please don't leave it to another dis

Post by Stosskraft »

Well I am very sure that is is not the hardware, as I put Mint on it as soon as it came out of the box and noticed the problem. Not until work gave me the same laptop with Win 7 did I realize how bad it was.

Why are people pretending this heating problem doesn't exist? It clearly does.

I am now looking for an alternative but really like MInt. Would KDE run cooler/normal?

Any suggestions? I have tried the kernal update, with little success.
ej64
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Re: Mint burns laptops, please don't leave it to another dis

Post by ej64 »

@Stosskraft: I remember this thread of yours: HP G42 overheating like crazy. In your case it has to do with the free drivers that does not get enough support by AMD/ATI. You have to read into the tuts and wikis how to install the latest proprietary catalyst.

There's nothing to blame Linux or Ubuntu in general.

I don't deny there are heating problems - I've written a lot about it lately - but in most cases there are ways to cure the problem. But this comes with a price: the willingness to learn. That's Linux. If you like to blame the sw developers then use M$. That's my take. sorry for being harsh, though.
Thinkpad X220 with Samsung SSD running Xubuntu 13.04
I'm getting old gladly -- I don't like to die young ...
Stosskraft
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Re: Mint burns laptops, please don't leave it to another dis

Post by Stosskraft »

hello ej, your right i need to do more research but I am not that good with this stuff.

I first switch to ubuntu then mint because I could load it up and presto it works and I love it. I am only using microsoft as it is a free work laptop that just happens to be the same as my personal one.

To be honest I am not so good with the drivers and stuff. I someone has a good step by step guide how to install what you sughest I am game. Like I said I love mint, but call a spade a spade..if I went from 10 to 11 and then my LT can almost melt a pen :!:

I am not princess and moaning, but if someone can point me in the right direction to solve it then great, but I am not a 'computer guy' and I want something that works straight out of the box with out being a rocket scientist. Nothing on the website or reviews mentioned that is was not capable with my new HP G42.

If I cannot fix it can someone recommends a version that works properly?
glynnux

Re: Mint burns laptops, please don't leave it to another dis

Post by glynnux »

I'm one of those people pretending my laptop isn't overheating. I could keep this pretence up indefinitely due to the cool temperatures of the machine.

This is a HP Pavilion dv5000 with AMD Turion64 and is definitely well used. We replaced it with a Sony for my wife as it was getting very tired looking. It had XP on it and was always warm and noisy due to the fan running at speed.

It also suffered from the vertical colored bars on the display once or twice a day! :shock:

I installed Mint 11 and my Conky readout shows the fan turns on at approx 45degrees (at low speed) and cuts out at 43degrees. If i watch Youtube videos the fan will get noisier but the temps remain very reasonable. The vertical bar glitch went away completely when I installed Mint. Never had a single issue since. That's 3 months fault free - ( the heat glitch was a daily occurrence with XP installed ). I have no reason to favour one over the other except Mint suits my machine fine. (and my Acer).

This is a 5 year old machine, never been stripped and cleaned running much quieter and cooler on Mint 11 than it did on XP.

In XP this laptop pushed out a lot of hot air. In Mint it doesn't. I intend to continue pretending that means there isn't a specific problem with Mint over XP.

(I am now going to vacuum it at the first opportunity though since I saw that it made such an improvement to users that did have a heat problem. Hopefully after I've cleaned it out it will chill beers). :lol:
z06gal

Re: Mint burns laptops, please don't leave it to another dis

Post by z06gal »

The heat issues I have had were kernel related. I am running the 2.6.39.3 kernel on Mint 12 and it runs great but the 3.0 kernel runs warm :wink:
Stosskraft
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Re: Mint burns laptops, please don't leave it to another dis

Post by Stosskraft »

Well after a strip and clean by the it guys at work the computer is still warm. I think the laptop jsut runs hot, with I am using it mostly as a desktop now.

I tried:

Linux Mint debian: internet Connection problems, could not fix.
Linux Mint 12: confused is that all about...no right click why? This is suppose to be better? Says who? Hate having to learn something new because somneone tells me its better...really...its not to me.

Finally settled on Kubuntu...really runs cooler that MInt 11 and really quick and snappy on my pc. Love the look at it. Going to stick with it for a while. Hope Mint does KDE soon...might be the future
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