Somebody is lying!

[GreyGeek]

As I set here running my new Acer AS7739 with Kubuntu 12.04 beta1 I am looking at the CPU temp widget. It says that my CPU temps are fluxuating between 102 and 104F. This 17.3" box is totally cool to the touch. The air coming out of the fan port, when the fan is running, is cool, indisnguishable from room temp. The entire keyboard and plam rest are cool, except where the heel of my hands are resting. The bottom area which got so hot when the LiveUSB got corrupted is as cool as the table it is setting on.

When I run the Win7 side the Temp widget says that the temperature is oscillating between 58 and 64F, but the fan is blowing all the time and the hot air coming from it is heating up the desktop where it hits. The bottom of the Acer, which got hot with the LiveUSB failure, is very warm to the touch.

The Kubuntu widget is obviously reporting a temp that is way too high, or Win7's temp is way too low. If the two temp readings were reversed I'd believe them. I can set an offset to -10.0 and the display reads 87.8, which is very close to what my IR gun says the exhaust port temp is.

[sithlord48]

Re: Somebody is lying!

i need to get an IR gun.

is it possible they are reading different sensors?

[dibl]

Re: Somebody is lying!

40C/104F is pretty normal in my experience. I'm sitting here looking at the temps on my quad core i7-950 and the cores range from 34-40C, and twiddle up and down a little, but all in that range. If I would launch a flash video and maybe start VMware, it would jog up to 44 or 45C while it got the processes going, and then work its way back down.

I have another Intel system -- an X3800, which runs hotter. It idles around 46C and can be run up to the mid-50s without too much difficulty.

Bottom line -- I think your Windows metrics are in degrees C. No way are those Fahrenheit temps.

[silviucc]

Re: Somebody is lying!

It's also quite possible lm-sensors is just wrong. I never trust it...

[OneLine]

Re: Somebody is lying!

About lm-sensors

/usr/share/doc/lm-sensors/README.Debian.gz

.
.
.
* The temperatures are wrong

If the temperature is -48°C, the corresponding input is not connected,
check your /etc/sensors3.conf and find section, use "ignore tempX"
statement to ignore this temperature source.

If the temperature is negative, switching from diode input to
thermistor may help. Check your /etc/sensors3.conf and find section,
use "set sensorX Y" statement to change the diode to thermistor.

If the temperature is too hot, switching from thermistor input to
diode may help.Check your /etc/sensors3.conf and find section, use
"set sensorX Y" statement to change the thermistor to diode.
.
.
.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Somebody is lying!

i need to get an IR gun.

Here's the one I use:
http://www.amazon.com/Mastercool-MSC.../dp/B000TM7HXC

is it possible they are reading different sensors?

They are. One is tracking lmsensors, the other is following ACPI/ThermalZone/0/. But, both show exactly the same temps at the same instant and change in unisone.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Somebody is lying!

....
Bottom line -- I think your Windows metrics are in degrees C. No way are those Fahrenheit temps.

I checked just to be sure, even though I know I selected Farhenheit, and it was F.

I did some more checking with my IR gun and noticed that there is a 10 degree difference across the air exhaust port. When the back end is showing 77F the front end is showing 87F.

My Kubuntu reports, as I type, 102-106F, oscillating. There is NO air flowing out of the exhaust. The fan is silent. There is no part of the surface of this laptop that feels even warm to the touch, top or bottom, except where I rest my palms.

In checking the Win7 side again it now showed temperatures on the active core at oscillating around 102F, and on the inactive core about 80F. But, the fan was blowing and significant heat was coming out. Then as I let it set with no apps open the temp stabilized around 102F, fan stopped, and the laptop appeared to assume room temperature, just like Kubunut.

I played with offsets a while to see if I could get the exhaust output temps to match those shown by the gun measuring the exhaust port temp. I realized that those temps are probably less than the actual core temps and if I want any measurements at all it would be those closest to the actual core temp.

So, I don't understand why Kubuntu's CPU temp widget would show, essentially, the same temperatures as the Win7 gadget but Kubuntu runs cool and the fan generally is not on, while Win7 generlly runs hot and with the fan on high, but the temps are the same.

[sithlord48]

Re: Somebody is lying!

is 102 F hot to the touch? only around 4 deg warmer then your skin. once you get thru the plastics idk if you would even feel a change in the temp (assuming its really 102F)

maybe windows has some extra firmware stuff that makes the fan spin extra or we are not correctly turning your fan on.

well GG since you got that router that i suggested, i think i have to take your suggestion and get that ir gun .

[richb]

Re: Somebody is lying!

I am typically at 105 to 110F on my Acer 7520 as reported by sensors. I do feel warm air exiting from the exhaust but not overly warm. Feels about right to me.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Somebody is lying!

is 102 F hot to the touch? only around 4 deg warmer then your skin. once you get thru the plastics idk if you would even feel a change in the temp (assuming its really 102F)
....

Good point... I forgot entirely about 98.6F

So, 102F is about right, compared to what I feel around the air exhaust port or the base where the CPU is.

I still can't explain why Win7 shows about the same temps but the fan is blowing at full speed and the air and laptop are very warm, almost hot to the touch.

[SteveRiley]

Re: Somebody is lying!

I dunno Jerry, but doesn't your experience seem a bit backwards from the majority of what people report? I'm certainly not doubting you. But each of the three laptops I've used in the past two years runs hotter and spins the fan more with any Linux distro than with Windows. And that's even after following various guides at ThinkWiki, installing lm-sensors, scripting what powertop suggests, and trying various kernel boot parameters like pcie_aspm=force and the i915.<whatever> ones.

This is the machine with Intel graphics, right? So no separate GPU. Would you mind trying a couple things for me, on the Windows side:

1. Temporarily turn off Aero and desktop composition. At an elevated command prompt, run: sc stop uxsms

This won't survive a reboot, so you haven't made any permanent changes. Operate your machine for a few hours in this state and see if anything changes with your fans and temperature.

2. Look in Device Manager to see what version of the Intel driver you're running. You might find a later one on Intel's web site; on at least half a dozen occasions for me, the generic reference driver from Intel does a better job than the one supplied by the laptop manufacturer.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Somebody is lying!

I'll try those recommendations.

[MoonRise]

Re: Somebody is lying!

My Desktop between Kubuntu and XP run about the same here 104°F. The laptop runs a little hotter around 112°F and that is for both Kubuntu and WIN7.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Somebody is lying!

I'll try those recommendations.

Very interesting! the command "sc stop uxsms" stopped accelerated video and made a snail out of Win7, and I do mean snail. But, "sc start uxsms" turned it back on.

Also, the temps dropped to around 75-80F. Room temp is 70F. Sometimes a core would show a temperature 4 or 5 degrees below room temp!

I'm taking the Wiff to the movies tonight. Tomorrow I'll look up the latest Intel driver for this HD Graphics chips.
Thanks for the tip, Steve!

[SteveRiley]

Re: Somebody is lying!

Yes, stopping the service is the brute-force way of getting out-of-control temps under control. Now let's try something milder...when you return from the movies, of course.

1. Reboot, or restart uxsms.
2. In Desktop personalization, choose a non-Aero theme -- "Windows Basic" will do.

There are even more fine-grained approaches, but let's work through the scenarios one at at time.