When I boot into Ubuntu from my USB pendrive, my laptop fan becomes abnormally loud and the fan temperature also increases (I can feel the heat by putting my hand under the laptop). This doesn't happen with Windows. I've done my research, and found out that it may be a problem with the graphics card – I've got an ATI RADEON XPRESS 1100. Quite a lot of people have noted that it may be a problem with Ubuntu not being able to handle power management properly with this graphics card. Also, I am not running any CPU-intensive or memory-intensive programs – when I go to Preferences > System Monitor, the memory usage is only around ~250-400 megabytes and the CPU usage hardly ever goes above 20.
My laptop is an ASUS X51RLseries laptop, by the way. I'm also just trying Ubuntu at the moment – does this have anything to do with the abnormally high fan temperature? When I actually install Ubuntu on a separate partition (so that I can dual boot both Windows and Ubuntu), will the temperature and fan loudness decrease? On Windows, my Hard Drive temperature at the moment is 41 degrees Celsius, and my CPU temperature is 53 degrees Celsius. This is normal for me, and it may increase or decrease slightly depending on the amount of work I am putting on my laptop.
I'm quite a newb at Ubuntu yet, so if you could explain instructions clearly to me then I would greatly appreciate it. I know how to do basic stuff, but if you are very detailed then that would be very helpful. If there's anything I've missed or if you need to know anything else, then please let me know. Thanks.
Best Answer
I have a ATI card and it get's really hot running Ubuntu with the normal open sourde ATI drivers. Installing the official drivers and set them to minimum the laptop runs normal.