I have a Dell Inspiron Mini 1012 running Ubuntu 10.04 and Windows 7 Starter in a dual-boot configuration.
The CPU runs much cooler in Windows than it does in Ubuntu, even when the CPU has been idling. For example, I'm in Ubuntu now, the CPU has been idling for some time, and the CPU temperature is 72 C according to lm-sensors and coretemp.
The machine actually overheated in Ubuntu at one point, just from running the CPU at 100% for an extended period of time. Again, this problem only occurs in Ubuntu – I have never noticed a heat issue in Windows.
I have tried using the CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor GNOME applet to set my CPU speed to 1GHz (instead of 1.67GHz) and Powersave mode, but this does not seem to affect the idle temperature.
Here is /proc/cpuinfo:
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 28
model name : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N450 @ 1.66GHz
stepping : 10
cpu MHz : 1000.000
cache size : 512 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 1
apicid : 0
initial apicid : 0
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm movbe lahf_lm
bogomips : 3325.06
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 32 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
processor : 1
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 28
model name : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N450 @ 1.66GHz
stepping : 10
cpu MHz : 1000.000
cache size : 512 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 1
apicid : 1
initial apicid : 1
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm movbe lahf_lm
bogomips : 3325.07
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 32 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
Does anyone have any advice as to how I can get my CPU to run cooler under Ubuntu?
Update:
Here is the output of powertop, after running it for about a minute:
Cn Avg residency P-states (frequencies)
C0 (cpu running) (13.7%) 1.67 Ghz 2.8%
C0 0.2ms ( 0.0%) 1333 Mhz 0.3%
C1 mwait 0.3ms ( 2.2%) 1000 Mhz 96.9%
C2 mwait 0.5ms (14.2%)
C4 mwait 0.8ms (69.9%)
Wakeups-from-idle per second : 1303.9 interval: 10.0s
Power usage (ACPI estimate): 13.3W (2.7 hours)
Top causes for wakeups:
33.4% (611.7) chromium-browse
26.5% (483.7) PS/2 keyboard/mouse/touchpad interrupt
17.7% (324.3) [extra timer interrupt]
7.8% (142.9) [kernel scheduler] Load balancing tick
2.3% ( 41.2) ekiga
1.9% ( 34.0) [eth1]
1.6% ( 29.4) rhythmbox
1.3% ( 24.5) USB device 1-8 : USB2.0-CRW (Generic)
1.3% ( 24.2) Xorg
1.1% ( 19.8) desktopcouch-se
1.0% ( 18.5) [ehci_hcd:usb1, uhci_hcd:usb2]
0.8% ( 15.5) [acpi]
0.6% ( 10.8) [kernel core] hrtimer_start (tick_sched_timer)
0.4% ( 6.9) [kernel core] add_timer (wl_timer)
0.3% ( 5.3) parcellite
0.2% ( 3.6) gwibber-service
0.2% ( 3.0) [Rescheduling interrupts]
0.2% ( 3.0) wpa_supplicant
0.1% ( 2.3) python
0.1% ( 2.3) gnome-terminal
0.1% ( 2.1) beam.smp
0.1% ( 1.9) multiload-apple
0.1% ( 1.8) NetworkManager
Update:
Upgrading to kernel 2.6.38-1 via PPA actually seems to make the wakeups-per-second as bad or worse:
PowerTOP version 1.12 (C) 2007 Intel Corporation
Cn Avg residency P-states (frequencies)
C0 (cpu running) (13.2%) 1.67 Ghz 9.6%
polling 0.0ms ( 0.0%) 1333 Mhz 1.1%
C1 mwait 0.5ms ( 4.2%) 1000 Mhz 89.3%
C2 mwait 0.7ms (50.8%)
C4 mwait 0.5ms (31.8%)
Wakeups-from-idle per second : 1465.2 interval: 10.0s
Power usage (ACPI estimate): 13.5W (3.6 hours) (long term: 12.6W,/3.9h)
Top causes for wakeups:
35.8% (483.6) PS/2 keyboard/mouse/touchpad interrupt
27.0% (364.4) chromium-browse
21.0% (284.5) [extra timer interrupt]
2.7% ( 36.0) kworker/0:0
2.5% ( 34.3) [kernel scheduler] Load balancing tick
2.5% ( 33.8) Xorg
1.5% ( 19.9) desktopcouch-se
1.1% ( 15.1) [acpi]
0.0% ( 0.1)D flush-8:0
0.9% ( 12.5) USB device 1-8 : USB2.0-CRW (Generic)
0.9% ( 12.0) [ehci_hcd:usb1, uhci_hcd:usb2]
0.1% ( 0.7)D upowerd
0.6% ( 8.3) parcellite
0.5% ( 7.3) [ahci]
0.5% ( 6.1) gnome-terminal
0.3% ( 3.6) gwibber-service
0.2% ( 3.0) [kernel core] timer_action (ehci_watchdog)
0.2% ( 2.8) [kernel core] hrtimer_start (tick_sched_timer)
0.2% ( 2.2) python
0.1% ( 2.0) multiload-apple
0.1% ( 2.0) beam.smp
0.1% ( 1.7) [Rescheduling interrupts]
0.1% ( 1.6) [eth0]
The program 'upowerd' is writing to file 'history-rate-DELL_2T6K207N-52.d' on `/dev/sda5`. This prevents the disk from going to powersave mode.
Q - Quit R - Refresh
0$ notes 1$ todo 2$ dev1 3$ dev2 4$ dev3 5$ srv (6*$bash) 7-$ bash 05/26 2:03PM
Best Answer
It is not really an anwser more a proposal how to proceed. For me it seems impossible that a CPU that is idling should produce a heat of 72 degree celcius. Do you mean by idling on the os is running or did you check the load of the CPU?
Install powertop from synaptics and start the programm in the terminal by "sudo powertop" the programm will tell what the CPU is really doing. It tells you also which activities keeps the CPU busy.