As almost everyone here, I guess, in these days I downloaded Quantal Quetzal to give it a try. However I noticed that my laptop runs fairly hot with cooling fans almost always on, even sitting in the desktop doing nothing.
I downloaded XSensor to read temperature sensors, and I saw that while CPU stays on about 65°C, so quiet normal I guess, the GPU sits at 75°C. In comparison my actual Windows 7 installation, which dual boots witb Quantal, stays at 59°C CPU and 65°C. So I went reading and learned that AMD dropped support for my video card from fglrx package, and that fglrx-legacy won't support 1.13 Xorg, so I'm basically stuck with OSS drivers.
So I was guessing if there's anything I can try, and if it's possible that the OSS drivers could be the cause of the high temperature?
Best Answer
The high temperature is caused by the poor power management of the open source drivers. Installing the latest proprietary drivers would help, if official support for the HD4xxx series hadn't been dropped with Quantal. So you're left with two options:
1.) Install the legacy FGLRX drivers through a custom PPA that ships with an older version of X.ORG.
Advantages: unsurpassed power management, better performance both in 3D and 2D apps ;
Disadvantages: packages provided by user, no guarantee that installation will work, might even break your system
Tutorial
2.) Adjust the power management of the open source drivers.
Advantages: safer option
Disadvantages: neither power management nor performance will be close to the proprietary drivers; this might change in the future, mind you
Tutorial , Making the changes persistent