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I installed Ubuntu 18.04 LTS on my laptop（Machrevo,with i5-8265U,nvidia MX250). My laptop's OEM system is Windows 10, and previously it would get super hot (maybe 220F，I guess) when charging. The manufacturer admitted it was caused by defects in BIOS and then I get my BIOS ec updated（on Windows). After that it got cooler under Windows (CPU temperature 160-180F when charging).

But Windows 10 didn't meet my needs so I installed Ubuntu 18.04. Until a week ago, on temperature side, it looked great. Very few times my CPU got hotter than 70F, even charging. But this week after a sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade the cooling system seems to have stopped working (the fan does not turn on automatically, and before it had three gears but now it seems only to work at the minimum even when the temperature gets higher than 240F (burns my hand) and everything crashes because CPU cannot work in this situation.

I tried installing tlp after that. (I just sudo start tlp. Will it work?) The temperature went down a bit but is still much higher than before (and expected). I went to /var/crash and /var/log** but find nothing. So there are no logs I can show you guys.

Here is the output of lspci -k | grep -EA3 'VGA|3D|Display'

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 3ea0 (rev 02)
    Subsystem: Device 1b50:1018
    Kernel driver in use: i915
    Kernel modules: i915
--
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation Device 1d13 (rev a1)
    Subsystem: Device 1b50:5515
    Kernel modules: nvidiafb, nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)

Maybe someone can help me figure it out? Or tell me how to configure TLP to reduce the heat?

Zanna
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NewEric
  • 11

1 Answers1

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Under volting helps a lot when there is over heating (and by lot I mean A LOT). To be on a safer side, manufacturers supply higher voltage than required to the CPU (which causes heating), as at very lower voltages CPU doesn't work properly under stress. Under volting is completely safe. It will not void your warranty what so ever. Under volting is basically removing the excess voltage supplied and giving the minimum voltage required to run the CPU smoothly.

Try intel-undervolt from here.

Here is a guide to help you along.

Some terms in the guide might be depricated. Refer the first link for the deprecated terms.

As of selecting the offset, I use undervolt 0 'CPU' -130 in the /etc/intel-undervolt.conf file. As a beginner I would suggest you to stick to undervolting the CPU only.

To find the correct offset (unique to each CPU piece. Same CPU but on different computer could have different ideal offset) slowly lower the offset by small values (I used 10), and at the point where your PC crashes, is the threshold. And set the final value to threshold - 10. In my case it crashed at 140 so I set is to 130.

The only down side is that you will have to apply the settings on every boot. I have created an alias with alias us='sudo intel-undervolt apply && sudo tlp start'. So I just have to type us in the terminal on a boot, and then I am good to go.

Note: the crashing of PC to calculate the offset is completely safe. It will not damage you hardware whatsoever.

Note: Any Intel CPU can go to -125 at least, above that comes the difficult part. If you want to take it to the limit, then only try increasing it step by step. Other wise -125 will work just fine for any Intel CPU.

Abhay Patil
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