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When I upgraded from 17.04 to 17.10, my Panasonic Toughbook CF-73 that has an ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics card which shares 64 MB with the system's RAM, began to 'crash' as the temperature of my processor began to spike (190 to 210 degrees F according to Psensor readings...). This happens mainly when I go online and load up some intensive webpages or even when I play video files from my harddrive. Suddenly the whole screen goes into this multicolor unintelligible display and the only thing I can do is shutdown holding down the power button... can't even get to terminal using hotkeys (that only changes the color pattern of the crashed out display...). Never had this problem while with 16.10 or 17.04 - just started immediately after the 17.10 upgrade. Hoping the upgrade to 18.04 'fixes' this. I've added a laptop stand with fan coolers that helps a bit, but mostly I have to just load a webpage, wait a few minutes before doing ANYTHING for the processor to go back into the 120's, then I can browse but have to 'watch' psensor temps as I do and stop doing everything immediately until temps lower or it'll do the crashed-out display thing. The internal fan kicks-in / kicks out when processor reaches about 160 degrees F - on and off as the temperature crosses this threshold just as it always has. Being 'dirty inside' is not suspect, as I said it just started this current weirdness right after the drastic changes from the 17.10 upgrade... just the most recent among the many weirdnesses I've had to cope with with this laptop ;-)

The MAJOR
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  • yep - blown out thru all three vents for internal fan w/air compressor...nothing seen exiting... or, should I use alcohol or something else? – The MAJOR May 18 '18 at 13:19
  • The guy I bought it from upgraded the processor from a 1.6-GHz Pentium M Processor 735, to an Intel® Pentium(R) M processor 2.00GHz, also upgraded RAM from 512Mb to 1Gb, thus the opening it up and installing it would've seen any build-up (is a refurbished machine I've had barely over a year). Ubuntu reports that It uses an Intel® 915GM x86/MMX/SSE2 (specs say differently - ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics card) if that helps any... – The MAJOR May 18 '18 at 13:40
  • Ubuntu sez 17.10 (also 18.04) needs a minimum of 2 GB RAM and a Dual Core processor ( 2GHz) - mine only has 1Gb and is a Centrino processor. SO - 18.04 upgrade will probably also be 'stressful' on it, eh? – The MAJOR May 18 '18 at 13:58
  • Seems even 16.10 that it came with, and worked so well with (including 17.04), and never had this video / heatup issue, had the same min. req.: Below are minimum requirements of Ubuntu 16.10: 2 GHz Dual Core Processor 2 GB RAM SO - maybe something in 17.10 itself started it and has nothing to do with it meeting the min. sys. req.(and nothing to do with dirt or fan qualities) :-{ – The MAJOR May 18 '18 at 16:54

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Upgraded to 18.04LTS and it seems to be less 'taxing' on the processor (and/or more gentle on the video demand) - I'd read somewhere that 17.10 was found to be hard on processors, and that 18.04LTS would address this - so far the display hasn't 'crashed' and the 'spikes' in temperature, paralleling the spikes in processor use and memory demand, don't seem to be as severe. No more version upgrades for this laptop!

The MAJOR
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