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I have a Thinkpad T410s with Intel onboard vga controller
It currently uses i915 driver but when I play multiple videos or one HD video the laptop temperature goes up until system restart!
I also can not use softwares like OBS :

Failed to initialize video.  Your GPU may not be supported, or your graphics drivers may need to be updated.

Or play screen using vlc:

[00007fdbbc000c40] main input error: Your input can't be opened
[00007fdbbc000c40] main input error: VLC is unable to open the MRL 'screen://'. Check the log for details.

I tried to install drivers from Additional Drivers tool but its list is empty

my lspci -v |grep -i vga: 

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

and lspci -vn |grep -i vga:

00:02.0 0300: 8086:0046 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

and lshw -class display: 

 *-display                 
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 02
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resources: irq:26 memory:f2000000-f23fffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff ioport:1800(size=8) memory:c0000-dffff

and glxinfo | grep OpenGL: 

OpenGL vendor string: Intel Open Source Technology Center
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ironlake Mobile 
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 18.2.2
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.20
OpenGL extensions:
OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 2.0 Mesa 18.2.2
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 1.0.16
OpenGL ES profile extensions:

I also tried to update intel drivers to latest version from xorg-edgers/ppa and ubuntu-x-swat/updates PPAs but nothing changed!

What is wrong with my video controller?
How can I fix it?

Ariyan
  • 494

2 Answers2

6

There's probably nothing wrong with it. It's just that it is a 8-9 year old chip (Q1 2010), which had low end graphics performance even then.

Temperature rise might be due to reduced cooler performance (e.g. dust), and having to decode video in software, not hardware. Most chips today try to perform video decoding in hardware, not software, and thus has lower power consumption as a result.

OBS requires OpenGL 3.2. Your GPU only offers OpenGL 2.1, which is probably why OBS does not run.

You may gain some performance by cleaning the coolers of the machine, but ultimately it's old.

vidarlo
  • 22,691
2

Overheating is a common problem in Linux. This article: Most Effective Ways To Reduce Laptop Overheating In Linux suggests five applications:

  • Install TLP (and optional Thinkpad support in your case)
  • Install Thermald
  • Install Laptop Mode Tools (often not necessary)
  • Install CPUFreq (often not necessary)
  • Monitor System temperatures

You do NOT need to add PPAs as the article instructs to install TLP. See this answer: How can I install TLP in Ubuntu 18.04?

You can read an in-depth Q&A here in Ask Ubuntu on CPU temperature control: Stop cpu from overheating

Community
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WinEunuuchs2Unix
  • 102,282