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I'm currently using Ubuntu 18.10 on a machine with Nvidia OPTIMUS (GeForce 650M on Samsung NP550P5C-S01IN). Currently for Nvidia, I'm using nvidia-driver-390, though current selected GPU is Intel.

My idle CPU temperate resides in the range of 68C to 75C (154F to 167F) which is too hot. The weird thing is that the fan runs at really low speed. I know the fan can run faster because during GRUB screen, before selecting the OS, the fan spins much much faster (can even hear it).

Yesterday, I even cleaned up the fans and replaced thermal compound, which only helped with lowering like 2-3C.

The fan does not have speed control but in Windows 7, I did used to have the option to run the fan 'silently' (i.e, slower).

Hope I can get some help with this.

Kristopher Ives
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Suhail Gulzar
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    Did you check your BIOS settings ? Most of BIOS have a rule setting when to activate fan speed at full once the temperature reaches the given limit. – JoKeR Dec 27 '18 at 11:19
  • No, there's no such setting. The only setting that's seems like it can effect temperature is "CPU Power Saving Mode" which is turned off. – Suhail Gulzar Dec 27 '18 at 11:21
  • Maybe you should check your motherboard specifications. As far as I remember I even had this settings on motherboard which is 10 years old. Here's a close article https://smallbusiness.chron.com/turn-up-fan-speed-computer-53039.html – JoKeR Dec 27 '18 at 11:22
  • Nope there is no such configuration even though as on now, the laptop is 7 years old. – Suhail Gulzar Dec 27 '18 at 11:59
  • This might belp: https://askubuntu.com/questions/391474/stop-cpu-from-overheating/875872#875872 – WinEunuuchs2Unix Dec 27 '18 at 12:54
  • @about99ninjas status please – heynnema Jan 19 '19 at 14:34
  • @heynnema nope nothing worked. Couldn't get the fans to go any faster. Ended up installing Windows Linux Subsystem for the time being. Though, previously on Linux Minux 17.3, my laptop did used to run a bit cooler (59 C). I'm guessing it's an issue with the new kernel and/or nvidia drivers. – Suhail Gulzar Jan 19 '19 at 14:40
  • @about99ninjas Thanks for the update! thermald didn't help either? – heynnema Jan 19 '19 at 14:43
  • @heynnema no, for some reason, whatever configs I tried, the fan didn't go any faster. None of the tools detected a pwm-capable sensor (even though in Windows, the fan does go faster whenever required). – Suhail Gulzar Jan 19 '19 at 14:47
  • @heynnema also, I'm planning on installing LM 17.3 back on my laptop tonight. So, if you want, I'll post the config file somewhere. – Suhail Gulzar Jan 19 '19 at 14:51
  • @about99ninjas yes, pwmconfig won't detect any pwm fans, so it won't work. But thermald should certainly work, esp if you did any customization in /etc/thermald/thermal-conf.xml. Maybe retry it? – heynnema Jan 19 '19 at 14:56

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Depending on the laptop model your fan may be controllable via software, such as the fancontrol package, pwmconfig or by directly putting values into the /sys/classes/thermal/cooling_device*/cur_state values. However, testing with the latter it seems these values didn't cause the fans to get turned on. My understanding is that these are part of the ACPI subsystem and many vendors expose some details in the "tables" but don't honor the writes - so the fans don't actually get turned on.

For some vendor specific laptops (Dell) there are utilities that make specific requests to the fan controllers that do work, but I am not aware of any that do this for Samsung devices.

I did used to have the option to run the fan 'silently' (i.e, slower).

It's possible that by setting certain power configurations as you did in Windows is how the fan controller is determining when to turn on and off. In Linux these are often known as "governors" and can be modified using the cpupower command.

Another interesting side note is that if you "soft" shutdown from Windows sometimes it leaves the fan controller in a strange state, with some users reporting that their fan works in Linux when they use a full shutdown followed up with a real power button press when rebooting: Source

Kristopher Ives
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Remove pwmconfig, and any values you placed into /sys/classes/thermal/cooling_device*/cur_state.

Install and configure thermald. This will help keep your computer cooler.

If fan control isn't fast enough, you may need to customize /etc/thermald/thermal-conf.xml.

heynnema
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