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I'm new with Ubuntu and I'm enjoying my experience with Ubuntu 11.10 on my Lenovo ideapad Y460. I'm dual booting Ubuntu with Windows 7 64 bit. It's great using Ubuntu, however I noticed that my laptop heats up rather quickly when I use Ubuntu. Does this have to do with drivers? I have Nvidia GT 425M graphics, but I don't know if this information is relevant. My fans are just not working right as they do in Windows 7. Did I miss installing something or what am I doing wrong?

user54480
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  • Take a look at this Ubuntu Forums post about fan control. I don't think that this is exactly what you are looking for, but it might help you to adjust your fan speeds so that you are not running as hot. Disclaimer: This article extremely tech-old, and might require some research to work properly. You perform all modifications at your own risk! – fouric Apr 11 '12 at 16:27

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The dust could be an issue but as you are saying it works fine in windows so I guess the following.

Y560 with nvidia is optimus enabled. There is no support for optimus in linux. So both GPU are on all time. I think that is heating up the laptop.

To turnoff nvidia graphics card and use it only when required install The Bumblebee, See the details below.

Never make a mistake to install nvidia drivers directly on ubuntu. It won't work and will end up with black screen.

Add the Stable Bumblebee Releases PPA and install Bumblebee using the proprietary NVIDIA driver:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bumblebee/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia

Upto this step, it will turnoff nvidia card and use intel card only. If you want to use nvidia card, follow the steps below else don't

If you have 32-bit applications like Wine, and run 11.10 Oneiric or later, you will need extra libraries:

sudo apt-get install virtualgl-libs:i386

Allow yourself to use Bumblebee by adding yourself to the 'bumblebee' group. (replace $USER by your username)

sudo usermod -a -G bumblebee $USER

Reboot or re-login to apply the group changes

If you'd like to run a program on the nvidia card now, use the optirun program:

optirun firefox &

To test whether it is working, install mesa-utilities by executing sudo apt-get install mesa-utils

  • Run glxgears, wait for sometimes, you will get frame rate every 5 second and it will be like 50-60 fps. It means it is using intel card.

  • run optirun glxgears and see the framerates. It will be much higher indicating nvidia card is working.

  • Also you can run webgl tests with browsers.

Read more from bumblebee wiki

Linked Question:

Is a NVIDIA GeForce with Optimus Technology supported by Ubuntu?

How well will Nvidia Optimus cards be supported in 12.04?

Edit - Thanks to @Lekensteyn for corrections.

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  • Note: if you have no interest in using the nvidia card (as the Intel one is good for most tasks), installing Bumblebee is enough. (no need for usermod, virtualgl-libs:i386, etc). The reinstallation of libgl1-mesa-glx+reboot is also not necessary unless you've followed a very ancient guide. – Lekensteyn Apr 11 '12 at 17:52