Much lower battery life on Ubuntu and laptop heating up badly

Question

I have the following config laptop:

System model: HP Pavilion g6 Notebook PC
Processor: AMD A8-4500 APU with Radeon HD Graphics (Quadcore 1.9Ghz)
Memory: 6Gb RAM
Graphics:AMD Radeon HD 7640G+7600M Dual Graphics

I usually get a battery run time of 2.5 hours and more in windows, but when I run Ubuntu, it gives me less than 40 mins and it heats up very badly. Can someone please tell me what to do to get a better battery life and processing power. It would be helpful if some one could give me specific instructions.

I assume both the gpu are on. You need to install ATI driver. — Web-E, Apr 06 '13 at 08:43
i was reading about installing catalyst in ubuntu but there seems to be some problem with the new kernel — Jibin, Apr 06 '13 at 09:31
A quick fix would be to disable the dedicated graphics in the BIOS if possible. At the very least this would let you ensure the problem is the GPU. — Alex, Apr 29 '13 at 03:29
http://askubuntu.com/questions/285434/is-there-a-power-saving-application-similar-to-jupiter/285681#285681 — Qasim, Jun 18 '13 at 15:44
Another interesting post is http://askubuntu.com/questions/207733/why-does-my-laptop-with-amd-radeon-hd-76xx-graphics-get-overheated-when-using-ub — Rmano, Feb 20 '14 at 15:06

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 06 '13 at 08:45

1

I use Indicator-cpu , It helped me to some extent... I use the ondemand mode

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:artfwo/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install indicator-cpufreq

answered Apr 06 '13 at 08:45

Bram

111

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 29 '13 at 11:25

Try this, I tried this and was successful. I am using a Laptop with similar configurations.

Download the latest driver using this link: http://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/amd-catalyst-13.4-linux-x86.x86_64.zip
Extract it, and open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T).
cd to the directory in which the zip file is extracted.

Run the following command:

sudo sh amd-catalyst-13.4-linux-x86.x86_64.run

Afterwards a new window appears, select the top radio button; and click on bottom right button and continue it. After finishing the installation, click the bottom button.

Goto Catalyst control center
Goto Switchable graphics
Select Power saving GPU.
Click apply

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 20 '14 at 15:00

I also had overheating issues with my HP g6 laptop. I have installed AMD Catalyst & Indicator-cpu.

I also installed TLP power management following

http://itsfoss.com/things-to-do-after-installing-ubuntu-13-10/

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linrunner/tlp
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install tlp tlp-rdw 
sudo tlp start

Dont know which one did the trick but now my laptop is very much cool

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

0

For Ubuntu 14.04+ there is also thermald -- see my answer here for details.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

Community

1

answered Mar 26 '15 at 17:08

bluenote10

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Much lower battery life on Ubuntu and laptop heating up badly

4 Answers4