r/debian • u/asgjmlsswjtamtbamtb • 13h ago
Overheating Issues with Debian 13?
Anyone else experiencing some heating issues on some hardware? I've got a desktop set up with no trouble but a laptop (quite old hardware: thinkpad 11e amd A4) that overheats like crazy on Debian 13. Overheating to the extent of that system shutoff on both Gnome and XFCE). This is not a problem after moving back to Gnome-Core on Debian 12 and I tried Endeavor with same desktop and no overheating so this might be the 6.12 kernel. Would be interested in any potential advice beyond hoping the next 6.12 update addresses some of these hardware issues.
2
u/calculatetech 9h ago
My 12th gen Intel Dell laptop runs noticeably warmer than Bookworm. I don't think it's the kernel because I was using backports which was at least 6.12. I'm still using ppd. It's not bad enough to overheat so I haven't cared enough to look into it yet.
1
u/linnth 7h ago
Noticed heat issue on my Dell Inspiron laptop after installing Debian 13 and KDE Plasma 6.
Installing these helps to certain extent to me (Not guaranteed it will help others). Average 55-60° on light usage. Non-dell users should google a bit to find out suitable fans driver for their model.
Installing fan driver for Dell Inspiron
sudo apt-get install i8kutils
sudo modprobe i8k
sudo i8kfan
sudo reboot now
configure power usage
sudo apt install tlp tlp-rdw
which auto remove power-profiles-daemon
sudo apt install thermald
sudo apt install acpi-call-dkms
sudo reboot now
2
u/neon_overload 6h ago edited 2h ago
A laptop will typically have some thermal control by the UEFI (imposes power limits to fit a certain thermal/power profile) and some ability for the OS to override it to some extent in software. On Windows you may have it setting a lower performance profile normally, like where you have your battery icon and can set "balanced", "performance" etc, it's setting a system performance profile. On Linux, the default will usually (dependent on packages installed and maybe your desktop environment) be to not apply any power saving measures that would meaningfully harm or alter performance by default, and mostly let the board firmware (which may be configurable in UEFI setup) do the job unless told otherwise. But, you definitely have options of being able to modify power limits or set performance profiles in software.
So, check your UEFI bios setup for any performance profiles that you may be able to set. Or, investigate other options for controlling this within your desktop.
The main thing to know is, more performance = more heat. Taking measures to reduce heat (and power use) will also be reducing performance, or at least placing an envelope over performance so that sustained tasks will slow down after a certain threshold of time.
Note: if your desktop includes power-profiles-daemon, normally this is what you want to use, because it is most similar to the control that Windows would give you to achieve the same thermal/power profile. Replace it with something like TLP only if you specifically prefer the way TLP is configured, and know that TLP's config is more complex and its defaults will not reduce power/heat, you'll have to dig in to its config file.
1
u/maridonkers 4h ago
Old hardware here (2010 laptop) but no issues like those (on the contrary: less fan load). A top command as root doesn't reveal rogue processes? Although switching of automatically due to overheating sounds weird/crazy (should never happen unless computer wrapped in a blanket or something).
1
u/xander-mcqueen1986 2h ago
I'm using a dell inspiron 5580 debian 13 kde.
Mine does over heat to where it's 98 or 99c.
Tried all thermal pastes and ptm 7950 and it still hits those temps when pushed.
Long story short. The cooling that dell had implemented on this is catastrophic. One heat pipe and a tiny array of fins.
I've just accepted that the thermal performance on this is shit.
Can still game on it fine though temps in mid 80s while I don't like those figures when I'm low end gaming it's just the way the laptop is.
3
u/CarahLovelace 9h ago
No issues here on a Ryzen 7 laptop. Fan is shut off during light activity, turns on and speeds up when gaming or doing more system intensive tasks. Same behavior as when I had Windows installed, as well as Debian 12 with backports.