I have just installed Ubuntu Mate 16.04 latest beta. A fair number of times, I will boot up and log in and immediately find the cores are running around 70c with the fans spinning up high to compensate. It doesn’t help to wait for the system to calm down as this high temperature will persist well into a minute or so.
I find if I then log out and back in again, the temperature will immediately drop down to a more usual operating temperature of around 38c and will be okay for the rest of the session.
Anybody else experiencing this and do the devs have any answers as to what might be going on?
Also, just as an aside, I recently played around with the latest version of Debian Jessie and it also has this issue with core temp at initial bootup and was also fixed by logging out and then back in again.
Okay, have been playing around with things to try and isolate the problem.
I have quite a few things running at bootup including:
Skype
Thunderbird
Tilda
Dropbox
Compiz
Although, I should, add, I had all these things in 14.04 without the temperature issue at bootup
Anyway, killed Skype, Thunderbird, Tilda and Dropbox with no drop in temp. Went to Mate Tweak and changed from compiz to marco and the temperature immediately dropped. Even stranger, without logging out, changed back to compiz and the temperature remained low.
So, this seems to be pointing to something about the way that Compiz is loading and/or running at bootup and this is only fixed either by restarting Compiz via logging out and then back in again, or restarting Compiz by changing to Marco and then back to Compiz.
Given the above, I am going to try and do a quick fix for this by having a startup script with the following lines:
sleep 10
marco --replace
compiz --replace
…and see if it fixes the boot-up temperature problem
That seems to have fixed it. But, it’s too early to be sure. Will update after booting up a number of times. If the temperature problem completely goes away, I will then temporarily disable the script and see if it comes back. If it does, then there is a problem with Compiz on initial bootup
Okay, spoke too soon. Still got the temp issue, plus if I enable Compiz via the “compiz --replace” command, either in a startup script or at the terminal, then it misbehaves/does not property load.
No problem with temp or behaviour if Marco is enabled via Mate Tweak as the windows manager both during a session or also booting up with Marco already enabled as default windows manager
No problem with tem p or behaviour after booting up with Marco, then going to Mate Tweak and changing to Compiz
Initial temp problem if booting up with Compiz enabled can be fixed by immediately going to Mate Tweak and changing to Marco and then back to Compiz
So, at the moment, if I want compiz as my windows manager, my only solution to the bootup temp problem is to boot up with marco enabled and then manually go to mate tweak and change to compiz
Ordinarily, following installation, it would be using the open source driver. which i usually immediately repalce with the AMD propriety driver. However, on 16.04, it does not appear to be initially using the open source driver I usually see. Instead, the additional drivers dialogue box is just listing some propriety drivers for the intel cpu and is not listing anything for the GPU, either open source or proprietary. So, I am unable to tell what driver it is using or install any alternatives
Open Source is the only driver for AMD now. The proprietary features should come in a few months, they’ll actually plugin to the existing Open Source drivers. Suggest you search for thermal management and your model when using the Open Source drivers on Linux. Sorry I can’t be more helpful, I don’t have any AMD graphics.
I don’t think it is a thermal management problem though Martin. Or, rather, I think the temp issue is just a secondary consequence. The problem, surely, is in the way the open source drives are handling things like compiz. That is to say, the high temperature and subsequent existing “management” of it by the fans is arguably a consequence of the driver not working properly in some other regard.
I should say, also, the temp problem I mentioned is on the CPUs and I am using the libsensers to read them and have them on my top panel. In this regard, if I go to the system monitor, at least one of the CPUs is always running at 100%. This then jumps around to one of the other CPUs such that, although it changes every second or two, there is always one of the CPUs maxing out. And this continues concurrent with the CPU temp issue as indicated by libsensors. Following the above procedures I mentioned (starting with Marco and then, via Mate Tweak, changing to Compiz - or starting with Compiz and then, via Mate Tweak, changing to Marco and then immediately back to Compiz), not only does the temp problem go away, but the CPU problem with one of my cores maxing out at 100% goes way as well.
Don’t know if the above adds anything useful, but thought I should mention it
Oh dear. So, the new open source AMD drivers are rubbish, they don’t support open GL and the propriety drivers due sometime later this year are predicted to be pretty poor into the bargain
I opted to buy an Nvidia card a few years ago as I didn’t have much luck with ATI/AMD and I find that the Nvidia support is far better, this is my personal preference and I am sure that other ATI/AMD graphics card owners will be of a different opinion!.
