[Hardware] Fan speed is high

[Enigma83]

I've given it a month and a half trial and on this old HP Touchsmart when running Debian my fans get a work-out. I ran Win 10 for a month and a half and it is true, in Win 10 my fans get less work out. I hate noisy fans. Yesterday I started Debian and yep - fans roared up and today the same thing. It's almost like my cores when using Debian are running full speed ahead.

On Win 10 my power mode is set to balanced and advanced power mode is 5%/100%.

Yes my fans are old, this is an older machine but I'm not in a mood to kill them if I don't have to and because I have found, Win 10 works well for me. Aside from the fanboys that say Windows takes forever to boot (it doesn't for me) Windows 10 may be my DD. To say this after 15 > 20 years of Linux distros feels off, it feels wrong but it is what it is and I can't deny what I see / hear.

I've searched for Linux power / CPU managers but there aren't any that seem to be very good. I did see and installed auto-cpufreq but don't think it helped. It may have have a bit but that might also be me wishing / hoping it helped.

Seems like a lot of hoops to jum through just to find a way to view whats going on and in Win there is HWMonitor. It's been installed for years on the Windows side of this Touchsmart. Now that I'm into my 70's I am tired of jumping through hoops, I want easy and just want something to work.

Deb 12 - KDE

In your signature line it says you're running KDE. That's gotta be probably the heaviest Linux desktop environment out there, even heavier than Gnome. And probably just as heavy as a standard Windows 10/11 installation. I really do think your DE is playing a role in regards to how hard your fan is running. I get that you're in your 70s and want things to just work. And if you like KDE, I cant convince you otherwise. But I'm a minimalist, it's just too bloated for me. Maybe give a lighter DE a try, like XFCE or LXQT? See if that makes a difference? Or ditch the DE and go full-on window manager only.

[Aki]

I do note that my Mint has no Swappiness set. I need to address that and I think it sometimes happens when I install another Distro.
Need to check fstab and see what's going on?

These are the differences (< = Cinnamon, > = Debian):

• Cinnamon is running a newer kernel (6.5*) and, as noted by other users, it is not running KDE:

  Code: Select all

  $ diff fan_cinnamon.log fan_debian.log
  2,7c2,6
  <   Kernel: 6.5.0-35-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A
  <     parameters: root=UUID=0264104b-d5bd-4ab8-8724-d7f3eb029bd7 ro
  <     initrd=boot\initrd.img-6.5.0-35-generic
  <   Desktop: Cinnamon 6.0.4 tk: GTK 3.24.33 wm: muffin vt: 7
  <     dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia
  <     base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
  ---
  >   Kernel: 6.1.0-21-amd64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0
  >     parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-6.1.0-21-amd64
  >     root=UUID=e73acc82-22a7-4103-862c-f0bbb25c5859 ro
  >   Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 5.27.5 tk: Qt v: 5.15.8 wm: kwin_x11 vt: 7 dm: SDDM
  >     Distro: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
  

• average CPU frequency is higher on Debian:

  Code: Select all

  19,20c19,20
  <   Speed (MHz): avg: 1596 min/max: 1600/2600 scaling: driver: intel_cpufreq
  <     governor: schedutil cores: 1: 1596 2: 1596 bogomips: 10376
  ---
  >   Speed (MHz): avg: 2594 min/max: 1600/2600 scaling: driver: intel_cpufreq
  >     governor: schedutil cores: 1: 2594 2: 2594 bogomips: 10376
  

• swap is not active in Cinnamon:

  Code: Select all

  <   Alert: No swap data was found.
  ---
  >   Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
  >   ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 1.95 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%)
  >     priority: -2 dev: /dev/sda7 maj-min: 8:7
  

Probably, You may try installing a newer Linux kernel from Debian backports: currently 6.7 version is available there.

[urdrwho10]

Yes it could be KDE and probably is KDE. But Cinnamon isn't a slack when it comes to a heavy load. I'll add back ports and see if I can get a newer kernel. I do distro hopping, not that often but I do it. I've just never hopped back to Windows and it seems weird to be stuck in that lane. I'm a bit of an eye candy type and the eye cancy of Deb/KDE has kept me sitting still for quite some time.

If I can get it calmed down to how Mint sounds I'll be happy. Always Searching for shangri-la.

I noticed that I have debian backports on our kitchen computer. Why and when did I do that????

Thanks for your suggestions.

Deb 12 - KDE

In your signature line it says you're running KDE. That's gotta be probably the heaviest Linux desktop environment out there, even heavier than Gnome. And probably just as heavy as a standard Windows 10/11 installation. I really do think your DE is playing a role in regards to how hard your fan is running. I get that you're in your 70s and want things to just work. And if you like KDE, I cant convince you otherwise. But I'm a minimalist, it's just too bloated for me. Maybe give a lighter DE a try, like XFCE or LXQT? See if that makes a difference? Or ditch the DE and go full-on window manager only.

[Enigma83]

Yes it could be KDE and probably is KDE. But Cinnamon isn't a slack when it comes to a heavy load. I'll add back ports and see if I can get a newer kernel. I do distro hopping, not that often but I do it. I've just never hopped back to Windows and it seems weird to be stuck in that lane. I'm a bit of an eye candy type and the eye cancy of Deb/KDE has kept me sitting still for quite some time.

If I can get it calmed down to how Mint sounds I'll be happy. Always Searching for shangri-la.

I noticed that I have debian backports on our kitchen computer. Why and when did I do that????

Thanks for your suggestions.

Deb 12 - KDE

In your signature line it says you're running KDE. That's gotta be probably the heaviest Linux desktop environment out there, even heavier than Gnome. And probably just as heavy as a standard Windows 10/11 installation. I really do think your DE is playing a role in regards to how hard your fan is running. I get that you're in your 70s and want things to just work. And if you like KDE, I cant convince you otherwise. But I'm a minimalist, it's just too bloated for me. Maybe give a lighter DE a try, like XFCE or LXQT? See if that makes a difference? Or ditch the DE and go full-on window manager only.

Have you cleaned the fan recently? Open that thing up if you haven't. Dust etc definitely contributes to a louder fan.

I used to have an HP Pavilion laptop, bad experience overall, will never buy one again. It seemed like every other day there was a new issue. Regardless of OS. And the fan frequently ran loud.

[urdrwho10]

Yes I keep it clean in there and because it is a big all in one, the back is easy to open up and clean. That's one thing I do to all our computer, keep that inside clean.

Have you cleaned the fan recently? Open that thing up if you haven't. Dust etc definitely contributes to a louder fan.

I used to have an HP Pavilion laptop, bad experience overall, will never buy one again. It seemed like every other day there was a new issue. Regardless of OS. And the fan frequently ran loud.

[urdrwho10]

I still have a Pavillion, back light issues years ago, it will start but it is probably 20> years old. It was terrible to take a part and yes there was a fan issue. I had a replacement but never installed it because of the crazy hard removal. Boat anchor but it did withstand some heavy falls.

I used to have an HP Pavilion laptop, bad experience overall, will never buy one again. It seemed like every other day there was a new issue. Regardless of OS. And the fan frequently ran loud.

[urdrwho10]

Well I can report that over the past few days I've tried a bunch of thing and I should have kept a log. So far I am not having frantic fans and the temps are in a reasonable zone. What fixed it? I do not know and maybe it will change during the next reboot? Silence is golden.