Overheating laptop, should I try a lighweight distro - which one?

Hello Penguins,

I’m looking for distro advice. For the last 4-5years I have rocked this laptop, MSI PS63 Modern RC. I have tried Debian, Garuda, Ubuntu, and now currently rocking Tumbleweed. Although I am statisfied with the current choice of distro, my laptop still overheats like crazy whenever its preasured even slightly, for example: doing updates, being on zoom for uni, or ofc low-end gaming.

I realise the laptop is old, but i really want it to last half a year longer before i start working for a company, which then will replace my need for having a personal laptop.

So, should I try a more lightweight distro or do you think the problem lies elsewhere? I’ve had the same issue across all other distros i’ve tried. I’ve looked at trying Alpine and MicroOS from openSUSE.

Appriciate any pointers!

s38b35M5,
@s38b35M5@lemmy.world avatar

How do you mean that its overheating? My GF says the same about her laptop, but its just cooling itself off. Does yours freeze or start slowing down a lot? Are you monitoring temps and see that they’re beyond your CPU acceptable range (usually 90C, IIRC)?

LunchEnjoyer,
@LunchEnjoyer@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah, the system totally slows down quite a bit, everything from the browser to my IDE uses quite a bit of time to load.

LostXOR, (edited )

Can you hear your laptop's fan speed up when it's overheating? Linux on my old laptop couldn't control the fan speed so it was always overheating. When I figured out how to manually set it to maximum, it overheated much less.

Hexagon,

This could also be done to the RAM filling up and/or high I/O activity of the disk. I suggest to investigate these possibilies as well

s38b35M5,
@s38b35M5@lemmy.world avatar

If you are seeing temps out of spec for your CPU, its not unheard of for thermal paste to dry or even shift if the laptop has been through some chassis strain. Could be worth a careful examination.

Diplomjodler,

Depending on your skill level, it might be worth opening it and checking the internals. Cooling system works, airflow not obstructed, etc. Probably also worth checking the thermal compound of the processor. But that’s not something a beginner would be happy to try. Maybe take it to a repair cafe, if there’s one near you?

mintycactus,
@mintycactus@lemmy.world avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    dabaldeagul,
    @dabaldeagul@feddit.nl avatar

    What?

    LunchEnjoyer,
    @LunchEnjoyer@lemmy.world avatar

    Uh thanks?

    Crozekiel,

    In my experience with them, MSI laptops tend to run quite hot in general, your OS probably isn't going to fix it. You can try one of those laptop cooling plates, basically a mesh platform with fans, ensuring cool air is always available to the laptop intakes, but it isn't exactly a perfect solution.

    Really it just needs more cooling capacity - they seem to cut razor close to the amount needed in their designs so when eventually cooling becomes less efficient either through fans getting tired/clogged or thermal paste/pads breaking down, it will not keep up.

    LunchEnjoyer,
    @LunchEnjoyer@lemmy.world avatar

    Yeah it’s a rather thin laptop, but I will open it up and get some cooling paste on it 👍

    Pantherina,

    Cant you cramp up the fancourve? Best is in the BIOS as it mostly works best. Also have a look at using liquid metal for cooling, costs nearly nothing. Or simply new good heatpaste, costs like 8€

    the16bitgamer,
    @the16bitgamer@lemmy.world avatar

    I have a Gigabyte Clevo thingy, so take what I say with a grain of salt. My laptop has a i5 11 gen intel cup, and it doesn’t have the cooling for my cpu. I don’t know if this is a bug in Linux, or a fault in the pc (probably both). So when I play games it spikes to 80-90C then throttles.

    So what I did was look into software that lets me control the CPU frequency, which led me to Slimbook Battery. This software is amazing and lets me tune the power usage of my cpu to manage the thermals.

    I believe Open Build has a package of Slimbook Battery for Opensuse Tumbleweed, but I’ve had no luck running it. On my Manjaro install it works excellently.

    authed,

    The fan in my Toshiba laptop once died… Make sure that isn’t your problem and replace it if it is

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