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My laptop heats up while playing any game.

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lockenohr
Posts: 7
Joined: 2018-02-01 17:00

My laptop heats up while playing any game.

#1 Post by lockenohr »

Hello ,

So today I installed Debian 9 on my laptop. I tried to play Stardew Valley (a game) which is a fairly minimal game with low end requirements. The game started and I played it for like 15 - 20 min and then I noticed that my laptop had really heated up. I quickly quit the game when I noticed the game lagging. My Xfce system was for the most part fine but Firefox ESR really slowed down like the scrolling stopped being smooth ,closing tabs was slow with slow animations, etc. I thought it was particular to this game only but I noticed the same symptoms on all games I tried including the Windows ones (on wine). I even noticed the performance being worse in a lot of games than in Windows and Windows didn't really heat up my laptop a lot, since I don't really play any high end games.
I've also noticed that a lot of these games take up 100% of the CPU in 'top' .


So are the drivers for iGPUs just worse in linux or is there some other problem here. I thank you for any help.

Here are my hardware specs :
GPU - Intel Integrated Graphics HD 4600
Processor - Intel Core 4th Generation i5-4200M Processor (Dual Core, 2.5 GHz)

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stevepusser
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Re: My laptop heats up while playing any game.

#2 Post by stevepusser »

Better hardware information:

install inxi.

Post the output of

Code: Select all

inxi -F
You can also run

Code: Select all

top
in a terminal while the game is running to
see what's eating up the most CPU.
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Re: My laptop heats up while playing any game.

#3 Post by bw123 »

So are the drivers for iGPUs just worse in linux or is there some other problem here. I thank you for any help.
Wow, that sounds like a pretty successful first taste. It's not going to set itself up for you, it takes some patience. I think it's great that you even figured out how to get the game to run on your first try.

And you did wine too? wow you're good.
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dotlj
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Re: My laptop heats up while playing any game.

#4 Post by dotlj »

lockenohr wrote:Hello ,

So today I installed Debian 9 on my laptop. I tried to play Stardew Valley (a game) which is a fairly minimal game with low end requirements. The game started and I played it for like 15 - 20 min and then I noticed that my laptop had really heated up. I quickly quit the game when I noticed the game lagging. My Xfce system was for the most part fine but Firefox ESR really slowed down like the scrolling stopped being smooth ,closing tabs was slow with slow animations, etc. I thought it was particular to this game only but I noticed the same symptoms on all games I tried including the Windows ones (on wine). I even noticed the performance being worse in a lot of games than in Windows and Windows didn't really heat up my laptop a lot, since I don't really play any high end games.
I've also noticed that a lot of these games take up 100% of the CPU in 'top' .


So are the drivers for iGPUs just worse in linux or is there some other problem here. I thank you for any help.

Here are my hardware specs :
GPU - Intel Integrated Graphics HD 4600
Processor - Intel Core 4th Generation i5-4200M Processor (Dual Core, 2.5 GHz)
Thanks for posting CPU and GPU data. So, you're not using a gaming machine. Although Windows games will play faster on Windows and not heat up the computer as much, because they are written for Windows, not Linux. Playing games on Wine slows down the performance of the games because you are running Wine and the game. Games written for Linux play well on Linux and if they could run on Windows would be slower. As most people buy computers with Windows installed, and less people install Linux, most games are written for Windows. Firefox uses resources but can be configured to be faster, depending on how many tabs you open at the same time.
Drivers for Intel GPUs are generally quite good in Linux. I think that you will find Debian much more stable, easier to update, doesn't require rebooting any where near as much, and generally gives better overall performance.

lockenohr
Posts: 7
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Re: My laptop heats up while playing any game.

#5 Post by lockenohr »

stevepusser wrote:Better hardware information:

install inxi.

Post the output of

Code: Select all

inxi -F

Code: Select all

System:    Host: debian Kernel: 4.9.0-5-amd64 x86_64 (64 bit)
           Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 Distro: Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)
Machine:   Device: laptop System: Dell product: Latitude E6440 v: 01
           Mobo: Dell model: 0YX2X3 v: A00 BIOS: Dell v: A05 date: 02/18/2014
Battery    BAT0: charge: 60.0 Wh 191.4% condition: 31.4/60.0 Wh (52%)
CPU:       Dual core Intel Core i5-4210M (-HT-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB 
           clock speeds: max: 3200 MHz 1: 1324 MHz 2: 1831 MHz 3: 1732 MHz
           4: 1039 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller
           Display Server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: intel
           Resolution: 1366x768@59.99hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Haswell Mobile
           GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 13.0.6
Audio:     Card-1 Intel 8 Series/C220 Series High Definition Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel
           Card-2 Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.9.0-5-amd64
Network:   Card-1: Intel Ethernet Connection I217-LM driver: e1000e
           IF: eno1 state: down mac: ec:f4:bb:2f:36:1a
           Card-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter
           driver: ath9k
           IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: b8:ee:65:b7:c4:8a
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 500.1GB (20.1% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: ST500LM000 size: 500.1GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 454G used: 90G (21%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-1
           ID-2: /boot size: 236M used: 74M (33%) fs: ext2 dev: /dev/sda1
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 4.20GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/dm-2
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 52.0C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 178 Uptime: 3 min Memory: 514.3/3861.7MB
           Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.3.5 

lockenohr
Posts: 7
Joined: 2018-02-01 17:00

Re: My laptop heats up while playing any game.

#6 Post by lockenohr »

stevepusser wrote:
You can also run

Code: Select all

top
in a terminal while the game is running to
see what's eating up the most CPU.

Code: Select all

top - 10:02:12 up 9 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.93, 0.77, 0.40
Tasks: 175 total,   2 running, 173 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s): 24.0 us,  3.7 sy,  0.0 ni, 62.6 id,  9.6 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
KiB Mem :  3954348 total,   128204 free,  1237208 used,  2588936 buff/cache
KiB Swap:  4100092 total,  4100092 free,        0 used.  1268540 avail Mem 

  PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND     
 4160 user      20   0 2462860 1.105g 459440 R  91.7 29.3   1:22.72 ck2         
 1146 user      20   0 2292576 302272  98664 S   7.6  7.6   0:48.90 x-www-brow+ 
  700 root      20   0  400240  52072  40060 S   4.7  1.3   0:11.69 Xorg        
 1078 user       9 -11 1159200  12440   9160 S   1.3  0.3   0:01.15 pulseaudio  
 1057 user      20   0  141444  20064  11864 S   0.7  0.5   0:05.04 compton     
   46 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.3  0.0   0:00.08 kworker/3:1 
  964 user      20   0  370940   8604   7216 S   0.3  0.2   0:00.64 ibus-daemon 
  989 user      20   0  332628  20952  16644 S   0.3  0.5   0:00.38 ibus-x11    
  999 user      20   0  220208   5356   4780 S   0.3  0.1   0:00.15 at-spi2-re+ 
 1016 user      20   0  192868  22428  18708 S   0.3  0.6   0:00.43 xfwm4       
 1017 user      20   0  214336   7884   7104 S   0.3  0.2   0:00.17 ibus-engin+ 
 1026 user      20   0  275672  21752  18232 S   0.3  0.6   0:00.51 xfce4-panel 
 1030 user      20   0  517828  44488  25100 S   0.3  1.1   0:00.48 xfdesktop   
 1100 user      20   0  312916  14980  13284 S   0.3  0.4   0:00.01 polkit-gno+ 
 4140 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.3  0.0   0:00.07 kworker/0:0 
 4151 user      20   0  505552  37816  28544 S   0.3  1.0   0:00.47 xfce4-term+ 
 4181 user      20   0   45936   3760   3156 R   0.3  0.1   0:00.27 top         
Here "ck2" is the game.

Also I've noticed one more thing , that the CPU usage remains at around 30% when game is not interacted with but rises up to 80 - 100 % when even the mouse is moved or a button is clicked on. I also noticed this on rpg maker vx ace games where when window is minimized the cpu usage goes down to 10 % (though this may be because it's not being rendered anymore). When the window is opened the cpu usage goes to 20 - 30 % and when a key is pressed cpu usage goes to 60 - 90 %.

On ck2 I also noticed the CPU usage going beyond 100 % to 120 - 130 %.
Last edited by lockenohr on 2018-02-02 07:21, edited 1 time in total.

lockenohr
Posts: 7
Joined: 2018-02-01 17:00

Re: My laptop heats up while playing any game.

#7 Post by lockenohr »

Here's my intel_gpu_top output while playing stardew valley

Code: Select all

render clock: unknown  sampler clock: unknown
                   render busy:  37%: ███████▌                               render space: 54/131072
                bitstream busy:   0%:                                     bitstream space: 0/131072
                  blitter busy:  11%: ██▎                                   blitter space: 6/131072

                          task  percent busy
                           GAM:  37%: ███████▌                vert fetch: 12771817 (208188/sec)
                            SF:  11%: ██▎                     prim fetch: 5328665 (69476/sec)
                            CL:  10%: ██                   VS invocations: 10613208 (138472/sec)
                          GAFS:   9%: █▉                   GS invocations: 0 (0/sec)
                           SOL:   9%: █▉                        GS prims: 0 (0/sec)
                            GS:   9%: █▉                   CL invocations: 5292466 (68996/sec)
                            DS:   9%: █▉                        CL prims: 5232727 (69236/sec)
                            VS:   4%: ▉                    PS invocations: 934725209056 (382835424/sec)
                           SVG:   4%: ▉                    PS depth pass: 237496217818 (202825122/sec)
                            HS:   3%: ▋                    
                            VF:   1%: ▎                    
                          GAFM:   0%:                      
                           TDG:   0%:                      
                           VFE:   0%:                      
                            TE:   0%:                      
                           TSG:   0%:                      

And the top output at the beginning

Code: Select all

  PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND                                                            
10393 user      20   0 2973308 1.738g  78664 S  33.2 46.1   0:17.72 StardewValley.b                                                    
 7017 user      20   0  141784  19988  11628 S   5.3  0.5   0:20.52 compton                                                            
 6816 root      20   0  409848  55532  43456 S   4.3  1.4   0:42.67 Xorg                                                               
 1078 user       9 -11  897056  13740  10404 S   2.0  0.3   0:45.55 pulseaudio                                                         
  450 root      20   0  490812  14140  12496 S   0.3  0.4   0:05.40 NetworkManager                                                     
 4176 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.3  0.0   0:00.88 kworker/1:0                                                        
 4332 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.3  0.0   0:00.67 kworker/3:0                                                        
 6989 user      20   0 2560952 518536 105776 S   0.3 13.1   5:43.89 firefox-esr                                                        
 8795 user      20   0  506640  37736  27564 S   0.3  1.0   0:01.96 xfce4-terminal                                                     
10409 user      20   0   45936   3636   2992 R   0.3  0.1   0:00.10 top                                                                
    1 root      20   0  204724   6452   5236 S   0.0  0.2   0:01.01 systemd                                                            
    2 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kthreadd                                                           
    3 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.04 ksoftirqd/0                                                        
    5 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kworker/0:0H                                                       
    7 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:02.51 rcu_sched                                                          
    8 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 rcu_bh                                                             
    9 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/0                                                        
   10 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 lru-add-drain                                                      
   11 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.01 watchdog/0                                                         
   12 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 cpuhp/0                                                            
   13 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 cpuhp/1                                                            
   14 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.01 watchdog/1                                                         
   15 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/1                                                        
   16 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.02 ksoftirqd/1                                                        
   18 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kworker/1:0H                                                       
   19 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 cpuhp/2                                                            
   20 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.01 watchdog/2                                                         
   21 root      rt   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/2                                                        
   22 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.22 ksoftirqd/2                                                        

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Re: My laptop heats up while playing any game.

#8 Post by stevepusser »

This is probably not going to make much difference, but does disabling the compton compositer make any difference?
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lockenohr
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Re: My laptop heats up while playing any game.

#9 Post by lockenohr »

stevepusser wrote:This is probably not going to make much difference, but does disabling the compton compositer make any difference?
No, it doesn't.

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Re: My laptop heats up while playing any game.

#10 Post by bw123 »

Looks like a very complicated machine. Old enough to have a lot of good info out there. I'm not sure exactly where to start, or what could help.

It has several issues that have been solved though.

http://forum.techinferno.com/dell-latit ... ounge.html

I found the above and a lot more looking for
https://duckduckgo.com/html/?q=e6440+bios+a05

also this
http://www.tomsguide.com/answers/id-265 ... tling.html
The Dell Latitude E6400 has a known throttling problem.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... leGate-Fix

so to followup the question in the first post:
So are the drivers for iGPUs just worse in linux or is there some other problem here.
I would find it odd if you never experienced this same issue on the other os, but I guess it is possible that linux is worse.
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lockenohr
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Re: My laptop heats up while playing any game.

#11 Post by lockenohr »

I found a solution for the performance degradation problem on archwiki.

Here's the script I found there

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
#execute with sudo/as root, exit with ctrl+c
modprobe msr
for (( ; ; ))
do
	wrmsr 0x199 0xA26 #the value 0xA26 is the maximum VID and FID for a Core 2 Duo P8700, read the actual value for your Core 2 Duo with "rdmsr -f 44:32 0xCE"
	wrmsr 0x19A 0x0 #this eliminates any clock modulation and super low frequency mode/half multiplier mode

	sleep 0.1s #this can possibly be reduced, experiment
done
But though this removes the performance degradation , there is no change in the heating

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Re: My laptop heats up while playing any game.

#12 Post by bw123 »

Probably some combination of better heatsink/fan and underclocking, cpufreq limiting, or disabling the turbo boost stuff is going to be what you want. One thread I saw said the older ones throttled down when the temp hit 97F which isn't very high at all.

How hot do you think it is getting, the sensors output on inxi says 52C, about 125F?

If xfce4 doesn't have temp monitor, I use a little pkg called wmgtemp, it's made for a dock, but I use it even on kde because it's small and simple.

I actually almost bought one of these on craigs, glad now that I didn't. The heat/throttlegate thing didn't pop up on a regular search for the model. Good to know.
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