How does one optimize for better system temperatures on Linux while doing heavy tasks (e.g. gaming) during summer heat.
Are there tools for creating ‘gaming/balanced/economy’ profiles for example that limit the GPU and CPU depending on the requirements?
Should I find a way to customize fan speeds?
I am trying to find everything I should do from the software perspective before I move on to buying better cooling hardware.
I am currently reaching 100+ celsius temps maximum on both the GPU and CPU while gaming, on idle it’s like this:
System info:
If you’re on a laptop, a laptop stand with some fans help a lot, If you have a pc, pointing a normal fan at the pc so the hot air gets circulated and cool air is fed to it can really help.
Making your fans work extra hard is good. Find how for your device. Fans are always cheaper than cpu and gpu.
Undervolting a bit also helps. Use cpupower too. There are power profiles and cpu governors in linux, usually the performance governor and profiles heat up your device pretty quick. Usually the balanced profiles give the best performance. Test and see what works best for you
In my experience, if your system is off-the-shelf, it probably doesn’t have good thermal paste. Re-apply good thermal paste and that also helps.
What kind of cooling do you have? Do your fans actually run? Like do they ramp up when your CPU is hitting 100+?
Probably worth changing your thermal paste, slightly excessive paste is better than too little paste. Whilst there, make sure you’ve removed the film from the CPU cooler and make sure it’s seated properly.
Go into your bios and adjust your fan curve for CPU, whilst you’re there turn off zero RPM or adjust its temperature so that the fans turn on sooner. Use something like LACT do the same for your GPU.
Your idle temps aren’t too bad but something isn’t right if you’re hitting 100C+ at load. Especially on that CPU.
I find that setting the power profile to “Power-Saver” makes a huge difference.
KDE has support for that built-in, although I’m not sure, if distributions install the corresponding daemon on desktop systems: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/upower/power-profiles-daemon
You should be able to cycle through power profiles with Meta+B on KDE.
You can also see and change the profile via the systray icon for the battery, but on a desktop system, that presumably won’t be shown by default.Otherwise,
powerprofilesctlis also an option, as described in that link.Measure your system, e.g. Zigbee thermometer for your actual room power draw so the plug for your entire system, computer obviously but also screen, speakers, etc even AirCo unit or physical fans if you have some for the room itself.
That’s the only way to know what is actually happening.
If you do not want to go down that path then the heuristic is simple : the heavier the load on either CPU, or GPU, or obviously both, the higher the temperature. If you have a dynamic system, anything built this last few decades or so, then the fans will not kick in under a threshold which you can consider won’t significantly heat up your room.
TL;DR: if you start to hear fans spinning, you have to reduce your load.
Artwork idea : load thermostat.
You can’t start a new application if your room is above a temperature threshold.
Extension artwork idea : load credits.
If you do delegate some load to a non digital form, e.g reading a paper book instead of watching a movie, then you “earn” some credits you might use to bypass the load thermostat “when you really need it”.
I am speaking from decades of experience when I say the following:
No one can help you with this particular problem in any serious way if you don’t post your cpu and gpu models.
If you are on a laptop or some brand of desktop you need to post the model for that too.
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Replace your thermal paste with ptm or some other ptm like.
The paste becomes crap over time.
It may be worth your time to use a ptm alike and new thermal pads on your 7600 as well, or pay a shop to do that.
Check that air is actually getting to your components. It’s easy for fan screens to get plugged up and for some reason people used to not put enough fans in their cases.
Those msi b450 motherboards have annoying bioses so check if there some ridiculous fan curve mess turned on or misconfigured.
I call else fails, noc-tua, blow on that thing.
may help to know your device models, but power limiting is generally what you’re after. Your hardware may determine the methods used.
undervolting is your best friend
undervolting is all well and good but warrants component stress testing versus regular PL targets.
for the current task the stress testing is the gaming itself. so it’s a low hanging fruit here.
that’s not how stress testing works. Different games will present different load to a given combination of hardware. Besides that, computers are used for many more tasks in addition to gaming. Careless re-tuning can lead to a lapse in system integrity in ways that aren’t immediately apparent, but damaging all the same.
you may never have done this kind of optimization before, but when it comes to undervolting, it becomes clear pretty quickly that the wrong settings were chosen. so let me repeat: separate load testing makes no sense for someone who just wants to play games in a cool room during the summer, it’s just a waste of time and electricity. and let’s forget about the careless re-tuning thing; we obviously all undervolt with care, precision, and a ceremonial blessing.
I work in client gfx at an IHV; I am intimately familiar with system integrity routines, component stress testing and tuning, particularly with DIY systems. Nothing about what I’ve recommended is “a waste of time and electricity” when you’re privy to the breath of defects averted in the field after following proper guidance.
Don’t take your own experiences for granted, if this person was familiar with the concept, they wouldn’t need to ask.
have you ever tried undervolting yourself?
Yes.
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LACT for GPU: https://github.com/ilya-zlobintsev/LACT
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For CPU: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/CPU_frequency_scaling#Configuring_frequency_boosting
The default KDE power saver profile also disables turbo, and is configurable exactly like you asked.
But, like others said, we can’t really help without any hardware info.
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How about buying a big fan that is for humans, but your put it in front of the computers intake for fresh air, for additional support. Maybe you could also under clock the CPU from Bios a bit.
