Thermal Issues Appear To Cause My ASUS Zenbook Linux Woes

[gigaplex]

No time / ability to play around with that when it's my main production system until I switch out the ultrabook/laptop.

If that's the case, then you don't have time to be troubleshooting your main production system either.

[dungeon]

No time / ability to play around with that when it's my main production system until I switch out the ultrabook/laptop.

Then just check system, home, or clean home, create new user ... maybe you have some corrupted files .

[pdffs]

Default fan profiles are often entirely inadequate. My thinkpad would routinely crack 90'C under moderate load because the BIOS would never spin the fans up sufficiently. It might be worth installing something like thinkfan (despite the name, it works fine on non-thinkpads, if you have a PWM for your fan). Just point it at a temperature sensor in /sys, and a fan PWM in /sys, and you should be good to go.

[NotMine999]

simply change the thermal paste, what its the new? first thing you need to do in all laptops if we want good temps, you people don't know nothing about hardware? your thermal paste it's burn, simply thing.... so much troble for nothing

For a system that is a few months old, changing the thermal paste is risky because it could provide ASUS with clear grounds to "void the warranty". I say that because I don't know of any laptop or ultrabook or similar device that is designed to be "user serviceable"; desktop systems, sure, but not laptops/ultrabooks and the like. Perhaps Michael can get away with it "being a member of the press and such", but then again, maybe not.

It is interesting that ASUS didn't give Michael the usual response they give to "Joe user" running Linux: "We don't support Linux."

[rikkinho]

risky?

For a system that is a few months old, changing the thermal paste is risky because it could provide ASUS with clear grounds to "void the warranty". I say that because I don't know of any laptop or ultrabook or similar device that is designed to be "user serviceable"; desktop systems, sure, but not laptops/ultrabooks and the like. Perhaps Michael can get away with it "being a member of the press and such", but then again, maybe not.

It is interesting that ASUS didn't give Michael the usual response they give to "Joe user" running Linux: "We don't support Linux."

risky is using the default thermal paste in laptop, never see one in good shape from factory... this is my daily work ofc,... 90% of problems of "new" laptop is bad application of thermal paste by manufactures.

a good advice for michael, don't use thermald it fuck up your performance, battery life, with no gains at all in temps

[mufasa72]

No time / ability to play around with that when it's my main production system until I switch out the ultrabook/laptop.

At some point, you'll be losing more time trying to get the system stable or loosing work/time from reboots than just performing this quick test. Also, don't know when the warranty expires.

[bulletgani]

Powertop

Please post your powertop results. Also, if you are considering replacing the ultrAbook, try T440s or x1 carbon. Depending on the implementation of hardware, usage of peripherals may affect the ability of cpu to go into deep sleep States.

[hadrons123]

You can use thermald app to clamp down the power during idling times. If there is turbo on your CPU, you can disable turbo too. Usually turbo keeps my fans running all the time on my lenovo Y580(ivybridge) and I had to disable turbo for smoother and cooler running.

[leonmaxx]

I'd too recommend changing thermal paste. For best results use Arctic Cooling MX-2 or MX-4.

[Guest]

Could be bad RAM?

I doubt it's due to heat, most machines shut down when they overheat rather than restart (although this could be new behaviour)

The first thing you need to check is RAM - get some working laptop RAM from another computer (compatible RAM of course), and use that instead of the current RAM sticks, see what happens. In my experience, faulty RAM is the number one cause of random reboots and problems.