Fedora 17 heat and battery

[yureka]

HEllo all,
In fedora 17, the battery time is becoming very low(1 hr) ,in windows it is 2.5 hrs. Also the exhaust fan will be always running .Some told me that fedora uses both the graphic cards , so disable one to reduce load. How to disable or uninsatll a graphic card (possibly nvidia) .My laptop is DELL XPS L502X.
Also plz suggest how to improve battery life and reduce heat.

[marko]

The only idea I have is bumblebee:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bumblebee

when this gets more stable, it will probably end up an official Fedora package and you
won't need to do all that manual stuff as seen in the above link

[ttsdinesh]

I think marko is right. Look at this post http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=283280 I've not tried it out. I will post my results in a day or two. @ yureka In the meantime if you are able to fix the issue pls post back the results. Thanks in advance.

[wstahw]

I had a similar experience, my laptop dell xps m1530 was running hot after installing f17, even if it was completely idle. I figured that it was the gpu, so I replaced the open source nouveau driver with the nvidia driver in rpmfusion. Now everything seems to be back to normal.

[jayfree]

+1 for the nvidia driver from rpmfusion

[droidhacker]

Go into your BIOS settings and try to find a field that allows you to select graphics options between some subset of "integrated", "discrete", "switchable". Set it to "integrated", the other two options will leave the discrete chip operational and sucking battery.

[yureka]

@droidhacker ,thanks for ur suggestion, but I also have windows in my lappie, so I need nvidia in windows.
How to use only integrated graphics in fedora? Arent there any commands? (I mean I need only rhythmbox and terminal in fedora with minimum heat)?? thanks

[droidhacker]

Originally Posted by yureka

@droidhacker ,thanks for ur suggestion, but I also have windows in my lappie, so I need nvidia in windows.
How to use only integrated graphics in fedora? Arent there any commands? (I mean I need only rhythmbox and terminal in fedora with minimum heat)?? thanks

Not sure why you would need nvidia on wondoze any more than on Linux... the IGP should do just fine in either case. To be completely honest, I can't think of a single use for the discrete chip until AFTER there is a proliferation of software that can make use of it for GPGPU. At that point, I may revisit the notion of "switchable graphics".

There is supposed to be a software switch interface available in Linux, I really don't remember the details, just that attempts I made to use it failed miserably. It simply did not respond. Might be difference in the hardware though, mine is AMD IGP and AMD integrated.

[Fenrin]

there is a distro named Manjaro Linux which claims to support Nvidias Optimus technology out-of-the-box. I saw it recently on DistroWatch: http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=07402

We provide user interface tools and scripts to make life easier. Manjaro supports NVIDIA's Optimus technology out of the box. You can choose between Nouveau/Intel or NVIDIA/Intel drivers combination. Manjaro hardware detection tool will configure your graphic cards automatically and with help of Bumblebee bbswitch it is possible to switch to your desired graphic mode.

it's a Arch based distro, but according to it's description I would guess that it's easier and less work to install and configure than the original Arch Linux. A few years ago I used Arch Linux, if you want to try Manjaro LInux the Arch Linux wiki will surely be also helpful: http://www.archlinux.org/

[gustavokrm]

Originally Posted by yureka

@droidhacker ,thanks for ur suggestion, but I also have windows in my lappie, so I need nvidia in windows.
How to use only integrated graphics in fedora? Arent there any commands? (I mean I need only rhythmbox and terminal in fedora with minimum heat)?? thanks

If you install bumblebee via a .rpm provided by some kindred soul not long ago, you will use only the integrated graphics card by default.

It basically goes like this:

The only card that shows image on your monitor is the Intel integrated, not the Nvidia one. Basically you activate Nvidia by a command ( optirun someprogram ) in Fedora and by clicking "run with dedicated card" in Windows. When the Nvidia card is activated, it starts rendering and pastes the render onto the Intel card, which shows it on screen.
Your laptop, which is the same as mine, has a HDMI plug on its back. This plug is wired directly to the Nvidia card and right now it is kind of a problem to use it as Bumblebee does not really support that without some MAJOR tweaking.
Notice that Bumblebee will install using Nouveau's driver ( Red Hat supplied driver for Nvidia cards ), not Nvidia's one. If you try it with Nvidia, you will surely break 3D acceleration and stuff. It is a hell of a work to make it working again.

BTW, refer to this link for the easy way to install bumblebee, plus answers to questions you may have:

https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project...bee/issues/153

Oh, btw, forgot to add something..
DO install bumblebee and try not to use your laptop on battery, unless you are sure that the Nvidia card is off, otherwise it will eat your battery in no time..

[deanej]

Originally Posted by droidhacker

Not sure why you would need nvidia on wondoze any more than on Linux... the IGP should do just fine in either case. To be completely honest, I can't think of a single use for the discrete chip until AFTER there is a proliferation of software that can make use of it for GPGPU. At that point, I may revisit the notion of "switchable graphics".

There is supposed to be a software switch interface available in Linux, I really don't remember the details, just that attempts I made to use it failed miserably. It simply did not respond. Might be difference in the hardware though, mine is AMD IGP and AMD integrated.

I once tried to switch from the discrete card to the integrated one and Windows was freaking out even after I got the driver for the integrated card installed and running; had to switch back to discrete.

[pioniere]

I had the same issue with my laptop, running with an nvidia graphics processor. You need to get the proper nvidia driver and replace the nouveau driver. That will fix the issue. There is some great documentation elsewhere on this site on how to do it.

[malcolm9]

Reducing heat is to keep the area of fan open to let the heat vent out properly. Putting it on a mattress would definitely heat it up too much.