Hacker News Reader

Comment by amts | Hacker News Reader

Yes, the overheats seem strange, given the 8GB RAM and 250GB ssd. It overheats (up to 50C) and freezes generally when I have several browsers opened (incl. Tor) with dozens of tabs, a Windows 8 VM instance running (with or without active connection from there to a remote desktop) and an Audacious player active. But the last time it overheated was when I was installing Jupiter notebook and Anaconda, separately. According to psensor Linux app I use for monitoring, the max CPU load so far was 51%, for free memory - ~4%. I was also advised to reinstall my current Ubuntu 20.04. Can it be this is due to Ubuntu issues?

View on HN

50°C is not a temperature that should lock up your system, or do you mean on the outside of the casing? Otherwise that is a fairly normal operating temperature for a CPU, especially for a notebook that is even quite good. If it goes beyond 80°C it might be concerning, but I had a notebook CPU that regularly reached 95°C while still being stable.

Difficult to say, but I would very much believe this to be a software issue. Your main memory is quite low but that should also not lock your system, just slow it down.

I think 20.04 is the current long term support version from Ubuntu. Are you sure it completely locks up? If you hit CTRL+ALT+F1 - F4 it doesn't bring you to the system console? Otherwise a software component might be crashing.

A reinstall might work, could perhaps be a driver issue that causes the freeze. Difficult to analyze.

50°C as shown by psensor app. <<Are you sure it completely locks up? No, if I don't wait for ~20 minutes or more for mouse/keyboard to be activated, I reboot after ~5 minutes of "frozen" state. CTRL+ALT+F1 brings to the system concole normally

Then it should be a software problem since the system is not really freezing, just your window manager probably. Temperatures are good. I am no expert for the possible causes here, my uneducated guess would be a driver issue or some incompatibility with your hardware.

Reinstalling is a lot of work but might help. If you don't care for LTS versions, perhaps try a newer one. But that is all based on guesses, maybe ask in a forum specifically for Ubuntu and tell them about the specific hardware you are using. Perhaps someone has similar experiences.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com