Switch off ATI VGA in dual VGA with Intel on Ubuntu to solve overheat problem


I have AMD Radeon HD 6470M which sometimes it make my laptop overheat until 90 C. Usually, it’s run on 70 C. This is because ATI Radeon run together with Intel VGA. By switch off VGA AMD Radeon, it decrease overheat from 70 C into 58 C. And my laptop not overheat anymore. Basically, turn off ATI VGA will decrease heat problem in Ubuntu.

UPDATE: Try upgrade your BIOS. Several people have said they reduce heat by upgrading the BIOS.
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=th&prodNameId=5086746&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=5086745&swLang=13&taskId=135&swEnvOID=4061#93211

First, check your dual VGA by :

1
lspci -vnnn | grep VGA


And for me, eg :

1
2
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0116] (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc NI Seymour [AMD Radeon HD 6470M] [1002:6760] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

Then we will de-activate “AMD Radeon HD 6470M” by :

1
2
3
4
5
6
sudo apt-get install git && cd ~/
git clone https://github.com/mkottman/acpi_call.git
cd acpi_call && make
sudo insmod acpi_call.ko
chmod a+x test_off.sh
sh test_off.sh

Now you can check if your ATI VGA already disabled by “lspci -vnnn | grep VGA” again. It will show results :

1
2
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0116] (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc NI Seymour [AMD Radeon HD 6470M] [1002:6760] (rev ff) (prog-if ff)

And suddenly you will get the heat on your laptop drop 20 C.

To make this run at boot, edit /etc/rc.local :

1
2
sudo insmod <YOUR-HOME-USEr-PATH>/acpi_call/acpi_call.ko
sudo sh <YOUR-HOME-USEr-PATH>/acpi_call/test_off.sh

Also, un-blacklist radeon by edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf :

1
#blacklist radeon

You should have xorg.conf like this to make VGA detectable :

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier     "aticonfig Layout"
        Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0
EndSection

Section "Module"
        Load  "glx"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
        Option      "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
        Option      "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
        Option      "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
#        Driver      "fglrx"
        BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

# Section "Screen"
#         Identifier "Default Screen"
#         DefaultDepth     24
# EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0"
        Device     "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
        Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
        DefaultDepth     24
        SubSection "Display"
                Viewport   0 0
                Depth     24
        EndSubSection
EndSection

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.