High CPU usage, load average and system temperature

[Sudhir Khanger]

On Tuesday, August 26, 2014 02:50:03 AM Tod Merley wrote:
> For me three years is about the time I consider doing two major service
> things to laptops.
> 
> 1. Replace the CMOS battery.  One thing you might consider doing right now
> is to reset all the CMOS variables to their default values.  If a battery
> is low the values can change on their own and create strange problems that
> go away when the default values are reloaded – until – the machine is
> turned off again (and perhaps left for a time) so the battery voltage goes
> low and the bits slip again.  Anymore I consider replacing the battery
> every other year.
> 

AFAIK CMOS battery on my laptop Thinkpad T420i is on the motherboard. It is 
too much effort to replace the CMOS battery. I can certainly look into it. 
Thinkpads have really great battery life. After using this system for 3 years 
battery life is still quite good. I may want to save battery replacement money 
in future laptop though.

> 2. Clean and/or replace the cpu/gpu fan and heat-sink assembly.  The
> accumulation of gunk in these assemblies (often combined in a laptop) is
> dependent upon how much use the machine gets and where it is used.  Blowing
> air through the assemblies may or may not be good enough. Local changes in
> air temperature, humidity, and altitude can make quite a difference in how
> fast heat is removed from the active components.  As well sometimes the
> heat sink compounds degrade and/or mechanical issues change the heat-sink
> to cpu/gpu fit.
> 
> fwiw

Advice taken.

I think Baloo the new KDE file indexer might be at fault here. Whenever I 
leave my system and come back I see two major processes baloo_file and 
baloo_file_extractor are always on top. And system temperature is around 90C. 
Once system temperature is that high it takes a while to get it down. Not to 
mention Linux tends to be very bad for multimedia stuff. Anytime you watch a 
youtube video there is a good chance that  system might shutdown due to high 
temperature.

-- 
Sudhir Khanger,
http://sudhirkhanger.com
http://github.com/donniezazen