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I have a Samsung laptop and installed Archlinux on it. At first everything was fine, I was even surprised at how nice everything was, no driver problems, everything went smooth. I could watch videos and it would barely get hot.

But after an update (with "pacman -Syu"), it started overheating (and getting slower as it starts to overheat). I'm not sure about what update was because I didn't notice it right away. I notice it the most when I'm watching videos but it is always hot and I can't really watch videos anymore because then it gets really slow.

I also installed flash, I'm not sure which one worked, I think it was "chromium-pepper-flash". But I also have "flashplugin" installed.

I don't think CPU frequency scaling utilities are the right solution because it was working before. What are my options? How do I detect what caused the problem?

Edit: Added some stats

Running chrome with 8 text/js tabs opened (Amazon, stackexchange, wired, ...): 

Average temperature: 75 Celsius degrees
Average %CPU: 10%
Average memory: 43%

Same as above but with a Youtube video in fullscreen:

Average temperature: 93+ Celsius degrees (had to stop before it crashed)
Average %CPU: 80%
Average Memory: 47%

Does this mean the problem is with the GPU driver?

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    Did you check top? For assistance, this is the bare minimum required to troubleshoot any performance issue.
    – Julie Pelletier
    Apr 27, 2016 at 13:02
  • Note that vmstat might provide more useful for single line outputs.
    – Julie Pelletier
    Apr 27, 2016 at 13:11
  • /var/log/pacman.log lists the updates. You may be able to spot the culprit in there.
    – garethTheRed
    Apr 27, 2016 at 13:45
  • @JuliePelletier I added some stats based on "top" and "sensors".
    – SadSeven
    Apr 27, 2016 at 13:52
  • @garethTheRed Oh interesting. I updated mesa about 9 days ago. Hmm...
    – SadSeven
    Apr 27, 2016 at 13:56

1 Answer 1

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The CPU's temperature shouldn't rise that high if the issue was limited to software unless you updated the kernel with disabled frequency scaling options.

If you leave the computer idle for 30 minutes (closing down your browser even if it appears to be doing next to nothing) and the temperature doesn't drop below 70C, you should check the ventilation and clean it up.

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