Uncomfortable heat right next to touchpad

Ask Fedora
,
1

Hey everyone,

I am running Fedora KDE alongside Windows 11 (on the same hard drive) on a Dell Precision 7550.

I noticed that the area right next to the touchpad on the right side, where my palm rests, gets noticeably hot on Fedora, to the point where it becomes really uncomfortable.

The strange thing is that internal temperatures (CPU and NVMe) are actually lower on Fedora than on Windows during light use (like YouTube). However, the physical palm rest surface stays much cooler on Windows than on Fedora.
Also I’m always using my laptop while it’s plugged in

Any help?

3

the model you mention is a laptop, in this particular model by looking at some teardowns next to the area you mention there is the battery(literally under it), the wifi adapter and one of the ram modules

on the right here are two m.2 slots for nvme i assume, is hot on the left? right, over it near the keyboard?

4

The heat is concentrated specifically in the area right next to the touchpad on the right side. If I move my hand further right toward the outer edge of the laptop, the heat drops significantly and is almost non-existent.

6

You can use smartctl to see the temperature of the nvme ssds.

7

Thanks for the suggestions! I followed all the steps you mentioned, but unfortunately, the heat on the right palm rest is still exactly the same.

8

I have xps 15 9510 and have had the same issues and all is fixed to opening laptop cleaning it fully and tix thermal paddings. Usually that is where air cant move enough and padding is not touching the nvme heatsinks. It gets realky hot if thwre is heatsinks left out as it is crusial for heqting and by design

9

Thanks! But it doesn’t happen on Windows though, the palm rest stays completely cool there, even with higher CPU temps. So it should be a Fedora issue right ?

10

You have two seperate drives and dual boot? Or is the fedora on one drive or both on one? There is know issues similar on what you discribed that only hapoened on fedora not windows side and tje one that got hot when i as running dual boot got really hot when bo heat sink. Also have you updated bios and firmwares as dell has lots of issues usually on power management and so on…

11

I’m dual-booting both Windows and Fedora on a single NVMe SSD, so it’s using the same drive and factory heatsink for both OSes and the BIOS is also fully updated to the latest version

12

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Checking photo clisest to right side is memory and battery so it could be either one and battery mode have bad cell or memory just gets hot and so on.

13

I think if it were a hardware fault with the battery or RAM, it would be heating up on windows as well. Since it’s only happening on fedora, I’m almost certain it’s down to how fedora is handling power

14

windows can hide very well ram and hard disk failures, so it is not imposible that the ram could have a problem

the laptop could use some cleaning, it is not a new unit and after 2 years the amount of dust a laptop can collect is quite impressive

the area where you mention the heat, if it is the battery, could mean it is not working correctly or linux is detecting it as not charging properly, the heat also happens when unplugged from the wall?

if you touch the laptop , the heat under it, is it the same as on the top(same area)?

check if bluetooth is disabled or enabled, confirm if the heat comes from the wifi adapter

15

Fedora does not have as good battery management as Windoze, maybe it is due to increased battery use Or are you plugged in?

16

I’m always using it plugged in

17

When plugged in it mught switch to performance mode and that also might add more hwat to rqm and battery there might be multiple root causes bound together. Plugged in performance mode, excess ram usage and ram faulty or going, battery faulty sells and in stress and so on does this happen when unplugged?

18

yeah i can feel the same heat when unplugged
also turned on Airplane mode and nothing changed

19

well, that would discard the charging situation, the airplane mode just turns off the wifi, not the bluetooth iirc but i doubt a wifi card will get hot for just that

you never confirmed at what side is getting hot, up , left or right next to the touchpad

does the fans spin fast or machine is working very silent?

20

Bluetooth is turned off as well, and the heat is specifically localized directly to the right of the touchpad (the right palm rest area).

Here are 3 different sensors readings showing how the system and fans behave under different loads:

  1. Idle

$sensors  
iwlwifi_1-virtual-0  
Adapter: Virtual device  
temp1:        +48.0°C     
  
pch_cometlake-virtual-0  
Adapter: Virtual device  
temp1:        +49.0°C     
  
ucsi_source_psy_USBC000:001-isa-0000  
Adapter: ISA adapter  
in0:           5.00 V  (min =  +5.00 V, max =  +5.00 V)  
curr1:         0.00 A  (max =  +0.00 A)  
  
BAT0-acpi-0  
Adapter: ACPI interface  
in0:          11.56 V     
curr1:       1000.00 uA    
  
coretemp-isa-0000  
Adapter: ISA adapter  
Package id 0:  +56.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 0:        +56.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 1:        +54.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 2:        +55.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 3:        +56.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 4:        +56.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 5:        +54.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 6:        +54.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 7:        +56.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
  
dell_smm-isa-0000  
Adapter: ISA adapter  
fan1:           0 RPM  (min =    0 RPM, max = 4800 RPM)  
fan2:           0 RPM  (min =    0 RPM, max = 4800 RPM)  
temp1:        +56.0°C     
temp2:        +54.0°C     
temp3:        +49.0°C     
temp4:        +44.0°C     
temp5:        +42.0°C     
temp6:        +49.0°C     
temp7:        +54.0°C     
  
ucsi_source_psy_USBC000:002-isa-0000  
Adapter: ISA adapter  
in0:           5.00 V  (min =  +5.00 V, max =  +5.00 V)  
curr1:         0.00 A  (max =  +0.00 A)  
  
nvme-pci-0200  
Adapter: PCI adapter  
Composite:    +48.9°C  (low  = -273.1°C, high = +82.8°C)  
                      (crit = +84.8°C)  
Sensor 1:     +48.9°C  (low  = -273.1°C, high = +65261.8°  
C)  
Sensor 2:     +47.9°C  (low  = -273.1°C, high = +65261.8°  
C)  
  
acpitz-acpi-0  
Adapter: ACPI interface  
temp1:        +25.0°C
  1. Light Load: 4 Tabs with 1 YouTube Video
$ sensors  
iwlwifi_1-virtual-0  
Adapter: Virtual device  
temp1:        +52.0°C     
  
pch_cometlake-virtual-0  
Adapter: Virtual device  
temp1:        +54.0°C     
  
ucsi_source_psy_USBC000:001-isa-0000  
Adapter: ISA adapter  
in0:           5.00 V  (min =  +5.00 V, max =  +5.00 V)  
curr1:         0.00 A  (max =  +0.00 A)  
  
BAT0-acpi-0  
Adapter: ACPI interface  
in0:          11.56 V     
curr1:       1000.00 uA    
  
coretemp-isa-0000  
Adapter: ISA adapter  
Package id 0:  +63.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 0:        +62.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 1:        +61.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 2:        +60.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 3:        +59.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 4:        +60.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 5:        +64.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 6:        +60.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 7:        +61.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
  
dell_smm-isa-0000  
Adapter: ISA adapter  
fan1:        2205 RPM  (min =    0 RPM, max = 4800 RPM)  
fan2:        2191 RPM  (min =    0 RPM, max = 4800 RPM)  
temp1:        +65.0°C     
temp2:        +62.0°C     
temp3:        +53.0°C     
temp4:        +45.0°C     
temp5:        +43.0°C     
temp6:        +50.0°C     
temp7:        +56.0°C     
  
ucsi_source_psy_USBC000:002-isa-0000  
Adapter: ISA adapter  
in0:           5.00 V  (min =  +5.00 V, max =  +5.00 V)  
curr1:         0.00 A  (max =  +0.00 A)  
  
nvme-pci-0200  
Adapter: PCI adapter  
Composite:    +50.9°C  (low  = -273.1°C, high = +82.8°C)  
                      (crit = +84.8°C)  
Sensor 1:     +50.9°C  (low  = -273.1°C, high = +65261.8°  
C)  
Sensor 2:     +51.9°C  (low  = -273.1°C, high = +65261.8°  
C)  
  
acpitz-acpi-0  
Adapter: ACPI interface  
temp1:        +25.0°C
  1. Heavier Load: +5 YouTube Tabs at 1080p
sensors  
iwlwifi_1-virtual-0  
Adapter: Virtual device  
temp1:        +57.0°C     
  
pch_cometlake-virtual-0  
Adapter: Virtual device  
temp1:        +54.0°C     
  
ucsi_source_psy_USBC000:001-isa-0000  
Adapter: ISA adapter  
in0:           5.00 V  (min =  +5.00 V, max =  +5.00 V)  
curr1:         0.00 A  (max =  +0.00 A)  
  
BAT0-acpi-0  
Adapter: ACPI interface  
in0:          11.56 V     
curr1:       1000.00 uA    
  
coretemp-isa-0000  
Adapter: ISA adapter  
Package id 0: +100.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 0:        +89.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 1:        +96.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 2:        +91.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 3:       +100.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 4:        +95.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 5:        +95.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 6:        +88.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
Core 7:        +91.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C  
)  
  
dell_smm-isa-0000  
Adapter: ISA adapter  
fan1:        3932 RPM  (min =    0 RPM, max = 4800 RPM)  
fan2:        3920 RPM  (min =    0 RPM, max = 4800 RPM)  
temp1:        +97.0°C     
temp2:        +74.0°C     
temp3:        +53.0°C     
temp4:        +47.0°C     
temp5:        +43.0°C     
temp6:        +50.0°C     
temp7:        +64.0°C     
  
ucsi_source_psy_USBC000:002-isa-0000  
Adapter: ISA adapter  
in0:           5.00 V  (min =  +5.00 V, max =  +5.00 V)  
curr1:         0.00 A  (max =  +0.00 A)  
  
nvme-pci-0200  
Adapter: PCI adapter  
Composite:    +50.9°C  (low  = -273.1°C, high = +82.8°C)  
                      (crit = +84.8°C)  
Sensor 1:     +50.9°C  (low  = -273.1°C, high = +65261.8°  
C)  
Sensor 2:     +50.9°C  (low  = -273.1°C, high = +65261.8°  
C)  
  
acpitz-acpi-0  
Adapter: ACPI interface  
temp1:        +25.0°C
21

well, cpu on a laptop is usually hot, but 100°c for some videos is a bit extreme

do you have hardware acceleration enabled on the web browser, so gpu helps and cpu doesnt get this hot? procedure depends on the web browser you use

the wifi card, those 52°c , i dont expect that value so high, the nvme is fine at that value on a laptop

where you mention the heat, there is only the battery and the touchpad itself

do you see diminished time on the battery when compared to battery time on windows?

it doesnt harm the machine to give it a clean and put new thermal paste on the cpu, it is well over 5 years it seems for this model

22

Can you check for cpu utilization while the videos are playing?
If the CPU is heavily loaded while playing a single 1080P video, it might point towards browser acceleration.

The heat on your right palm rest dosent necessarily mean the component underneath the exact spot is overheating, laptop chasis conduct heat from nearby components.

If hardware video decoding is confirmed to be working and then CPU still reaches 100C with only a few videos, then i’d clean my laptops butt and eventually thermal paste—considering the fact that your machine is quite old.