I have a Dell XPS Studio 1640 laptop and I just installed GNOME OpenSUSE 12.1. Once I set up my laptop I began to notice some problems, three of which are major.
My laptop seems to overheat quite a bit. When I am running Firefox with about 3-4 tabs and have Pidgin, a couple of Nautilis windows, and the terminal open (basically open a lot of windows) my CPU temperature (according to GNOME System Monitor extension) goes up to 70+ (average around 80) Celsius. Opening a bunch of windows like that shouldn’t cause my temperatures to exceed 75 Celsius, but somehow it does. When this happens, my laptop slows down (window animations become slow and laggy as do some applications). I have no choice but to sleep my computer or reboot.
I have problems with my system sound. I am using a USB audio adapter (this one, http://www.amazon.com/Syba-SD-CM-UAUD-Adapter-C-Media-Chipset/dp/B001MSS6CS). If my initial volume is muted and I slowly begin to raise the volume, I hear nothing. Then, once my volume reaches about 50%, I can begin to hear stuff. According to GNOME Sound Settings, there is a certain threshold up to which the sounds are unamplified, but I don’t know if this is a problem. So increasing my volume up to 50%+ just to hear sounds is an inconvenience. Whats worse is that generally when my laptop heats up, I lose sound all together. Sometimes, I can hear the sound level through the little pops when I increment sound, but I cannot hear anything through applications running video. I have to reboot my computer to fix it.
I have problems opening pdf files in Firefox. Opening the first pdf is never a problem, but after that, opening another pdf in another tab or another window is impossible. I just get a white screen usually (and sometimes it is black) and I can’t see anything. I am unable to load pdf documents in the browser unless I relogin.
I don’t use Gnome, so its most likely I can not help. But IMHO for someone who knows Gnome to help, you need to specify (1) exactly what applications you are using when playing audio (where this problem occurs) and (2) exactly what mixer you are using to control the volume. Else any help is a pure shot in the dark and likely a waste of time.
I find it extremely useful to use the application pavucontrol to control audio in KDE and I have read that app is included by default in Gnome.
I have also read Gnome3 is very buggy still, although that is hearsay, as I am NOT a Gnome user.
For the low volume problem you can try typing in alsamixer in the terminal and try to raise the volume bars for your sound card. For pdf’s I use okular and have never had any problems, so you could try that if you aren’t already. However, as old cpu said this is a shot in the dark as I use KDE and I’m guessing at the sound problem.
It’s been a while since I created this thread so after a few days, I wasn’t sure if I would get any responses.
I fixed my pdf problem (mozzplugger + evince worked).
For my sound problem, I’ve tried a lot of different stuff, but I’ve given up. I think its simply a byproduct of using a USB sound card. Hopefully, I won’t break my audio port on my next computer.
As for my computer overheating, it is still a continual problem. I’m using a mobile Core 2 Duo 2.66 Ghz processor (don’t know the actual model name off the top of my head, but it should be Montevina platform?). I think the overheating is due to my graphics card. The computer has an ATI mobile 3670 (or 4670) graphics card. When I installed opensuse for the first time, it installed some default radeon driver that allowed me basic functionality. When I tried to install the proprietary drivers, I couldn’t get them to work. I did manage to install them, but every time I would open a window, move a window, or do almost anything, there would be huge screen tearing. I played around with the Catalyst settings, but to no avail. I gave up and went back to the default drivers (I mean at least they allowed me to use my desktop without having my monitor display random artifacts every 5 seconds).
Now that I am on the default drivers, any time I try to watch a Flash video (streaming), my machine instantly slows down and becomes incredibly laggy (max fans kick on, CPU temperature goes through the roof). Even if I close Flash, I have to restart my computer before it returns back to normal. My guess is that the default drivers do not provide hardware acceleration (even though I think I disabled it in Flash settings).
My second problem is that if I am using opensuse for over an hour or so (not doing anything besides web surfing and moving files around), my computer’s temperature begins to rise and my fans start kicking in. I have no idea why this is the case. Maybe too much stress on the CPU to render suse/GNOME graphics?