Overheating on Open Source Radeon Drivers in openSUSE 12.2

I have a Radeon HD 4650. I had been using the proprietary FGLRX drivers on openSUSE 12.1, and they were working well without issues. Now, due to AMD dropping support, I have to use legacy drivers which are not working well. On using the open source radeon drivers, I am facing severe overheating issues. The system gets really hot on almost no load, and it leads to a thermal shutdown. Is there any way to fix this?

My configuration is:
AMD Turion X2 2.2 GHz
ATI Radeon HD 4650
4 GB DDR2 RAM

I am using openSUSE 12.2 currently, with KDE

Thanks in Advance :slight_smile:

Could you provide some temperatures and how long does it take to overheat?

In my opinion a GFX card should NEVER overheat…even if the driver is not good and lead to more load.
Think about it, it would mean that even with a good driver and much load it will shutdown at one point which never should happen.
I think the Radeon shuts down at around 95+ degrees. Idle 50 to 60 is normal and around 80 to even 90 is ok. Everything over 90 should never happen. Even if the GPU can run with it, it will shorten its life significantly.

For me this sounds like a dieing GPU it has the same symptoms I had with my Nvidia card. Your card is 3 years old (mine was 2).

If you have the chance test it with a fast installed Windows and make a burnintest for ur Radeon…if it fails well… you know for sure.

Temperatures rise to nearly 90 in about 10 minutes. I never had overheating issues with the proprietary fglrx driver. It also works fine with Windows and doesnt heat much. The problem comes only on openSUSE.

Wait for someone who really knows about these drivers. I use nVidia, always have.
Oh and FYI: My 8500GT was purchased in 2007, it runs at about 40 degrees, even with my fan removal mods.

Personally. If I was in your fix, I’d almost surely buy a new card.