Heating issue

Hardware Support
1

Hello Zorin OS Team,

I installed Zorin OS on my Acer Aspire 7 laptop and I am facing serious thermal and fan control issues compared to Windows 11.

Laptop model:
Acer Aspire 7
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Laptop GPU

Issues I am facing:

  1. Fan behavior problem
  • In Windows 11, the laptop fan stays active and cooling works properly.
  • After installing Zorin OS, the fan starts and stops repeatedly.
  • Fan does not ramp up aggressively even when the laptop becomes hot.
  1. High temperatures
  • CPU temperatures reached around 93-94°C.
  • GPU stays active and hot even during idle/light usage.
  • Idle GPU temperature is around 60°C.
  1. NVIDIA GPU issue
  • NVIDIA GPU appears to stay active continuously under Zorin OS.
  • nvidia-smi shows the GPU running in high-performance power states even when not gaming.
  • This causes extra heat and unnecessary fan activity.
  1. Linux fan control issue
  • Fan control behavior is much weaker than on Windows.
  • Cooling response feels delayed.
  • The laptop becomes warm even during normal usage.
  1. auto-cpufreq issues
  • Snap version gives:
    “GUI not available due to Snap package confinement limitations.”
  • Package availability and setup process are confusing for normal users.

Things I already tried:

  • Installed lm-sensors
  • Checked temperatures using sensors and Psensor
  • Installed auto-cpufreq
  • Tried NVIDIA PRIME modes
  • Loaded acer_wmi module
  • Updated packages

I believe this may be related to:

  • Acer EC/fan control compatibility
  • NVIDIA power management
  • Thermal profile handling on Zorin OS

Please investigate and improve support for Acer gaming laptops, especially fan control and NVIDIA thermal management.

Thank you.

2

Hi and welcome. Using Brave A.I. asking who is responsible (Linux kernel Devs or OS Devs) came back with this:

" Improving support for Acer gaming laptops in Linux is primarily the responsibility of community developers and independent kernel contributors , rather than Acer’s official engineering teams or the Linux kernel developers as a unified body.

  • Acer’s Role : Acer focuses on Windows and does not target Linux power users, meaning they generally do not contribute ACPI drivers or official support to the Linux kernel. Consequently, features like fan control often rely on proprietary Windows drivers or community-created modules.

  • Linux Kernel Developers : The mainline kernel developers do not actively develop Acer-specific support; they only accept patches if they are submitted by external contributors.

  • Community & OS Developers : The actual improvement of support comes from independent developers (such as those creating community kernel modules) and Linux distribution maintainers who tweak stock kernels with specific patches to suit their needs.

AI-generated answer. Please verify critical facts."

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3

Thank you for the clarification.

I understand that Acer may not officially support Linux and that some functionality depends on kernel/community support.

However, from a normal end-user perspective, the issue still affects the usability of Zorin OS on my Acer Aspire 7 laptop.

On Windows 11, fan control and thermal management work properly, while on Zorin OS:

  • Fan behaviour is inconsistent
  • temperatures become much higher
  • NVIDIA GPU remains unnecessarily active
  • cooling response is weaker

Even if the root cause is related to Acer firmware or Linux kernel limitations, the end-user experience on this hardware is still problematic.

I hope future Zorin OS releases can improve compatibility, thermal handling, and NVIDIA power management for gaming laptops.

Thank you for your response.

4

Welcome to the Forum!

What Nvidia Driver do You use? Did You tried different one's to check if it behaves the same?

For setting up the Graphics Card, You could try the Tool GitHub - ilya-zlobintsev/LACT: Linux GPU Configuration And Monitoring Tool · GitHub

Take the .deb Package for Ubuntu 24.04 (the Base of Zorin 18).

5

For your CPU temp you can try to install oem kernel, they are signed.

On paper, both kernels share the exact same upstream Linux 6.17 code base, meaning they have the same core features. However, their targets and how they manage hardware support are fundamentally different.

if you want do this
Open your terminal and run this command:

sudo apt install linux-oem-6.17 -y

Once the installation finishes, update the boot configuration and restart your laptop:

sudo update-grub
sudo reboot

When the laptop boots back up, open a terminal and run:

uname -r

It should now show -oem at the end of the version string (e.g., 6.17.0-xx-oem)
Check if it's better

6

And if you haven't already done, check if you could update your laptop BIOS
and also check in your BIOS

  • Look for: Power, Thermal, Fan Control
  • "Maximum Cooling" or "Custom Fan Curve" option
  • Some Acer BIOS versions lock this out on Linux—check if Windows-only thermal profiles are enforced
7

Thank you for the suggestion.

I understand that community tools like LACT may help improve GPU and thermal behavior on Linux. However, this is exactly the problem I am facing as a normal end user.

I purchased Zorin OS Pro expecting a smoother and more stable experience for my workflow, which mainly includes:

  • video editing
  • photo editing
  • gaming

Instead, I have spent a significant amount of time manually troubleshooting drivers, fan control, GPU power states, thermal management, and installing third-party GitHub tools.

As a non-technical user, it is very difficult and time-consuming for me to manually configure these low-level system components.

I genuinely want Linux distributions to grow and compete with Windows, but for a paid operating system, users also expect reliable hardware compatibility and a smoother out-of-box experience.

Unfortunately, due to these ongoing issues, I do not think I can continue using Zorin OS on my Acer Aspire 7 laptop.

Therefore, I would like to proceed with a refund request.

Thank you for your understanding.

8

I totally understand, but if you try oem kernel like I suggested earlier, maybe it will fix your problem, it did it for users I suggested to

9

Well, when Zorin isn't the right Thing for You ... then it is so. You decide what suits You and what not. I only want say something in common: You should keep in Mind that Hardware is primary made for Windows - which isn't suprising because it is widespread in Usage.

But that mean that there is a certain Amount of Focus on that. And Software is the same.

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