Windows cool now linux hot (temperature) on my laptop

[Shane Hathaway]

Matthew Frederico wrote:
> I've shut off all the services I could, even syslogd to see if perhaps it
> was radiating from the HD .. my video card runs at a whopping 90 degrees
> Celsius!

How did you find out what the video card temperature is?

> All this heat ever since I installed Linux (FC6) on this laptop (Sams club
> HP Pavilion dv2174cl) my laptop feels like it's on the verge of a nuclear
> meltdown - fans are running all the time; heat eminating where it never used
> to etc...

This page has the specs for your laptop:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?docname=c00771290&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

You have an nVidia card.  Are you running the open source driver or the 
proprietary driver?  See /etc/X11/xorg.conf.  The open source driver is 
called "nv" and the proprietary is called "nvidia".  You can often just 
toggle between the two.  The nvidia driver gives you great 3D, but the 
nv driver is better maintained and less likely to cause problems.

Are you running one of the 3D window managers, such as Compiz or Beryl? 
  They use OpenGL for everything.  I've heard that Windows Vista also 
uses 3D everywhere, but I don't know if that's true.  On a laptop, it's 
better to stick with something simpler like GNOME, KDE, or XFCE.

Shane