Overheating CPU and fan running wild while using any game on Steam

[hedonnn]

Overall auto-cpufreq seems to work pretty well, I had CPUs overheating all the time before using it.

Only now if I launch ANY game on Steam (3D or simple graphics 2D doesn't matters), the CPUs overheat to the max once more as if auto-cpufreq wasn't taken into account.

System information:

System:    Host: Talisman Kernel: 5.13.0-27-generic x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Xfce 4.16.0 
           Distro: Linux Mint 20.3 Una 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Apple product: MacBookPro11,1 v: 1.0 
           serial: <superuser/root required> 
           Mobo: Apple model: Mac-189A3D4F975D5FFC v: MacBookPro11,1 
           serial: <superuser/root required> UEFI: Apple 
           v: MBP111.88Z.0146.B00.1804111138 date: 04/11/2018 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 76.9 Wh condition: 78.2/74.8 Wh (105%) 
CPU:       Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i7-4578U bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
           L2 cache: 4096 KiB 
           Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 750/3001 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 800 2: 800 3: 800 
           4: 800 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.13 driver: intel resolution: 1680x1050~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Iris Graphics 5100 (HSW GT3) 
           v: 4.5 Mesa 21.3.4 - kisak-mesa PPA 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Haswell-ULT HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel 
           Device-2: Intel 8 Series HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel 
           Device-3: Broadcom and subsidiaries 720p FaceTime HD Camera driver: N/A 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.13.0-27-generic 
Network:   Device-1: Broadcom and subsidiaries BCM4360 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter 
           driver: wl 
           IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: 80:e6:50:1f:6a:fc 
           IF-ID-1: ipv6leakintrf0 state: unknown speed: N/A duplex: N/A 
           mac: 7a:87:11:29:72:97 
           IF-ID-2: proton0 state: unknown speed: 10 Mbps duplex: full mac: N/A 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 610.18 GiB used: 244.04 GiB (40.0%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Apple model: SSD SM0512F size: 465.92 GiB 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb type: USB model: General USB Flash Disk size: 28.91 GiB 
           ID-3: /dev/sdc type: USB vendor: SanDisk model: USB 3.2Gen1 size: 57.30 GiB 
           ID-4: /dev/sdd type: USB model: SMI USB DISK size: 58.05 GiB 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 458.00 GiB used: 198.92 GiB (43.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 52.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:      Processes: 346 Uptime: 1d 21h 10m Memory: 15.54 GiB used: 6.30 GiB (40.6%) 
           Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.38 

Output of auto-cpufreq --debug while everything works alright:

Using settings defined in /etc/auto-cpufreq.conf file

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Linux distro: Linux Mint 20.3 una
Linux kernel: 5.13.0-27-generic
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4578U CPU @ 3.00GHz
Cores: 4
Architecture: x86_64
Driver: acpi-cpufreq

------------------------------ Current CPU stats ------------------------------

CPU max frequency: 3001 MHz
CPU min frequency: 750 MHz

Core    Usage   Temperature Frequency
CPU0:     7.1%     50 °C      800 MHz
CPU1:     7.9%     51 °C      750 MHz
CPU2:     7.1%     50 °C      750 MHz
CPU3:     6.0%     51 °C      750 MHz

auto-cpufreq version:
fatal: not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git
CalledProcessError(128, ['git', 'describe', '--always'])

Python: 3.8.10
psutil package: 5.5.1
platform package: 1.0.8
click package: 7.0
distro package 1.4.0

Computer type: Notebook
Battery is: charging

auto-cpufreq system resource consumption:
cpu usage: 0.0 %
memory use: 0.13 %

Total CPU usage: 11.0 %
Total system load: 2.61
Average temp. of all cores: 50.5 °C 

Currently using: powersave governor
Currently turbo boost is: on

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Output while running a game (Sproggywood, a 2D turn-based game) on Steam:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Linux distro: Linux Mint 20.3 una
Linux kernel: 5.13.0-27-generic
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4578U CPU @ 3.00GHz
Cores: 4
Architecture: x86_64
Driver: acpi-cpufreq

------------------------------ Current CPU stats ------------------------------

CPU max frequency: 3001 MHz
CPU min frequency: 750 MHz

Core    Usage   Temperature Frequency
CPU0:    58.3%     85 °C      750 MHz
CPU1:    51.0%     86 °C      800 MHz
CPU2:    57.0%     85 °C      800 MHz
CPU3:    59.4%     86 °C      800 MHz

auto-cpufreq version:
fatal: not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git
CalledProcessError(128, ['git', 'describe', '--always'])

Python: 3.8.10
psutil package: 5.5.1
platform package: 1.0.8
click package: 7.0
distro package 1.4.0

Computer type: Notebook
Battery is: charging

auto-cpufreq system resource consumption:
cpu usage: 0.0 %
memory use: 0.13 %

Total CPU usage: 66.6 %
Total system load: 5.57
Average temp. of all cores: 85.5 °C 

Currently using: powersave governor
Currently turbo boost is: on

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As soon as I exit the game the fan turns silent again and CPUs cools down:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Linux distro: Linux Mint 20.3 una
Linux kernel: 5.13.0-27-generic
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4578U CPU @ 3.00GHz
Cores: 4
Architecture: x86_64
Driver: acpi-cpufreq

------------------------------ Current CPU stats ------------------------------

CPU max frequency: 3001 MHz
CPU min frequency: 750 MHz

Core    Usage   Temperature Frequency
CPU0:    10.2%     59 °C      800 MHz
CPU1:    15.7%     60 °C      750 MHz
CPU2:     9.2%     59 °C      750 MHz
CPU3:     9.2%     60 °C      750 MHz

auto-cpufreq version:
fatal: not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git
CalledProcessError(128, ['git', 'describe', '--always'])

Python: 3.8.10
psutil package: 5.5.1
platform package: 1.0.8
click package: 7.0
distro package 1.4.0

Computer type: Notebook
Battery is: charging

auto-cpufreq system resource consumption:
cpu usage: 0.0 %
memory use: 0.13 %

Total CPU usage: 11.9 %
Total system load: 2.1
Average temp. of all cores: 59.5 °C 

Currently using: powersave governor
Currently turbo boost is: on

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[AdnanHodzic]

Just released v1.9.2 which adds ability to change power governor used by default with auto-cpufreq from balanced to performance using power_helper.py script. Curious to hear if you still have same problem if you switch to performance governor?

[magikfingerz]

Just released v1.9.2 which adds ability to change power governor used by default with auto-cpufreq from balanced to performance using power_helper.py script. Curious to hear if you still have same problem if you switch to performance governor?

I have too the issue with cpu temp and games and I think the problem is in this section in core.py file:

As you can see in line 829, when the cpuload is higher than 20 it turns on the turbo boost, but I think it should check the average temp too before enable turbo boost, I made this little modification locally on my system and is currently working excellent, no more overheating when using games:

        # high cpu usage trigger
        if (cpuload >= 20 and avg_all_core_temp < 70) :
            print("setting turbo boost: on")
            turbo(True)

This is a very simple solution that worked for me, not sure if will work for all. I hope it helps.

[AdnanHodzic]

I always advise people to make their own code contributions if they have a good idea how certain things should be done.