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I've got a RadeonHD 3200, currently with 3.11 it overheats and shuts down automatically. AMD decided not to support this GPU with newer Xorg.

Curious if 3.12 will make a big difference. I don't need performance, I just need the damn thing not to melt down and shut down.

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Have you tried enabling DPM [1]? This feature was added in 3.11, but it's not enabled by default. You need to set a kernel parameter to make it work (radeon.dpm=1 in your grub config).

[1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ATI#Dynamic_power_manag...

If you try what ensmotko says, can you give an update? I'm in the same situation.

I have an older 3xxx card as well and enabling DPM noticeably reduced work temperatures. I'd say the temperature levels with DPM enabled are similar to using fglrx propriety drivers.

On my old laptop, an HP G61 something, I had a Mobility 4200. I hadn't been able to test it with the released 3.11 (replaced it before it was out), but I did always add the patches from the drm-next branch that was developing all of this. It did make a decent change in the temperature of the whole laptop. From being about 60C down to about 40C if I remember right. At least when I wasn't trying to run minecraft.

Hi,

I have tried and it helped a bit in that the fan doesn't seem like it will take off, but temperature wise not that much of a difference.

At least it's not shutting down, it's staying at around 66 degrees when idle.

My setup is also slightly more complicated because this laptop has hybrid graphics (basically 2 radeon cards), in this case turning off switcheroo helped a bit as well.

The lessons this laptop taught me:

- don't buy ATI/AMD

- don't buy hybrid/dual graphics

I'm very pleased with my other laptop with a Sandy Bridge CPU and integrated Intel grahics HD3000.

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