My Dell Precision 7550 develops noticeable warmth in the palm-rest area to the right of the touchpad when running Fedora. I suspect the battery or nearby hardware is producing the heat. The same area stays cool on Windows 11, whether the laptop is plugged in or running on battery.
The laptop has a 10th-generation Intel Core i7, 16GB of RAM, Intel UHD graphics, and an NVIDIA Quadro T2000. I mainly use it for browsing, coding, and watching videos. I have tried Fedora KDE and GNOME, AC and battery power, the Balanced profile, different kernels, and fresh installations without solving the problem.
What Linux power-management, GPU, battery, or firmware settings should I investigate?
2 Answers
The Quadro was a likely suspect initially, since a T2000 that stays in the active PCI power state can add several watts of heat. However, your checks show that it is already in D3cold, its video memory is off, and idle battery discharge is only about 5.5W. That strongly suggests the NVIDIA GPU is not currently causing the heat.
At this point, compare actual sensor readings instead of relying only on the location of the warmth. Install and run lm_sensors, then check sensors while idle and during normal browsing. Also check the battery's reported temperature with upower. The component you feel through the palm rest may be a heat pipe, voltage-regulator area, storage device, or another motherboard component rather than the battery itself.
Since the heat happens on both AC and battery and the system is only using about 5.5W at idle, there may not be a major power-management fault. It would also be worth checking whether Firefox hardware acceleration or a browser tab is causing sustained CPU activity, using tools such as powertop, top, or btop.
Before changing distributions, update the Precision 7550's BIOS and device firmware using Dell's supported update tools, then retest Fedora. Firmware can affect thermal zones, charging behavior, fan curves, and hybrid-graphics power management.
For a laptop that stays plugged in most of the time, set a battery charging limit if the firmware supports it, such as charging between 50% and 80%. Keeping the battery at 100% can add some warmth and accelerate wear, although it would not fully explain heat that remains while unplugged. Also verify the battery's health and temperature; if it is swollen, unusually hot, or showing a high wear level, stop using the laptop and have it inspected.
A different desktop environment or distribution may change defaults, but it is unlikely to fix this if the NVIDIA card is already in D3cold. Sensor readings and BIOS or firmware updates should come first.
I checked the PCI power state and it reports D3cold. The NVIDIA power information also says video memory is off, and upower reports roughly 5.5W of idle discharge. The BIOS does not provide an option to disable the Quadro. My normal workload is just Firefox, coding, and video playback, but the warmth is still present.