Linux Mint vs. Win7 CPU heat / Battery life question - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: CaptDon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2025, 01:46:59 pm
content: I swapped out Win7 and installed LM 21.1 I noticed my CPU fan hardly ever runs and the CPU corner of the laptop remains cool. Also I am getting at least 2X run time out of a fully charged battery. This is a Gateway NV55 model. Are my results unusual or are you seeing similar results? Thanks!!

author: BadeBhaiya
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2025, 01:48:46 pm
content: Linux in general IS quite a bit more battery efficient as a rule of thumb. I use Linux Mint on my ThinkPad and the battery life is superior to windows 10 without a doubt. If you lock the CPU to the lowest power state on Linux mint, you can get even better battery life (at the cost of reduced performance)

author: chilternview
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2025, 02:26:25 pm
content: Depends what software is running in the background. My work laptop has a constance average 20-25% utilisation from running antivirus, vpn, citrix etc etc. and the fan is often on even though I'm not using it. In contrast a linux box without antivirus is doing nothing much and lasts hours on battery.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2025, 10:24:49 pm
content: Not running copilot/defender/updater/attacker/protector/whatever crap MS wants to run on your machine helps a lot.

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2025, 10:55:59 pm
content: Very normal. My Lubuntu installation lasts 3 times longer than the previous Win 7 installation. And the fan never runs (ran regularly with Win /)MS has so much extra crap running plus sponsored adware and phone back to Richmond that it's hard to believe.

author: radiolistener
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2025, 05:43:53 am
content: usually Win7 is more battery efficient than Linux, but it very depends on running services in background. If there is antivirus/defenders/scanners and other bullshit is running on your system, its expected behavior that it will consume more power.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2025, 08:16:44 am
content: Completely normal. I have noticed the same on every laptop I have used during last 15 years or so. It is very surprising how much CPU and battery Windows consumes "at idle". Add the fact that shutdown sometimes (and pretty often) can take anything from 10 minutes to 2 hours ("updates"), I simply physically cannot understand how Windows can be used, especially on a laptop. How do people who use Windows deal with it?

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2025, 08:33:24 am
content: Not sure about Win7, but I know with Win10 if you have not turned your computer on in a few weeks then the CPU and disk get pegged by Windows update in the background.

author: KimLum
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2025, 09:48:23 am
content: I have a really old Lenovo Ideapad (I think it is) laptop, which I have setup for dualboot to Lubuntu and Windows 7. When booting to Win7 the laptop is noticeable hotter and the cooling fan is quite noisy. When booting to Lubuntu, the laptop runs a lot cooler and the cooling fans only gets loud when the laptop is actually working with something. So I would say that the behaviour is absolutely normal.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2025, 10:07:42 am
content: QuoteThe opposite of my experience on a netbook running the same bit of software

author: radiolistener
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2025, 02:22:10 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on June 26, 2025, 10:07:42 amWindows generally offers better driver support for power management features. However, by default, it runs numerous background services and tasks that can significantly reduce battery life. To optimize power consumption, these services must be manually disabled. Similarly, running equivalent background services on Linux can also lead to rapid battery drain, so proper system configuration is essential on both platforms.

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2025, 06:22:08 pm
content: Quote from: Whales on June 26, 2025, 08:33:24 amYeah, one of the main reasons I wiped MS and switched to Linux. The weekly update would kill my laptop for a whole Tuesday, the monthly a Tuesday and half Wednesday, HDD working overtime with activity LED almost constantly on. Never understood why.Linux (all dialects) updates in 10 minutes max. BTW.

author: radiolistener
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2025, 01:21:27 pm
content: Quote from: Benta on June 26, 2025, 06:22:08 pmThat's not always the case. On my desktop running Arch Linux, which hadn't been updated for a while, the update process pulled in around 6 GB of packages and took nearly 4 hours to complete. So update duration can vary significantly depending on system state and package manager.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2025, 02:43:30 pm
content: I used Windows since kid - approx. from 1994 to 2015 or so, at which point I dropped it to bare minimum (i.e., nowadays to run Altium). I think Windows hasalwaysneeded quite a lot of tweaking. Fresh Windows install was always a 2-3 day project for me, including finding, downloading and installing newest driver versions because built-ins were crap, but also to fine-tune the user experience, installing the virus protection of the year, and tune which services run to free up CPU.Linux usually needs some tweaking as well - in worst case, a lot of it, including the rabbit hole of getting some hardware to work at all -, but people seem to accept that as a fact. But maybe one of the fundamental differences is that if you just buy a new laptop and start running the pre-installed Windows, vs. quick install a Linux like the Mint mentioned, without fine-tuninganything(takes usually less than 15 minutes), the "stock" Windows turns the laptop into a battery-operated hairdryer, and the "minimum" Linux boots very fast, is very fast to use for things like web browsing, and does not dry your hair.Now, for a real power user who tweaks their OS for a week anyway, I have no idea which is better power-use wise. I guess Windows can be made work.

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2025, 03:14:44 pm
content: Quote from: radiolistener on June 29, 2025, 01:21:27 pmI was talking about regular updates (Win: every Tuesday). Not about an unmaintained system. In that case, Win 10 would probably take a week to do the update.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2025, 03:44:18 pm
content: One of the best/biggest difference i find is linux just gets on and does its update ( after youve confirmed you want to update ) in the background whilst you can still be doing stuff ,then a restart once its finished,meanwhile you fire windows up for a quick task and it politely tells you to bugger off and leave me alone until im finished,or worse you go to shut down and same thing.

author: artag
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2025, 05:08:48 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on June 26, 2025, 08:16:44 amSee lobster-boiling.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2025, 05:37:04 pm
content: Quote from: Benta on June 29, 2025, 03:14:44 pmI can confirm that having a gap of boots for 2-3 months or so is reallyreallypainful on Windows anything later than XP; I have had to endure that in my Altium workflow. Once a shutdown took 6 hours or so, and after that multiple reboots tens of minutes each.

author: bson
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 29, 2025, 07:09:45 pm
content: If it's a multicore die then a contemporary Linux scheduler will be vastly superior to Win7, much better than Win10, and a slight improvement over Win11. This even more noticeable if there are E cores. It's just better at utilizing them, maintaining thread core/cache affinity, and of course Linux always 'uses' all memory you have installed. If you have 64GB it's likely all common executables, .so's, config files, etc will sit around in memory when not 'used' once warmed up. This makes program launches a LOT faster. Of course, if a program needs to allocate it this stuff gets evicted, so the lesser the memory utilization, the faster a Linux (or any pressure-based VM system really) will be.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2025, 07:14:55 pm
content: I've done a stock Win7 install on my laptop. All third party bloatware was removed.Stays cold, CPU idles at around 1%-2%.The fan only goes on during video encoding, or, playing 1080p .h265 at 150% to 200% speed.Note that I have 16gb installed and the swap-file has been disabled.I used to have 4gb installed with a mechanical HD and swap-file.The CPU fan was on a lot of the time and CPU utilization was around 15% quite often even when it should have been idle.

author: eugene
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2025, 08:46:29 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on June 29, 2025, 03:44:18 pmIt can get even worse. There was at least one occasion where I started a long calculation going overnight on a Win machine only to come in in the morning to discover that the OS had updated and rebooted thereby losing all of the work that had been done. Fortunately, I now know that you can configure Windows not to do that. Even more fortunately, I simply don't run Windows at all anymore unless a client requires it.Linux will never update without your explicit permission and willneverreboot all by itself. It won't even ask your permission; it just tells you that you need to do it to enable the upgrade, but even that is much less common than with Windows.And then there's the blue screen of death. Ever since NT (XP) windows has been much more stable, but still, I haveneverhad Linux lock up on me. I have had to kill an app or two, but I have never had the OS freeze requiring a power cycle.I honestly can't comment on power consumption. Sorry to go off-topic.

author: radiolistener
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2025, 09:09:53 pm
content: just disable windows update service and enable if when you really need it.For Win 8 and later it may be problematic, but for Win7 it works.

author: eugene
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2025, 09:19:23 pm
content: Ha! Currently my main computer is a Thinkpad that I bought about 18 months ago. It came with Win11 installed, but I never booted into it. The fist thing I did was repartition the SSD, install Linux, and never look back. Win11 is still there. Maybe someday I'll boot it up for the first time. Probably not.