I have an old laptop that I guess I refuse to let go, but it has a single core processor, 4 gigs of ram.

I was trying to avoid a hot hard drive and to keep it fast.

So I've been trying different distros, I've gotten the impression that running 32-bit will help me.

I don't know it doesn't seem right.

I believe all four are addressed with 32, PCE or something.

Hi...

I'm running a 32 bit copy of Lubuntu 14.04 on an older 64 bit HP Pavilion dv9830us laptop and honestly, I've not seen any real difference from when I was running a 64 bit copy of Ubuntu 10.04 on it prior to that. I chose to stay with 32 bit because I have found two or three of the programs I use (mostly games) are more stable under 32 bit and don't constantly segfault.

Regards...

thanks for your response ardvark71

What about hard drive temperature? My laptop's design places the laptop directly below my left palm next to the mouse pad. the hard drive can get really hot depending on the distro and my hands start to sweat, it's a weird problem.

I'm at 53C now not bad... one point it was hitting near 80 but I think part of that was a hairball from the fan that I've sinced removed...

I don't think I've ever gotten below 50C.

At any rate thanks, it's a Compaq Presario CQ-60 but I like the keyboard a lot, best $120.00 spent

Your hard drive is at 53C? That's very hot, whenever the maximum drive temperature in my systems exceeds ~45 C, the system immediately shuts itself down to prevent damaging the drives. One day before I implemented that cutoff, the A/C system went out in the computer room and the drives got up to ~65 C. I lost ~4 hard drives that day IIRC.

If you're referring to your CPU getting up to 80 C, that's normal under load.

You're welcome

Mine has the same drive placement as yours but praise God, the temperatures have always felt very reasonable, regardless of OS. My original hard drive lasted for six years after daily, overall heavy use.

The issue you've described may be more of a design flaw. Is there adequate airflow going through the cavity where the drive is located? Please see here.

Regards...

I should have clarified, the mobo/cpu is reading around those temps.

But the hard drive is probably the hottest part (what I can feel with my hands anyway).

It's a 7200 rpm sata drive so... I don't know if that's normal.

Maybe I out to opt for SSD.

Well maybe the CPU area is just about as warm not sure.

So the CPU temperature is 53 degrees? If so, that is completely different.

See here for ways to check your hard drive temperature in Linux. Let us know what you find. Please also see the link in my previous post.

Regards...