(Fabio Alessandro Locati|Fale)'s blog
Make ION work properly in Fedora 15
July 23, 2011
The EeePc 1015PN, at least the European version, comes with these two video cards:
- 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation N10 Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)
- 04:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GT218 [ION] (rev ff)
The first one is a nice Intel integrated card that allows you to have good performance in the 99.9% of the typical netbook user-cases.
In the other hand, the Nvidia ION is way more powerful than the integrated Intel card.
ION is capable of running HD videos, full-screen Youtube HD videos, games, and much more.
The downside of the nVidia card is the power drain.
This version of ION does drain 600mA more than the Intel integrated card.
These 600mA, as you can imagine, need also to be dissipated, forcing the vent to spin at its maximum speed.
Even with the vent at the maximum speed, the temperature increases from the 4055°C (idle with ION deactivated) to 65~80° (idle with ION active).
Therefore I’ve created a script that keeps ION deactivated by default and allows the user to active it when is needed and stop it when is no more needed.