According to the Hardware Sensors Applet in gnome panel, the AMD Athlon TF-20 64 bit processor in my 1 year old Acer 5532 spends most of the time baking at temperatures ranging from 65C-75C while running Ubuntu 10.10.  As you can imagine, that makes for a very uncomfortable lap.

In contrast, Windows 7 doesn't feel like it gets any hotter than mid 50C. I couldn't get any measurements with CoreTemp or SpeedFan (neither work on my computer) and there wasn't any option in the Bios for temperature readings so no empirical evidence apart from the lack of burn marks on my legs. With less heating issues, Win 7 is much quieter and has better endurance.

What are your suggestions? (I'm considering switching to a lighter distro or an older version of Ubuntu.)

Cheers,

Fahd