Linux Thermal Daemon (thermald) is a tool developed by Intel's Open Source Technology Center which monitors and controls the CPU temperature, preventing it from overheating. Thermald tries to prevent the CPU from overheating without a significant impact on performance by using some specific Intel functions available in the Linux Kernel. According to the Ubuntu wiki, thermald can control cooling using: active or passive cooling devices as presented in sysfs the Running Average Power Limit (RAPL) driver (Sandybridge upwards) the Intel P-state CPU frequency driver (Sandybridge upwards) the CPU fr