[GRLUG] does Debian run cooler than Ubuntu or am I just crazy?

[John-Thomas Richards]

When my laptop died I installed Ubuntu (Karmic then betas of Lucid) onto
my wife's HP dv6700 laptop.  She had all kinds of overheating issues
with Vista.  I expected Linux to run cooler.  It didn't.  When I did an
rsync of my home folder (~70GB) onto a USB hard drive, the laptop
overheated and shut down.  If I watched a flash video for too long it
would overheat, even if I used a cooling pad.  Last week I installed
Debian instead of Ubuntu.  (You know, I've come to appreciate Ubuntu's
polish a bit...)  I noticed the temperature seemed to be a bit lower
than it was under Ubuntu.  About 30° cooler.  I just put in a DVD about
ten minutes ago and began to rip it to an .avi.  The temperature is
running about 135°—without the laptop's fan on full speed!

Am I missing something?  Could two very closely related Linux distros
really function that differently?  Or is Debian with mencoder hitting
125% of CPU really cooler than Ubuntu running just GNOME?  This doesn't
seem right.
-- 
john-thomas
------
There is no more irritating fellow than the man who tries to settle an
argument about communism, or justice, or liberty, by quoting from Webster.
Mortimer J. Adler, philosopher, educator, and author (1902-2001)