Fan speed control
Fan control can bring various benefits to your system, such as quieter working system and power saving by completely stopping fans on low CPU load.
Overview
There are multiple working solutions for fan control for both desktops and notebooks. Depending on your needs:
- Fancontrol (lm-sensors) — Script (written in Bash) to configure fan speeds. Most suitable for desktops and laptops, where fan controls are available via sysfs(5).
- NoteBook Fan Control (NBFC) — Cross-platform solution for laptop fan control, written in C# and works under Mono runtime. Most suitable for latest, unsupported by Fancontrol laptops.
- Dell laptops — Alternative fan control daemon for some Dell laptops.
- ThinkPad laptops — Fan configuration for some ThinkPad laptops.
- ASUS laptops — Configure some ASUS laptops for Fancontrol or manual control.
- fan2go — An alternative to Fancontrol independent of device-paths.
- isw — Fan configuration for some MSI laptops.
Fancontrol (lm-sensors)
fancontrol is a part of lm_sensors, which can be used to control the speed of CPU/case fans.
Support for newer motherboards may not yet be in the Linux kernel. Check the official lm-sensors devices table to see if experimental drivers are available for such motherboards.
lm-sensors
The first thing to do is to run
# sensors-detect
This will detect all of the sensors present and they will be used for fancontrol. After that, run the following to check if it detected the sensors correctly:
$ sensors
coretemp-isa-0000 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 0: +29.0°C (high = +76.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) ... it8718-isa-0290 Adapter: ISA adapter Vcc: +1.14 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) VTT: +2.08 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) +3.3V: +3.33 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) NB Vcore: +0.03 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) VDRAM: +2.13 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) fan1: 690 RPM (min = 10 RPM) temp1: +37.5°C (low = +129.5°C, high = +129.5°C) sensor = thermistor temp2: +25.0°C (low = +127.0°C, high = +127.0°C) sensor = thermal diode
Configuration
Once the sensors are properly configured, use pwmconfig(8) to test and configure fan speed control. Following the guide should create /etc/fancontrol, a customized configuration file. In the guide, the default answers are in parenthesis if you press enter without typing anything. Enter y for yes, n for no.
# pwmconfig
/sys/class/hwmon/ paths for their configuration file. hwmon class device symlinks point to the absolute paths, and are used to group all of the hwmon sensors together into one folder for easier access. Sometimes, the order of the hwmon devices change from a reboot, causing fancontrol to stop working. See #Device paths have changed in /etc/fancontrol for more information on how to fix this.Tweaking
Some users may want to manually tweak the configuration file after running pwmconfig with root privileges, usually to fix something. For manually tweaking the /etc/fancontrol configuration file, see fancontrol(8) for the variable definitions.
Users will probably encounter the hwmon path issues as noted above in #Fancontrol (lm-sensors). See #Device paths have changed in /etc/fancontrol for more information.
hwmon0/device/temp1_input becomes hwmon0/temp1_input). Check the fancontrol.service unit status to find out which path is the troublemaker and correct your configuration file accordingly.Running Fancontrol
Try to run fancontrol:
# fancontrol
A properly configured setup will not output errors and will take control of the system fans. Users should hear system fans starting shortly after executing this command. fancontrol can also be ran by starting/enabling fancontrol.service.
For an unofficial GUI, install fancontrol-guiAUR or fancontrol-kcmAUR.
Fancontrol stops working after suspend–wake cycles
Unfortunately, fancontrol does not work after suspending. As per the filed bug, you will have to restart fancontrol after suspending. This can be achieved automatically by a systemd hook.
NBFC
NBFC is a cross-platform fan control solution for notebooks. It comes with a powerful configuration system, which allows to adjust it to many different notebook models, including some of the latest ones.
Installation
NBFC can be installed as nbfcAUR or nbfc-gitAUR. Also start/enable nbfc.service.
Configuration
NBFC comes with pre-made profiles. You can find them in /opt/nbfc/Configs/ directory. When applying them, use the exact profile name without a file extension (e.g. some profile.xml becomes "some profile").
Check if there is anything NBFC can recommend:
$ nbfc config -r
If there is at least one model, try to apply this profile and see how fan speeds are being handled. For example:
$ nbfc config -a "Asus Zenbook UX430UA"
File Descriptor does not support writing, delete StagWare.Plugins.ECSysLinux.dll [1] and restart nbfc.service:
# mv /opt/nbfc/Plugins/StagWare.Plugins.ECSysLinux.dll /opt/nbfc/Plugins/StagWare.Plugins.ECSysLinux.dll.old
If above solution did not help, try appending ec_sys.write_support=1 to kernel parameters.
If there are no recommended models, go to NBFC git repository or /opt/nbfc/Configs/ and check if there are any similar models available from the same manufacturer. For example, on Asus Zenbook UX430UQ, the configuration Asus Zenbook UX430UA did not work well (fans completelly stopped all the time), but Asus Zenbook UX410UQ worked fantastically.
Run nbfc to see all options. More information about configuration is available at upstream wiki.
NBFC-Linux
NBFC-Linux is a lightweight implementation of NBFC, written in C. It does not depend on the Mono framework. It can be installed as nbfc-linuxAUR or nbfc-linux-gitAUR.
Dell laptops
i8kutils is a daemon to configure fan speed according to CPU temperatures on some Dell Inspiron and Latitude laptops. It uses the /proc/i8k interface provided by the i8k driver (an alias for dell_smm_hwmon). Results will vary depending on the exact model of laptop.
Installation
i8kutilsAUR is the main package to control fan speed. Additionally, you might want to install these:
- acpi — must be installed to use i8kmon.
-
tcl — must be installed in order to run i8kmon as a background service (using the
--daemonoption). - tk — must be installed together with tcl to run as X11 desktop applet.
- dell-bios-fan-control-gitAUR — recommended if your BIOS overrides fan control.
Configuration
The temperature points at which the fan changes speed can be adjusted in the same configuration file. Only three fans speeds are supported (high, low, and off). Look for a section similar to the following:
set config(0) {{0 0} -1 55 -1 55}
set config(1) {{1 1} 45 75 45 75}
set config(2) {{2 2} 65 128 65 128}
This example starts the fan at low speed when the CPU temperature reaches 55 °C, switching to high speed at 75 °C. The fan will switch back to low speed once the temperature drops to 65 °C, and turns off completely at 45 °C.
i8kmon with the verbose option you notice that the state changes (example of an output: # (57>=55), state=1, low=45, high=75) but right and left fans report state 0, you might consider changing the speed value of the first state in the configuration file from default 1000 to 2000 or higher.Installation as a service
i8kmon can be started automatically by starting/enabling i8kmon.service.
BIOS overriding fan control
Some newer laptops have BIOS fan control in place which will override the OS level fan control. To test if this the case, run i8kmon with verbose mode in a command line, make sure the CPU is idle, then see if the fan is turned off or turned down accordingly.
If the BIOS fan control is in place, you can try using dell-bios-fan-control-gitAUR:
To enable BIOS fan control:
# dell-bios-fan-control 1
To disable BIOS fan control:
# dell-bios-fan-control 0
BIOS fan control can be automatically disabled by starting/enabling dell-bios-fan-control.service.
ThinkPad laptops
Some fan control daemons include simpfand-gitAUR and thinkfanAUR (recommended).
Installation
Install thinkfanAUR or thinkfan-gitAUR. Optionally, but recommended, install lm_sensors. Then have a look at the files:
# pacman -Ql thinkfan
Note that the thinkfan package installs /usr/lib/modprobe.d/thinkpad_acpi.conf, which contains
options thinkpad_acpi fan_control=1
So fan control is enabled by default.
Now, load the module:
# modprobe thinkpad_acpi # cat /proc/acpi/ibm/fan
You should see that the fan level is "auto" by default, but you can echo a level command to the same file to control the fan speed manually:
# echo level 1 > /proc/acpi/ibm/fan
| Level | Effect |
|---|---|
| 0 | off |
| 2 | low speed |
| 4 | medium speed |
| 7 | maximum speed |
| auto | default - automatic |
| full-speed | real maximum speed |
The thinkfan daemon will do this automatically.
"7" is not the same as "full-speed". "7" is the maximum regulated speed. full-speed is the maximum unregulated speed.
Finally, enable the thinkfan.service.
To configure the temperature thresholds, you will need to copy the example configuration file (/usr/share/doc/thinkfan/examples/thinkfan.yaml) to /etc/thinkfan.conf, and modify to taste. This file specifies which sensors to read, and which interface to use to control the fan. Some systems have /proc/acpi/ibm/fan and /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal available; on others, you will need to specify something like:
hwmon /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp
to use generic hwmon sensors instead of thinkpad-specific ones.
Running
You can test your configuration first by running thinkfan manually (as root):
# thinkfan -n
and see how it reacts to the load level of whatever other programs you have running.
When you have it configured correctly, start/enable thinkfan.service.
ASUS laptops
This topic will cover drivers configuration on ASUS laptops for Fancontrol (lm-sensors).
Kernel modules
In configuration files, we are going to use full paths to sysfs files (e.g. /sys/devices/platform/asus-nb-wmi/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/pwm1). This is because hwmon1 might change to any other number after reboot. Fancontrol (lm-sensors) is written in Bash, so using these paths in configuration file is completely acceptable. You can find complete /etc/fancontrol configuration file examples at ASUS N550JV#Fan control.
asus-nb-wmi
asus-nb-wmi is a kernel module, which is included in the Linux kernel and is loaded automatically on ASUS laptops. It will only allow to control a single fan and if there is a second fan you will not have any controls over it. Note that blacklisting this module will prevent keyboard backlight to work.
Below are the commands to control it. Check if you have any controls over your fan:
# echo 255 > /sys/devices/platform/asus-nb-wmi/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/pwm1 # Full fan speed (Value: 255) # echo 0 > /sys/devices/platform/asus-nb-wmi/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/pwm1 # Fan is stopped (Value: 0) # echo 2 > /sys/devices/platform/asus-nb-wmi/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/pwm1_enable # Change fan mode to automatic # echo 1 > /sys/devices/platform/asus-nb-wmi/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/pwm1_enable # Change fan mode to manual # echo 0 > /sys/devices/platform/asus-nb-wmi/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/pwm1_enable # Change fan mode to full speed
If you were able to modify fan speed with above commands, then continue with #Generate configuration file with pwmconfig.
asus_fan
asus_fan is a kernel module, which allows to control both fans on some older ASUS laptops. It does not work with the most recent models.
Install the DKMS asus-fan-dkms-gitAUR kernel module, providing asus_fan:
# modprobe asus_fan
Check if you have any control over both fans:
# echo 255 > /sys/devices/platform/asus_fan/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/pwm1 # Full CPU fan speed (Value: 255) # echo 0 > /sys/devices/platform/asus_fan/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/pwm1 # CPU fan is stopped (Value: 0) # echo 255 > /sys/devices/platform/asus_fan/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/pwm2 # Full GFX fan speed (Value: 255) # echo 0 > /sys/devices/platform/asus_fan/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/pwm2 # GFX fan is stopped (Value: 0) # echo 2 > /sys/devices/platform/asus_fan/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/pwm1_enable # Change CPU fan mode to automatic # echo 1 > /sys/devices/platform/asus_fan/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/pwm1_enable # Change CPU fan mode to manual # echo 2 > /sys/devices/platform/asus_fan/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/pwm2_enable # Change GFX fan mode to automatic # echo 1 > /sys/devices/platform/asus_fan/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/pwm2_enable # Change GFX fan mode to manual # cat /sys/devices/platform/asus_fan/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/temp1_input # Display GFX temperature (will always be 0 when GFX is disabled/unused)
If everything works, you might want to load this kernel module on boot:
/etc/modules-load.d/asus_fan.conf
asus_fan
Continue with #Generate configuration file with pwmconfig.
Generate configuration file with pwmconfig
If you get an error There are no working fan sensors, all readings are 0 while generating configuration file with pwmconfig, open first console and execute:
# watch -n 1 "echo 2 > /sys/devices/platform/kernel_module/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/pwm1_enable"
If you use asus_fan kernel module and have 2nd fan, in second console:
# watch -n 1 "echo 2 > /sys/devices/platform/kernel_module/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/pwm2_enable"
And finally, in the third console:
# pwmconfig
Once you are done and the configuration file is generated, you should stop the first and second consoles. Continue with #Fancontrol (lm-sensors). After the configuration file is generated, you might need to manually replace PWM values with full sysfs paths as they are used in these steps, because hwmon number values might change after reboot.
Alternative method using EC registers
If the above methods do not work for you, an alternative method is to directly write to certain registers in the embedded controller (EC). Using the EC-Probe tool, you can set the fan mode to one of the three fan speed modes, provided your model offers such feature in Windows.
In ASUS FX504GD model setting the fan speed to one of the three modes uses these register values:
# ec_probe write 0x5e 0x80 # silent mode # ec_probe write 0x5e 0x40 # balance mode # ec_probe write 0x5e 0xC0 # performance mode
Here we write to register 0x5e that is responsible in setting the fan speed mode.
If these values do not work for you, run the ec-probe tool in monitor mode in Windows and try to identify which register in the EC changes value when switching through fan speed modes.
Setting thermal throttle policy
Instead of manually controlling fan speed using asus-nb-wmi, it is also possible to set the thermal throttling policy to have a more or less aggressive fan control policy. Possible values are 0 (default), 1 (overboost), and 2 (silent).
# echo number > /sys/devices/platform/asus-nb-wmi/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/throttle_thermal_policy
Fan control modes on certain TUF series laptops
On certain ASUS TUF series laptops, performance and fan control modes can be changed using Fn+F5. The current mode can be viewed by running the following command:
$ cat /sys/devices/platform/asus-nb-wmi/fan_boost_mode
You can view the value changing as you use press Fn+F5. 0 is "Normal Mode", 1 is "Performance Mode", 2 is most likely "Silent Mode".[2] It is also possible to write these values into the the fan_boost_mode file as root and have the desired effect.
This was tested on the ASUS TUF FX504GE and ASUS TUF FX504GD models and found to be working.
AMDGPU sysfs fan control
AMDGPU kernel driver offers fan control for graphics cards via hwmon in sysfs.
Configuration of manual control
To switch to manual fan control from automatic, run
# echo "1" > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/hwmon/hwmon0/pwm1_enable
Set up fan speed to e.g. 50% (100% are 255 PWM cycles, thus calculate desired fan speed percentage by multiplying its value by 2.55):
# echo "128" > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/hwmon/hwmon0/pwm1
To reset to automatic fan control, run
# echo "2" > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/hwmon/hwmon0/pwm1_enable
amdgpu-fan
The amdgpu-fanAUR package is an automated fan controller for AMDGPU-enabled video cards written in Python. It uses a "speed-matrix" to match the frequency of the fans with the temperature of the GPU, for example:
speed_matrix: # -[temp(*C), speed(0-100%)] - [0, 0] - [40, 30] - [60, 50] - [80, 100]
Launch the fan control service by starting/enabling amdgpu-fan.service.
amdfand-bin
Then amdfand-binAUR package is an native alternative to amdgpu-fanAUR. Launch the fan control service by starting/enabling amdfand.service.
fancurve script
Not just fan controls are offered via hwmon in sysfs, but also GPU temperature reading:
cat /sys/class/drm/card0/device/hwmon/hwmon0/temp1_input
This outputs GPU temperature in °C + three zeroes, e.g. 33000 for 33°C.
The bash script amdgpu-fancontrol by grmat offers a fully automatic fan control by using the described sysfs hwmon functionality. It also allows to comfortably adjust the fancurve's temperature/PWM cycles assignments and a hysteresis by offering abstracted configuration fields at the top of the script.
For safety reasons, the script sets fan control again to auto when shutting down. This may cause spinning up of fans, which can be worked around at cost of security by setting set_fanmode 1 in the section function reset_on_fail.
Setting up fancurve script
To start the script, it is recommend to do so via systemd init system. This way the script's verbose output can be read via journalctl/systemctl status. For this purpose, a .service unit file is already included in the GitHub repository.
It may also be required to restart the script via a root-resume.service after hibernation in order to make it automatically function properly again:
/etc/systemd/system/root-resume.service
[Unit] Description=Local system resume actions After=suspend.target [Service] Type=simple ExecStart=/usr/bin/systemctl restart amdgpu-fancontrol.service [Install] WantedBy=suspend.target
Troubleshooting
Increase the fan divisor for sensors
If sensors does not output the CPU fan RPM, it may be necessary to change the fan divisor.
The first line of the sensors output is the chipset used by the motherboard for readings of temperatures and voltages.
Create a file in /etc/sensors.d/:
/etc/sensors.d/fan-speed-control.conf
chip "coretemp-isa-*" set fanX_div 4
Replacing coretemp-isa- with name of the chipset and X with the number of the CPU fan to change.
Save the file, and run as root:
# sensors -s
which will reload the configuration files.
Run sensors again, and check if there is an RPM readout. If not, increase the divisor to 8, 16, or 32. Your mileage may vary.
Device paths have changed in /etc/fancontrol
The enumerated hwmon symlinks located in /sys/class/hwmon/ might vary in order because the kernel modules do not load in a consistent order per boot. Because of this, it may cause fancontrol to not function correctly. The error is "Configuration appears to be outdated, please run pwmconfig again". Upstream bug.
Solution
In /etc/conf.d/lm_sensors, there are 2 arrays that list all of the modules detected when you execute sensors-detect. These get loaded in by fancontrol. If the file does not exist, run sensors-detect as root, accepting the defaults. Open (or create) /etc/modules-load.d/modules.conf. Get all of the modules listed from the 2 variables in /etc/conf.d/lm_sensors/ and place them into the /etc/modules-load.d/modules.conf file, one module per line. Specifying them like this should make a defined order for the modules to load in, which should make the hwmon paths stay where they are and not change orders for every boot. If this doesnt work, I highly recommend finding another program to control your fans. If you cannot find any, then you could try using the alternative solution below.
Alternative solution: absolute paths
Using absolute file paths in fancontrol does not work by default, as its helper script pwmconfig is programmed to only use the hwmon paths to get the files. The way it does this is that it detects whether the hwmon path that is provided in its configuration file /etc/fancontrol did not change, and uses the variables DEVNAME and DEVPATH to determine such change. If your hwmon paths keep changing, this will prevent fancontrol from running no matter what you do. However, one can circumvent this problem. Open /usr/bin/fancontrol, and comment out this part of the script:
if ! ValidateDevices "$DEVPATH" "$DEVNAME"
then
echo "Configuration appears to be outdated, please run pwmconfig again" >&2
exit 1
fi
- Doing this may make fancontrol write into files you gave it in the configuration file, no matter what the file is. This can corrupt files if you provide the wrong path. Be sure that you are using the correct path for your files.
- Another thing to note is that while doing this workaround, using pwmconfig to create your script again will overwrite all of your absolute paths that you have configured. Therefore, it is better to manually change the old paths to the new paths if it is needed instead of using pwmconfig.
Commenting this out should effectively ignore the hwmon validation checks. You can also ignore the variables DEVNAME and DEVPATH in the configuration file as well. After this, replace all of the hwmon paths in the other variables with its absolute path. To make it easier, rerun pwmconfig with root privileges to refresh the hwmon devices. The hwmon paths in the configuration file should now point to the correct absolute paths. For each hwmon path, run the following command (where N is the enumeration of the hwmon path):
$ readlink -f /sys/class/hwmon/hwmonN/device
This will give you the absolute path of the device.
For example, an /etc/fancontrol file lists FCTEMPS as this:
FCTEMPS=hwmon2/pwm1=hwmon3/temp1_input
Executing readlink -f /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon3/device can, for example, output /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/. cd into this directory. If you see a /hwmon/hwmonN/ directory, you have to do this in your fancontrol configuration file to replace the hwmonN path. From the previous example:
# BEFORE FCTEMPS=hwmon2/pwm1=hwmon3/temp1_input # AFTER FCTEMPS=hwmon2/pwm1=/sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/[[:print:]]*/temp1_input
Essentially, you must replace the hwmon path with the absolute path, concatenated with /hwmon/[[:print:]]*/ so that bash can catch the random enumerated hwmon name.
If you do not see the /hwmon/hwmonN/ directory, then you do not have to worry about this. This means that the temperature files are in the root of the device folder. Just replace hwmonN/ with the absolute file path. For example:
#BEFORE FCTEMPS=hwmon2/pwm1=hwmon3/temp1_input #AFTER FCTEMPS=hwmon2/pwm1=/sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/temp1_input
After replacing all of paths, fancontrol should work fine.