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I'm trying to control the fan speed on my desktop, and I'd appreciate your help.

Goal: Use a script to control the fan speed on my computer.

Motivation: The embedded BIOS "Smart Fan" settings isn't smart enough to speed up the fan when the system gets hot, resulting in a crash when the one of the temps passes the threshold.

Configuration:

  • Centos 6.3
  • Acer Veriton VN281G-UA425L

  • abbreviated lspci output

    00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation N10 Family DMI Bridge
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 4 (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation NM10 Family LPC Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation N10/ICH7 Family SATA Controller [IDE mode] (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family SMBus Controller (rev 02)

  • abbreviated /proc/cpuinfo

    processor   : 0
vendor_id   : GenuineIntel
cpu family  : 6
model       : 28
model name  : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU D425   @ 1.80GHz

  • Grub configuration

    title CentOS (2.6.32-279.5.1.el6.x86_64)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.32-279.5.1.el6.x86_64 ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_hadean-lv_root rd_NO_LUKS rd_LVM_LV=vg_hadean/lv_root LANG=en_US.UTF-8 rd_NO_MD SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 crashkernel=auto rd_LVM_LV=vg_hadean/lv_swap  KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us rd_NO_DM rhgb quiet
        initrd /initramfs-2.6.32-279.5.1.el6.x86_64.img

Previous attempts:

  • Run lm_sensors lm_sensors could only find the temperature output
  • Run yum search fan no matches
  • add acpi and acpi=strict to kernel opts nothing happened
  • check /proc/acpi/fan the directory is empty

I ran acer_ec.pl regs and the output was this:

        00  01  02  03  04  05  06  07  |   08  09  0A  0B  0C  0D  0E  0F
        __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __  |   __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __
00 |    255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 |   255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 
10 |    255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 |   255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 
20 |    255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 |   255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 
30 |    255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 |   255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 
40 |    255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 |   255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 
50 |    255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 |   255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 
60 |    255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 |   255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 
70 |    255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 |   255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 
80 |    255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 |   255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 
90 |    255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 |   255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 
A0 |    255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 |   255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 
B0 |    255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 |   255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 
C0 |    255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 |   255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 
D0 |    255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 |   255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 
E0 |    255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 |   255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 
F0 |    255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 |   255 255 255 255 255 255

I don't know if that's what it's supposed to look like, but something seems amiss here.

I found a link that inspired me to try pwmconfig. The output was: There are no pwm-capable sensor modules installed I'm going to try to find out how I can install those modules.

I reset the "Smart Fan" setting and it isn't causing me any more problems, for now. I don't know how that could affect it, but we'll see what happens when I start putting a load back on the system.

I still haven't found the right patches for the kernel (or if that's even the problem). If the problem continues, I'll try to update the kernel to include the acpi support. Using the hardware tool from an arch linux iso, I found out that I'm using the P01-A3L BIOS, release 4/6/2011, revision 8.16 on an Acer Veriton N281G motherboard.

If that doesn't work, I might just scrap it and move to Debian or Arch.

Improve this question
2
  • Make sure nothing's clogging/blocking the existing airflow: Have you tried going through the system with a can of compressed air and making sure that it's free of dust? As long as the CPU fan is running, I would hope the CPU isn't getting anywhere near the temp cutoff point. Is the system sitting in the sun? Most systems I've used stay a good 50C away from the shutdown temp (then again, this is a ultra-compact).
    – Darth Android
    Commented Aug 17, 2012 at 15:09
  • The fan runs fine. In fact, when I disable the "Smart Fan" setting, the fan runs full speed with no problems. The problem seems with the embedded controller. See the output of acer_ec.pl regs above. I don't know which registers correspond with the fan thresholds, but they're all 255.
    – jbangerter
    Commented Aug 17, 2012 at 15:39

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
4

Look for the acer_ec.pl script it can control the fan through the register of the embedded controller. It works on other pc, too.

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4
  • Gosh Gee Willikers Batman! My fan temperature threshold was set to 255 C! Thanks, I'll try setting the threshold to something lower and let you know how it goes! :) I presume that I will need to re-enable the smart fan setting. I would upvote you, but I don't have enough reputation, yet. Also, I see here that there is a way to set the threshold for each fan level.
    – jbangerter
    Commented Aug 17, 2012 at 15:13
  • First, I'll say that this is an awesome script, and I'm grateful to the people who wrote it. I found that the script misleadingly claims to allow a user to modify the thresholds on various fan levels. I say misleadingly, because when I entered in the command as advertised, I was told they were the wrong arguments! Further inspection revealed that there was no such processing in the switch at the end of the file. I tried printing out my registers to see where the values should be written, but ended up with the result in my latest edit. Do you know how I can manually set those thresholds?
    – jbangerter
    Commented Aug 17, 2012 at 15:37
  • Did you installed embedded controll access on Linux? It must be enabled first. Or try RW everthing on Windows to check your embedded controler. I've wrote a kernel module for my laptop: chihoang.de/code-schnipsel/amilo-xa-3530/…. I hope it helps?
    – Cybercartel
    Commented Aug 17, 2012 at 15:41
  • Thanks for your help. I tried pwmconfig and found that There are no pwm-capable sensor modules installed. I guess I will be installing some sensor modules.
    – jbangerter
    Commented Aug 17, 2012 at 15:51
2

Also check out fancontrol, and my answer to this post.

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1
  • Thanks, I forgot to mention that I tried that, but fancontrol isn't available in my repository. I don't know if it's compatible with centos, but I'll see if I can add it.
    – jbangerter
    Commented Aug 17, 2012 at 15:42
0

There is a more popular "fancontrol" at the lm-sensors wiki. The fancontrol link in the other answer is a different script (much more experimental). This fancontrol includes the pwmconfig utility which will detect your temperature sensors and fan controllers.

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