HOWTO: Fancontrol

[remmelt]

Controlling the speed (and sound!) of your CPU fan is easy!
Disclaimer: this can ruin your hardware. A CPU fan is needed to cool your CPU and in this howto it will be turned off for a couple of seconds. If you are not comfortable with doing this, don't!

Update Nov 7, 2007: this still works in Gutsy Gibbon! Hurray!

Setup lm-sensors
First, you need to set up lm-sensors. This is explained here. That's for Warty, but still works under Hoary.

Once you have lm-sensors installed, you should have a readout with 'sensors'

$ sensors
w83627thf-isa-0290
Adapter: ISA adapter
VCore:     +1.54 V  (min =  +1.69 V, max =  +1.86 V)              
+12V:     +11.67 V  (min = +10.82 V, max = +13.19 V)              
+3.3V:     +3.42 V  (min =  +3.14 V, max =  +3.47 V)              
+5V:       +5.15 V  (min =  +4.75 V, max =  +5.25 V)              
-12V:     -14.91 V  (min = -10.80 V, max = -13.18 V)              
V5SB:      +5.05 V  (min =  +4.76 V, max =  +5.24 V)              
VBat:      +0.06 V  (min =  +2.40 V, max =  +3.60 V)              
fan1:        0 RPM  (min = 18750 RPM, div = 8)                     
CPU Fan:  1188 RPM  (min = 18750 RPM, div = 8)                     
fan3:        0 RPM  (min = 19285 RPM, div = 1)                     
M/B Temp:    +31°C  (high =   -73°C, hyst =   +21°C)   sensor = thermistor           
CPU Temp:  +50.0°C  (high =   +80°C, hyst =   +75°C)   sensor = thermistor           
temp3:     +15.0°C  (high =   +80°C, hyst =   +75°C)   sensor = thermistor           
vid:      +1.775 V  (VRM Version 9.0)
alarms:   
beep_enable:
          Sound alarm enabled

eeprom-i2c-0-51
Adapter: SMBus Via Pro adapter at 0400
Memory type:            DDR SDRAM DIMM
Memory size (MB):       256

eeprom-i2c-0-50
Adapter: SMBus Via Pro adapter at 0400
Memory type:            DDR SDRAM DIMM
Memory size (MB):       256

Notice that my CPU fan is running really slowly, only 1100 RPM. The CPU temp is a little high, so I need to do some tweaking of the config there. The fan can run so slowly and quietly, because it's a large 12 cm fan made by Zalman (it's the 7000B AlCu). If your output does not display an RPM for your CPU fan, and you are positive it is running, you need to increase the fan divisor. If your fan speed is shown and higher than 0, skip the next step.

Increasing fan_div
The first line of the sensors output is the chipset your motherboard uses to read the speeds/temps/voltages. Make a backup first:

$ sudo cp /etc/sensors.conf /etc/sensors.conf_original

Edit the /etc/sensors.conf file as root

$ sudo gedit /etc/sensors.conf

and look up your exact chipset. The names all look alike, so make sure the one you are editing is yours. Add the line fanX_div 4 near the start of your chipset config. Replace the X with the number of your CPU fan's, for me that was 2. You have to figure out for yourself which one it is, but it's probably 1, 2 or 3.

Save, and run

$ sudo sensors -s

which will reload the sensors.conf's set variables.
Run sensors again and check if there is an RPM readout. If not, increase the divisor to 8, 16 or 32. YMMV!

Here is a sample from my sensors.conf

chip "w83627thf-*" "w83637hf-*"

    label in0 "VCore"
    label in1 "+12V"
    label in2 "+3.3V"
    label in3 "+5V"
    label in4 "-12V"
    label in7 "V5SB"
    label in8 "VBat"

    compute in1 ((28/10)+1)*@, @/((28/10)+1)
    compute in3 ((34/51)+1)*@, @/((34/51)+1)
    compute in4 (5.14*@)-14.91, (@+14.91)/5.14
    compute in7 ((6.8/10)+1)*@ ,  @/((6.8/10)+1)

    set fan2_div 8

    <snip>

You can safely ignore anything that's not fanX_div. I would advise you to leave the other default settings as they are.


Patching pwmconfig This is no longer needed if you run Dapper! Go to the next step unless you're running Hoary.
There is a bug in pwmconfig that you need to fix.
This is true for the version currently in Hoary, version 2.8.8-7ubuntu2.

First, try running pwmconfig:

$ pwmconfig

if that gives you the following error:
/usr/sbin/pwmconfig: There are no pwm-capable sensor modules installed
than you need to apply this fix. If not, proceed to the next step.

Backup:

$ sudo cp /usr/sbin/pwmconfig /usr/sbin/pwmconfig_original

Open pwmconfig:

$ sudo gedit /usr/sbin/pwmconfig

and go to line 68. Delete these three lines:

        MATCH='*/fan[1-9]_pwm'
else
        MATCH='*/pwm[1-9]'

and replace with:

        MATCH='*/pwm[1-9]'
else
        MATCH='*/fan[1-9]_pwm'

You just turned the if/else around! Now pwmconfig should work.

Run pwmconfig

$ sudo pwmconfig

One by one, all fans will be tested for 'speedcontrol' (Pulse Width Modulation, actually). Follow the onscreen help. Pwmconfig will write a config file in /etc. I set the interval to 5 seconds, just to be safe, but 10 should be fine too. Let the script run until you see "Select fan output to configure, or other action:" (all default options are fine, you can basically enter you way through the script).

Now press 5 to look at the configuration file. Press 1 to edit settings. Select a temperature that matches your CPU temp (usually the same number as the fan number, but check and double check!). Go with the defaults until you see: "Enter the minimum PWM value (0-255)
at which the fan STARTS spinning (press t to test) (150):"
Here, press t.
Keep pressing enter until you hear (or better: see) the fan spinning up. Then, press y and enter.
Same for the next step, but the other way around. If you see the fan stops spinning, press y and enter.

Press 5 again to display the config file one more time, then press 4 to save and quit. Almost there!

My /etc/fancontrol config looks like this:

INTERVAL=5
FCTEMPS= 1-0290/pwm2=1-0290/temp2_input
FCFANS= 1-0290/pwm2=1-0290/fan2_input
MINTEMP= 1-0290/pwm2=43
MAXTEMP= 1-0290/pwm2=53
MINSTART= 1-0290/pwm2=120
MINSTOP= 1-0290/pwm2=105

this is an example!

Starting fancontrol
The last step is to start up fancontrol. Enter this:

$ sudo fancontrol &

Now you can see and hear that your CPU fan is running slower, unless your CPU heats up. Good stuff!

[B}Starting fancontrol automatically on boot[/B]
Create a file called "fancontrol" in /etc/init.d:

sudo gedit /etc/init.d/fancontrol

And paste this in there:

#!/bin/sh
#
# Fancontrol start script.
#

set -e

# Defaults
DAEMON=/usr/sbin/fancontrol
PIDFILE=/var/run/fancontrol.pid
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin

test -f $DAEMON || exit 0

. /lib/lsb/init-functions


case "$1" in
        start)
                log_begin_msg "Starting fancontrol daemon..."
                start-stop-daemon --start -o -q -m -b -p $PIDFILE -x $DAEMON
                log_end_msg $?
                ;;
        stop)
                log_begin_msg "Stopping fancontrol daemon..."
                start-stop-daemon --stop -o -q -p $PIDFILE
                log_end_msg $?
                ;;
        force-reload|restart)
                sh $0 stop
                sh $0 start
                ;;
        *)
                log_success_msg "Usage: /etc/init.d/fancontrol {start|stop|restart|force-reload}"
                log_success_msg "  start - starts system-wide fancontrol service"
                log_success_msg "  stop  - stops system-wide fancontrol service"
                log_success_msg "  restart, force-reload - starts a new system-wide fancontrol service"
                exit 1
                ;;
esac

exit 0

Save and close, then run

sudo update-rc.d fancontrol defaults 99 01

and you should be set.

(Thanks, Mr Wonka and jotape99!)


I would advise you to have some sort of fan/temp monitoring software installed. There is a nice one in gkrellm, or you can use xsensors.

Most of this howto is from here:
http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/sho...10&postcount=5
Check if your hardware is supported here:
http://www.almico.com/forumindex.php