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Thread: Dell Inspiron 1545 - Temperatures and keyboard problem

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
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    3

    Question Dell Inspiron 1545 - Temperatures and keyboard problem

    Hello!

    I installed Ubuntu 10.10 on my half year old Dell Inspiron 1545/9985 and encountered two problems.

    The fan doesn't seem to accelerate when reaching 49°C which it usually does in Windows and pushes CPU and GPU temps back to 38°C - 40°C. Idle degrees are around 50°C for all censors which is 10°C higher compared to Windows (HDD temperature is about the same I guess, slight higher maybe).
    lm-sensors doesn't seem to be able to read fan speed either and when I try "sudo fancontrol" in the terminal I get the error
    "Loading configuration from /etc/fancontrol ...
    Error: Can't read configuration file"

    It never seems to actually boost the fan when reaching higher temperatures either, it's a loud laptop normally but I hear almost nothing using Ubuntu.

    Is there a way to fix this or is the Inspiron incompatible with Ubuntu at the moment?

    The other problem is that when using my laptop keyboard it sometimes skips to another part in the text, minimizes windows or changes tab automatically. This has never happened before!

    What should I do?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2011
    Beans
    4

    Re: Dell Inspiron 1545 - Temperatures and keyboard problem

    Right...I have an inspiron 1520 and had fan issues.
    I fixed them using i8kutils, which is derived from the source code of i8k for windows, which was reverse engineered from Dell code.

    Note that i8k will let you run a fan on a dell at 0 (off), 1 (slow), or 2 (fast), and that there is a left and a right fan setting. Right and left don't seem to have anything to do with physical location- my machine has a fan on the left and thinks it's the right fan.

    i8kfan - 0 sets the right fan to 0 (off), left unchanged
    i8kfan - 1 sets the right fan to 1 (slow), left unchanged
    i8kfan - 2 sets the right fan to 2 (fast), left unchanged

    i8kfan 2 - sets the left fan to 2 (fast), right unchanged.

    i8kfan 2 2 sets both to fast

    Here are my instructions

    Install the i8k utility:
    sudo apt-get install i8kutils

    Create a fan script (I called it fan.sh), you will need to know the path to it:
    #!/bin/sh
    #Author jd.jayded
    #note: the temperatures set here may be overly conservative. Set as you wish.
    fan1=25 #turn fan on to 1
    fan2=45 #turn fan on to 2
    fanBack1=35 #turn fan back to 1
    minFan2=30 #minium time for fan to be spinning on mode two (seconds)
    minFan1=0 #minimum time for fan to be spinning on mode one (seconds), set to zero because it can be necessary to increase speeds

    while true ; do
    i=`i8kctl temp | tr -dc '[0-9]'` #i8kctl temp gives you current temperature, piped to trim to one numbers
    if [ $i -ge $fan1 ] ; #if it's greater than or equal to fan1
    then
    if [ $i -ge $fan2 ] ;
    then
    i8kfan 2 2
    sleep $minFan2
    else
    if [ $i -ge $fanBack1 ] ;
    then
    sleep $minFan2
    else
    i8kfan 1 1
    sleep $minFan1
    fi
    fi
    else
    i8kfan 0 0
    fi
    sleep 1s #run every second, not counting sleep used as a minimum amount of time to have a fan on
    done


    Create a start up script. I called it startup.sh
    #!/bin/sh
    modprobe i8k
    /path/to/fan.sh #location of the fan script


    Now execute these commands:
    sudo ln -s -T /path/to/startup.sh /etc/init.d/startup.sh
    sudo update-rc.d [startup script name] defaults

    The first command gives you a symbolic link to your startup script in the /etc/init.d directory
    The second command adds the startup script to the default runlevels. It's automatically run when you turn on the computer. That will give you warnings because I didn't bother learning the proper format for a System-V init script. man update-rc.d for more about init scripts.

    EDIT: sorry about the tabbing dying. I'm new to these forums.
    Last edited by jd.jayded; May 24th, 2011 at 11:10 PM. Reason: Tabbing

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Beans
    10

    Re: Dell Inspiron 1545 - Temperatures and keyboard problem

    Is this working for the Dell L70xxx series? There is no confirmation in this thread.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Beans
    3

    Re: Dell Inspiron 1545 - Temperatures and keyboard problem

    Thanks for the replies!

    One year later with the same problem. I haven't used Ubuntu since 10.10 because graphic drivers acting up in 11.04 and 11.10 thankfully that seems to have been sorted out in 12.04.

    Thanks for the guide however that did not work for me, the fans are still in "lazy mode" (I guess setting 1?) and temperatures are still acting up: http://ubuntuone.com/73gEpdsQnRWatKiUBdI4K5 . The graph shows the computer in average load with Spotify, Xchat and the Software Center in use. Otherwise temperatures seem to idle pretty much at 50 - 52 degrees which is pretty high imo.

    How do I revert the changes made by using the guide?

    Has anyone come up with a solution to the Inspiron temperature problem? I've tried another guide http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1636686 which didn't work either.

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