HOWTO: Fancontrol

[Hoyland84]

Thanks for this great HOWTO! I now have full control over the CPU fan and noise level has been reduced considerably. However the two chassis fans still make quite a lot of noise. They seem to be running at a constant full speed. I have one fan sucking in and one blowing out. They are not equipped with any RPM sensors and are parallel coupled from the same source. It doesn't seem to be a way to tweak them in the BIOS setup either.

Is there a way to reduce the voltage going out to these fans and by that way reduce their speed? I know this is possible by installing hardware and tune the voltage manually but I wondered if there is a way to do this with fancontrol or any other software.

My sensors readout:

k8temp-pci-00c3
Adapter: PCI adapter
Core0 Temp:  +34.0°C                                    
Core1 Temp:  +27.0°C                                    

it8712-isa-0290
Adapter: ISA adapter
VCore 1:     +1.14 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +4.08 V)   
VCore 2:     +4.08 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +4.08 V)   ALARM
+3.3V:       +3.30 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +4.08 V)   
+5V:         +6.85 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +6.85 V)   ALARM
+12V:       +12.54 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max = +16.32 V)   
-12V:       -15.46 V  (min = -27.36 V, max =  +3.93 V)   
-5V:         +4.03 V  (min = -13.64 V, max =  +4.03 V)   ALARM
Stdby:       +6.85 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +6.85 V)   ALARM
VBat:        +3.15 V
fan1:        872 RPM  (min =    0 RPM)
fan2:          0 RPM  (min =    0 RPM)
M/B Temp:    +32.0°C  (low  =  -1.0°C, high = +127.0°C)  sensor = transistor
CPU Temp:    +28.0°C  (low  =  -1.0°C, high = +127.0°C)  sensor = transistor
Temp3:      +128.0°C  (low  =  -1.0°C, high = +127.0°C)  sensor = disabled
cpu0_vid:   +1.550 V

[downhillgames]

They are not equipped with any RPM sensors and are parallel coupled from the same source. It doesn't seem to be a way to tweak them in the BIOS setup either.[...]but I wondered if there is a way to do this with fancontrol or any other software.

You could buy some 4-pin-to-3-pin connectors and plug them directly into your motherboard if it has the jacks. Places like xoxide, newegg, zipzoomfly, frozencpu, etc. all sell those types of parts. Take a look and see what you can find; they're really, really cheap if you shop around, usually.

Hey OP & contributors, thanks a lot for the howto. Worked great on this socket 939 mobo! (DFI Lanparty Ultra-D)

Cheers!
-Downhill

PS: Wish they'd make the process easier, though. If it's gonna probe for when the fan stops anyway, why not use the numbers it collects automatically? *sigh* Well, at least it works well enough to get the job done.

[flapane]

works for me:
Sensor: w83627hf

INTERVAL=10
FCTEMPS= hwmon0/device/pwm2=hwmon0/device/temp2_input
FCFANS= hwmon0/device/pwm2=hwmon0/device/fan1_input
MINTEMP= hwmon0/device/pwm2=36
MAXTEMP= hwmon0/device/pwm2=53
MINSTART= hwmon0/device/pwm2=2
MINSTOP= hwmon0/device/pwm2=0
MINPWM= hwmon0/device/pwm2=0
MAXPWM= hwmon0/device/pwm2=255

-=[ CPU Full: Detected 2004.568 MHz processor. ]=-
-=[ CPU Mhz: 1896.000 ]=-
-=[ CPU Temp.: +42.0°C ]=-
-=[ CPU Vcore: +1.425 ]=-
-=[ CPU Fan: 3924 ]=-

-=[ CPU Mhz: 1404.000 ]=-
-=[ CPU Temp.: +41.5°C ]=-
-=[ CPU Vcore: +1.425 ]=-
-=[ CPU Fan: 3924 ]=-

-=[ CPU Mhz: 1404.000 ]=-
-=[ CPU Temp.: +40.0°C ]=-
-=[ CPU Vcore: +1.425 ]=-
-=[ CPU Fan: 3924 ]=-

-=[ CPU Mhz: 1404.000 ]=-
-=[ CPU Temp.: +37.5°C ]=-
-=[ CPU Vcore: +1.425 ]=-
-=[ CPU Fan: 3792 ]=-

-=[ CPU Mhz: 1404.000 ]=-
-=[ CPU Temp.: +36.5°C ]=-
-=[ CPU Vcore: +1.425 ]=-
-=[ CPU Fan: 3668 ]=-

-=[ CPU Mhz: 1404.000 ]=-
-=[ CPU Temp.: +36.0°C ]=-
-=[ CPU Vcore: +1.425 ]=-
-=[ CPU Fan: 0 ]=-

w83627hf-isa-0290
Adapter: ISA adapter
VCore 1:   +1.38 V  (min =  +3.18 V, max =  +3.58 V)       ALARM
VCore 2:   +2.59 V  (min =  +3.18 V, max =  +3.58 V)       ALARM
+3.3V:     +3.31 V  (min =  +2.82 V, max =  +3.79 V)
+5V:       +5.05 V  (min =  +2.02 V, max =  +5.30 V)
+12V:     +11.92 V  (min =  +7.30 V, max =  +1.95 V)       ALARM
-12V:     -11.87 V  (min =  -7.26 V, max =  -4.30 V)       ALARM
-5V:       -5.10 V  (min =  -7.01 V, max =  -4.39 V)
V5SB:      +5.43 V  (min =  +4.92 V, max =  +1.61 V)       ALARM
VBat:      +3.57 V  (min =  +1.14 V, max =  +1.65 V)       ALARM
fan1:     3629 RPM  (min = 3443 RPM, div = 4)
fan2:        0 RPM  (min = 2205 RPM, div = 4)              ALARM
fan3:        0 RPM  (min = 1562 RPM, div = 4)              ALARM
temp1:       +28°C  (high =   -74°C, hyst =   +20°C)   sensor = thermistor   ALARM
temp2:     +36.5°C  (high =   +60°C, hyst =   +55°C)   sensor = thermistor           (beep)
temp3:     -47.0°C  (high =   +60°C, hyst =   +55°C)   sensor = thermistor
vid:      +1.425 V  (VRM Version 9.0)
alarms:
beep_enable:
          Sound alarm enabled

PC statistic
-=[ Kernel info: 2.6.22-14-386 ]=-
-=[ Ubuntu 7.10 ]=-
-=[ CPU Info: AMD Athlon(tm)  ]=-
-=[ CPU Full: Detected 2004.568 MHz processor. ]=-
-=[ CPU Mhz: 1404.000 ]=-
-=[ CPU Temp.: +37.0°C ]=-
-=[ CPU Vcore: +1.425 ]=-
-=[ CPU Fan: 3629 (pwm 20)]=-
-=[ Incoming/Outgoing: (26.2MB) / (5.9MB) ]=-
-=[ Used/Total memory: 145 MB / 504 MB ]=-
-=[ Uptime: 3 hour, 14 min, 57 sec ]=-

[tjansson]

I have been running the init.d script for a long time using 8.04 flawlessly. I recently upgraded to 9.04 and even though /usr/sbin/fancontrol still works as usual the init script does not.

Has something changed in way Ubuntu interprets the script? Furthermore I tried to find the log file where errors would be located but none of the log files in /var/log contains any information on fancontrol.

[gam3r]

hey guys - can anyone help me?

First time i set this up it worked fine, but when i rebooted the computer my fancontrol stopped working.

here is what i get when i try to run it manually:

kevalp@ ~ $ fancontrol
File /var/run/fancontrol.pid exists, is fancontrol already running?


kevalp@ ~ $ sudo /etc/init.d/fancontrol stop
* Stopping fancontrol daemon... start-stop-daemon: warning: failed to kill 6713: No such process
[ OK ]
kevalp@ ~ $ fancontrol
File /var/run/fancontrol.pid exists, is fancontrol already running?
kevalp@ ~ $

any idea?

[jazzminos]

Hi, friends. Sorry for offtopic. Is here someone who can help me and others to solve fans problem on Mac Os (Hackintosh Toshiba Laptop). I'm suffering with the extreme overheating problem caused by fans stop at boot. The topic is here http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/ind...&#entry1178198 . My email: jazzminosDOGgmailDOTcom .

Thanks for attention.

With great respect, jazzminos.

[jsa13]

OMFG, I had forgotten what "silence" meant. THANK YOU!!!

PS Worked great on 9.04!

[jsa13]

hey guys - can anyone help me?

First time i set this up it worked fine, but when i rebooted the computer my fancontrol stopped working.

here is what i get when i try to run it manually:


any idea?

Try deleting the fancontrol PID file displayed in the error.

Appears the the process was killed w/o using the init.d script and the option "stop".

[rushthedj]

Hi guys, great thread - I've got this so close to working on Jaunty.

The /etc/init.d/fancontrol script won't work unless I sudo it, which means it won't run on startup. Any ideas why it's working for all of you lot but not me? I've only been using Linux for a few weeks so apologies if I'm being stupid!

In case it's useful here's what happens when I run it (I've edited the script to remove the --background suffix from the start-stop-daemon command so you can see what's going on):

rory@Reg:~$ /etc/init.d/fancontrol start
* Starting fan speed regulator fancontrol /usr/sbin/fancontrol: line 50: /var/run/fancontrol.pid: Permission denied
Loading configuration from /etc/fancontrol ...

Common settings:
INTERVAL=10

Settings for hwmon2/device/pwm1:
Depends on hwmon2/device/temp1_input
Controls hwmon2/device/fan1_input
MINTEMP=40
MAXTEMP=55
MINSTART=80
MINSTOP=45
MINPWM=0
MAXPWM=255

Enabling PWM on fans...
/usr/sbin/fancontrol: line 230: hwmon2/device/pwm1_enable: Permission denied
Error enabling PWM on /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon2/device/pwm1
Aborting, restoring fans...
/usr/sbin/fancontrol: line 198: hwmon2/device/pwm1_enable: Permission denied
Verify fans have returned to full speed

Cheers, Rory

[d4v1dv00]

anyone has the pwconfig file for jaunty? the line 68 does not seems to be aligned with what mentioned in the root of this topic?

my line 68 script block:

DIR=/proc/sys/dev/sensors
if [ ! -d $DIR ]
then
if [ -d "/sys/class/hwmon" ]
then
SYSFS=2
DIR="/sys/class/hwmon"
elif [ -d "/sys/bus/i2c/devices" ]
then
SYSFS=1
DIR="/sys/bus/i2c/devices"
else
echo $0: 'No sensors found! (modprobe sensor modules?)'
exit 1
fi
fi