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**lmilano** · Aug 30, 2009, 03:35 PM

Re: /etc/fancontrol is blank, sensors dont shows fans

Hi!

Did you run this?

Code:

sudo sensors-detect

**gmg9** · Sep 01, 2009, 11:44 AM

Re: /etc/fancontrol is blank, sensors dont shows fans

Originally posted by lmilano

Hi!

Did you run this?

Code:

sudo sensors-detect

yea, i have run this before i run "sensors".

**dibl** · Sep 01, 2009, 12:04 PM

Re: /etc/fancontrol is blank, sensors dont shows fans

For reasons that I have never learned (nor spent time researching), the fan speed data that I saw in Dapper and (I think) Edgy has never again been seen on my rig:

Intel X6800 on D975XBX2 mobo

It is an annoyance -- I sympathize. I assume that there was some unnoticed regression in a kernel module in early 2007, because I haven't seen a fan speed report ever since, on any Debian Linux installed on my hardware.

Because I have my CPU overclocked fairly aggressively, I monitor the temps -- I've used Gkrellm for several years, and now Conky for the past few months (don't ask how long it took getting Conky fully functional ...). So, I can report with confidence that my CPU cores idle at about 47°C, and run up to 75°C when I'm pushing them to 100% for some time. I can, by direct observation, see that the fans are functioning reasonably well with the on-board firmware, regardless of my lack of sensor detection.

So, that's what I can share on the subject -- the fan speed would be lovely to see, but the temps are what is really important, so if you monitor that, maybe you can be confident that the CPU is OK.

EDIT: Here is an exercise for the serious student:

http://www.tjansson.dk/?p=325

which also references this: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=42737

**gmg9** · Sep 01, 2009, 01:45 PM

Re: /etc/fancontrol is blank, sensors dont shows fans

Originally posted by dibl

For reasons that I have never learned (nor spent time researching), the fan speed data that I saw in Dapper and (I think) Edgy has never again been seen on my rig:

Intel X6800 on D975XBX2 mobo

It is an annoyance -- I sympathize. I assume that there was some unnoticed regression in a kernel module in early 2007, because I haven't seen a fan speed report ever since, on any Debian Linux installed on my hardware.

Because I have my CPU overclocked fairly aggressively, I monitor the temps -- I've used Gkrellm for several years, and now Conky for the past few months (don't ask how long it took getting Conky fully functional ...). So, I can report with confidence that my CPU cores idle at about 47°C, and run up to 75°C when I'm pushing them to 100% for some time. I can, by direct observation, see that the fans are functioning reasonably well with the on-board firmware, regardless of my lack of sensor detection.

So, that's what I can share on the subject -- the fan speed would be lovely to see, but the temps are what is really important, so if you monitor that, maybe you can be confident that the CPU is OK.

EDIT: Here is an exercise for the serious student:

http://www.tjansson.dk/?p=325

which also references this: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=42737

thx for shareing ur information. do u think my cpu temp is normal ??
my hdd temp also max goto 40-41C.

when i run "pwmconfig", i got this:
/usr/sbin/pwmconfig: There are no pwm-capable sensor modules installed

**dibl** · Sep 02, 2009, 03:48 AM

Re: /etc/fancontrol is blank, sensors dont shows fans

Right -- "no pwm-capable modules" is the answer. There obviously are pwm-capable kernel modules for some hardware -- primarily laptops, where the thermal challenges are much more severe than on our desktops. But not for you and me.

From sensors, on my "just now woke it up" desktop, I get:

Code:

dibl@karmic:~$ sensors
coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 0:   +47.0°C (high = +86.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

coretemp-isa-0001
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 1:   +47.0°C (high = +86.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

That is rather warm for an idling CPU, but I have it overclocked in BIOS to 3.45GHz (stock default is 2.93). A lot of desktop CPUs run 35°C to 40°C when nothing is going on. I put an Arctic Freezer Pro heatsink on it when I built it, and left the Intel heatsink in the box.

Yes, CPU temps of 85°C and below are perfectly safe, although cooler is always better for life expectancy in electronics. When I run indexing on a certain large database that I run on a Win XP VM, which is apparently a single-thread operation, it will work both cores in alternating fashion and push them each up to 100% and 75°C - 80°C for a few seconds. More typical, when browsing, playing flash videos in a browser window, etc. is 50°C - 55°C. If I get it busy with the VM on one side of the compiz cube, and GoogleEarth on another, and the browser on another, and start spinning things, it will push the GPU which in turns puts part of the load on the CPU, and they'll both warm up a bit and start kicking in their fans, but usually neither goes above 65°C or so.

Your temps look fine. My hard drives are showing 34°C and 35°C this morning. I have a 200GB Maxtor that ran warmer -- it would be at 45°C all the time. It's now in a drawer with all my music backed up on it -- it is a model that has a dodgy quality/reliability record (I found out after I bought it) so I only ran it a couple of years and decided to skip the drama and get a bigger Western Digital. I don't know what the "general" upper temperature limit for safe operation of hard drives is, but again, they're all hotter in laptops than in desktops. You can probably get Mr. Google to help you chase down the specs for your model(s) and see what the OEM says about its thermal limits.

The best thing you can do for thermal control on your desktop is keep an eye on your PSU fan and any other case exhaust fans, as well as the air inlet which may have a fan and a filter (my Antec 300 case has a filter and a fan). My filter needs removed and cleaned about twice a year.

Hope this helps. Let us know if you develop a pwm kernel module for Intel boards.

**dibl** · Sep 02, 2009, 06:59 PM

Re: /etc/fancontrol is blank, sensors dont shows fans

Followup -- did a little research today.

First, I examined my BIOS options. Interestingly, in the Intel BIOS on this board, there is a page for "Hardware Monitoring", and on that page I can highlight the one and only menu option, which is titled something like "Display Values", and I press Enter and see all kinds of thermal, fan speed, and voltage status readings. It shows the speeds for the CPU fan and the rear case exhaust fan. My case has two other fans, but those speeds aren't showing, for some reason (probably related to the proficiency of the guy who built it ...). Man I would love to see that stuff in my Conky, with the OS running. But there's no capability to do anything but enjoy the BIOS view, and press Esc to leave it.

So, when you run "sudo sensors-detect" after installing lm-sensors, it steps you through all of its device searching, and shows "YES" and/or "SUCCESS" for each device that it finds. I had never paid real close attention to it, but this time I watched for a detection of a fan speed sensor. I was rewarded when I saw this:

Code:

Some Super I/O chips contain embedded sensors. We have to write to
standard I/O ports to probe them. This is usually safe.      
Do you want to scan for Super I/O sensors? (YES/no):       
Probing for Super-I/O at 0x2e/0x2f                
Trying family `National Semiconductor'...          No  
Trying family `SMSC'...                   Yes  
Found `SMSC LPC47M182 Super IO Fan Sensors'            
  (but not activated)                      
Probing for Super-I/O at 0x4e/0x4f                
Trying family `National Semiconductor'...          No  
Trying family `SMSC'...                   No  
Trying family `VIA/Winbond/Fintek'...            No  
Trying family `ITE'...                   No

So, I learned that the fan speed sensor device is a SMSC LPC47M182. Next, I went to this page:

http://www.lm-sensors.org/wiki/Devices

and scrolled down to the SMSC devices, and found my device. Unhappily (but confirming my worst suspicions), there's a cryptic note from 2006 that says "Often disabled, no plan".

A bit of googling and reading the results indicates that the plan has been followed, exactly.

End of story.

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