Fan issues - they just will not turn on!

[51m0n]

Hi,

I'm running 9.10 on an HP nx6125.

The fans worked fine on the previous install on here (7.10 IIRC), but now I get Critical Thermal shutdowns.

If I try this:-

sudo echo on > /proc/acpi/fan/FAN/state

on any of the available FAN directories in acpi/fan (of which there are 4, C260, C261, C262 & C262, which seems a little odd), I get this response:-

bash: C260/state: Permission denied

if I sudo -i into a root shell and then issue the same command I get:-

C260/state: No such file or directory

Which is very very odd.

I've tried a bunch of things from other threads I've found, with no success at all, has anyone got any suggestions

[amenditman]

Re: Fan issues - they just will not turn on!

Try running the system with a live cd and check if the problem persists.

If the fans do not run on live cd it is hardware not the OS.

[51m0n]

Re: Fan issues - they just will not turn on!

Fans run perfectly under windows dual boot.

Fans ran perfectly under previous version of kubuntu (7.10 IIRC)

Much more fiddling (with a hoover ready to turn on when temps reach 80 degrees - now theres a cooling solution) lead me to believe that the fans are coming on, in fact they ramp up slightly at 70 degrees, but the thing is they come on too little and too late.

Is there any way to edit the points at which the fans come on, and how hard they come on?

Or could it be that when they are needed the CPU is all kinds of busy and the fan checking doesnt have high enough priority?

[amenditman]

Re: Fan issues - they just will not turn on!

So, definitely a software config problem.

I love that genius cooling solution. Is that invention open source hardware?
I want to use it next time I need to test a system with no fans.

I have never seen the hardware not get priority under high load.

So I suspect we need someone with more detailed knowledge than me to help get into the thermal sensors and how they control the fans.

Bob

[dibl]

Re: Fan issues - they just will not turn on!

Do you need to install lm-sensors, and run sensors-detect?

[Snowhog]

Re: Fan issues - they just will not turn on!

Is there any way to edit the points at which the fans come on, and how hard they come on?

PowerDevil. Check the settings there. There are three IIRC. One is 'quite' - the fans wont run as often or as hard/long. One is 'performance' - keep my CPU cool, fans run more often and harder.

Those aren't the exact phraseologies, but check those settings.

[51m0n]

Re: Fan issues - they just will not turn on!

Great - where is powerdevil?

This seems possibly related to the CPU upclocking to 1800 from its relaxed 800MHz 'normal' state.

[Snowhog]

Re: Fan issues - they just will not turn on!

Desktop PC? I'm at work - away from my home laptop - so ...

Look in K > System Settings (maybe Advanced) for the app that controls power management.

[51m0n]

Re: Fan issues - they just will not turn on!

Plenty in there about power management, nothing about fans

[51m0n]

Re: Fan issues - they just will not turn on!

Bump for any other ideas of how to get my fans to turn on earlier?

lm-sensors cant do a pwmconfig, I get this:-

/usr/sbin/pwmconfig: There are no pwm-capable sensor modules installed

Which is not helpful!

Tried running sensors to get some info and got this:-

sensors
acpitz-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1: +44.0°C (crit = +94.8°C)
temp2: +50.0°C (crit = +100.0°C)
temp3: +20.0°C (crit = +100.0°C)

k8temp-pci-00c3
Adapter: PCI adapter
Core0 Temp: +45.0°C

adm1032-i2c-0-4c
Adapter: SMBus PIIX4 adapter at 8200
M/B Temp: +50.0°C (low = -128.0°C, high = +90.0°C)
(crit = +101.0°C, hyst = +91.0°C)
CPU Temp: +53.9°C (low = -128.0°C, high = +67.0°C)
(crit = +92.0°C, hyst = +82.0°C)



Dont know about any of you lot but I see no fans listed, and acpitz-virtual-0 looks a bit weird too!

[amenditman]

Re: Fan issues - they just will not turn on!

No fans listed, possibly no sensors for those. Maybe just configure in the bios and leave it.

The temps listed don't really seem to bad, but they will rise under load and that is where you need to get temps.

When I build a new box I usually just turn it on and go to the bios screen where the fan settings are and let it sit and idle for a long while to see what the fans and temps do. Then I go in and open a bunch of apps and web browsers with multiple tabs each. Try running a movie in dragon and some music in amarok and watching videos on the internet at youtube and hulu and then open a virtual machine and run windows. You get the idea.
Let it run for 30 or so minutes. Reboot and go to the bios screen and see what has happened to those temps and fan speeds.

I know there is a better way to automate this and monitor it, but I haven't dedicated the time to set it all up and save it to a usb stick for stress testing a system.

Bob

[51m0n]

Re: Fan issues - they just will not turn on!

Th BIOS offers no config other than fan alwayson when mains power is available, which is ticked.

The temps listed are fine, but thats because the machine is at as near idle as it can be. 15 minutes of flash video is enough load to heat the poor thing up so much I get a critical temp shutdown! The fans never come on to full power, they do cycle up a bit. Its like there os an incorrect multipler on something somewhere.

The fans issue was fixed in 7.10, now its weirder than ever.

The fans are working fine in the dual boot XP install.

[amenditman]

Re: Fan issues - they just will not turn on!

I really would like to know what happens with a Live CD.

I'd be very curious to know what happens on a Kubuntu Live CD of the same release as your install.

I'm pretty certain at this point that any Live CD you try will probably run just fine. It's looking like it's just a crazy bug which affects you and very few, if any, others and won't get fixed until the next release.

Might be a good time to try some other distros for a few months until the next release is available. Or, you could revert back to an older release.

Bob

[Zorael]

Re: Fan issues - they just will not turn on!

As a side note, sudo echo > file doesn't work. The echo call will have superuser permissions, but piping the output will be done as your user.

One solution is to pipe the output to tee and run it with sudo.

$ echo on | sudo tee /proc/acpi/fan/FAN/state

If the file needs to be appended with the text, such as echo on >> file would do, use 'tee -a'.

$ echo "stuff to go at the end of file" | sudo tee -a /path/file

[51m0n]

Re: Fan issues - they just will not turn on!

Nope still no joy...

~$ echo on | sudo tee /proc/acpi/fan/C260/state
[sudo] password for #####:
on
tee: /proc/acpi/fan/C260/state: Invalid argument