Fan speed

[gshockxcc]

When I was running Ubuntu, I noticed that the fan would ramp up or down more frequently - just for something as simple as opening a browser or the file manager. I didn't have any sensors installed, so I didn't check the CPU temp under those circumstances.

Now that I have Kubuntu installed, I am using one of the CPU temp widgets and it's measuring about 120F. It seems a little hot, and it's creeping up slightly from where it was a couple of hours ago, around 107. I know the desktop widgets drive up the CPU temp, so I'm not surprised.

I did a quick search and found the Ubuntu command: sudo sensors-detect
But I got a "command not found" error

I'm a little concerned that the fan speed isn't ramping up like it used to. I've got a browser, Dolphin, Konsole, and about 6 widgets on the desktop.

As I am posting, it's dropped from about 120F to 118F to 116. The fan didn't seem to speed up until the temp got over 150F, which seems WAY too high.

I tried to install a Fan Speed widget, but I'm getting a python ScriptEngine error. The widget is called "pyCatalysMonitor" from the Plasma Add-On Installer.

Is there a different set of sensors commands to install in Kubuntu?

Thanks.

[vinnywright]

the usefull comand is

sensors

or "sensors -f" for fahrenheit

vinny@vinny-Bonobo-Extreme:~$ sensors
acpitz-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:        +53.0°C  (crit = +120.0°C)

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Physical id 0:  +54.0°C  (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 0:         +54.0°C  (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1:         +49.0°C  (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 2:         +51.0°C  (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 3:         +49.0°C  (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

vinny@vinny-Bonobo-Extreme:~$ sensors -f
acpitz-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:       +127.4°F  (crit = +248.0°F)

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Physical id 0: +129.2°F  (high = +183.2°F, crit = +212.0°F)
Core 0:        +129.2°F  (high = +183.2°F, crit = +212.0°F)
Core 1:        +123.8°F  (high = +183.2°F, crit = +212.0°F)
Core 2:        +120.2°F  (high = +183.2°F, crit = +212.0°F)
Core 3:        +122.0°F  (high = +183.2°F, crit = +212.0°F)

these are normal temps @hear ,,,,,,,,if the command sensors gives a "command not found" then you nead to install the "lm-sensors" package

sudo apt install lm-sensors

the "sensors-detect" is for ,,,just that detecting if you have any and what they are ,,,,but be careful their is a warning ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, from "man sensors-detect"

DESCRIPTION
       sensors-detect  is an interactive program that will walk you through the process of scanning your system for various
       hardware monitoring chips, or sensors, supported by libsensors(3), or more generally by the lm_sensors tool suite.

       sensors-detect will look for the following devices, in order:

       ·      Sensors embedded in CPUs, south bridges and memory controllers.

       ·      Sensors embedded in Super I/O chips.

       ·      Hardware monitoring chips accessed through ISA I/O ports.

       ·      Hardware monitoring chips reachable over the SMBus or more generally any I2C bus on your system.

       As the last two detection steps can cause trouble on some systems, they are normally not  attempted  if  the  second
       detection  step  led  to the discovery of a Super I/O chip with complete hardware monitoring features.  However, the
       user is always free to ask for all detection steps if so is his/her wish. This can be useful if a given  system  has
       more than one hardware monitoring chip. Some vendors are known to do this, most notably Asus and Tyan.

OPTIONS
       --auto Run  in automatic, non-interactive mode. Assume default answers to all questions. Note that this isn't neces‐
              sarily safe as the internal logic may lead to potentially dangerous probes being attempted. See  the  WARNING
              section below.

WARNING
       sensors-detect  needs  to access the hardware for most of the chip detections.  By definition, it doesn't know which
       chips are there before it manages to identify them. This means that it can access chips in a way these chips do  not
       like, causing problems ranging from SMBus lockup to permanent hardware damage (a rare case, thankfully.)

       The  authors  made  their best to make the detection as safe as possible, and it turns out to work just fine in most
       cases, however it is impossible to guarantee that sensors-detect will not lock or kill a specific system. So,  as  a
       rule  of  thumb,  you  should not run sensors-detect on production servers, and you should not run sensors-detect if
       can't afford replacing a random part of your system. Also, it is recommended to not force  a  detection  step  which
       would have been skipped by default, unless you know what you are doing.

VINNY

[gshockxcc]

Brilliant. Thanks, Vinny. I installed sensors and got the information I was looking for:

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 0:       +34.0°C  (high = +105.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 1:       +34.0°C  (high = +105.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)

dell_smm-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
Processor Fan: 3400 RPM
CPU:            +42.0°C

Can you use sensors to control the fan speed manually? Or does this only allow data collection?

Your cautions about using sensors-detect makes perfect sense. Probably a good thing to keep in mind when trying to query any part of the system.

My reason for asking is more out of curiosity. I'd like to see if I can drive fan speed manually. My work computer is a Lenovo, and it has an application that let's me manually control the fan speed if I want to squeeze a little more performance out of it. We are talking about splitting hairs on that laptop, but for my needs, every little bit helps.

For this KDE Dell, it's a nice to have, and I can learn something.

[vinnywright]

"sensors" is onle data displaying .

their is an application that will let you set your own speed to heat range settings ,,,,,,,,,,but in all realty their is no need to .

vinny@vinny-Bonobo-Extreme:~$ apt search fancont
Sorting... Done
Full Text Search... Done
fancontrol/xenial,xenial 1:3.4.0-2 all
  utility to control the fan speed

it will only let you set the threshold limits for going to higher speeds and this done by editing files ,, their is no "on the fly" GUI to do this ,,,but you should be ok as they are as it will go to it's high speed anyway when it starts to get to hot ,,,,,

their may be settings in your BIOS to set these as well.

VINNY

[gshockxcc]

Now, I am starting to notice a significant difference in graphics performance between the KDE workspace, and the Gnome. Typically, after waking from sleep and starting a browser or file manager, the fan speed would ramp up and stay there for a while, especially if I was viewing .mp4 or other VLC video playback.

However, I've noticed in KDE, the windows are much more responsive, videos play faster, and it seems that the KDE is just better suited to the hardware than Gnome. Both were 64-bit installations.

Maybe it's just that KDE isn't causing elevated temps like Gnome was?

[Teunis]

Gnome probably uses Compiz which can be a bit of a drain on resources.

[gshockxcc]

Vinny,
Just wanted to thank you for the tips. These sensors worked out really well. I appreciate the advice.

Still loving Kubuntu. Hard to believe that I have missed it this much.

I have two Mac laptops, and I much prefer KDE over OSX.