laptop fan does not stop

josephg · Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2016 2:17 pm Post subject: laptop fan does not stop

once it starts, my laptop fan does not seem to stop even when it has cooled down. i used to reboot to stop the fan, but now i find a suspend is enough.

initially i thought this was because my gentoo was always compiling something or the other. but now that my gentoo has settled down a bit, most of the time my loadavg hovers around the bottom.

the fan spins up correctly when coretemp heats up, but does not turn off when coretemp goes down. i can even feel the cool drafts on myself.

this time, the fan started during an emerge sync/update, which finished long ago. after that the screen went to sleep, and now coretemp is down to 30°C, but the fan is still whirring away. i do a suspend to stop the fan, resume and continue working.

i have noticed that this does not happen on debian/arch. what might have i misconfigured in gentoo, and/or what should i be looking for?
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"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." Edward Abbey

Buffoon · Veteran Joined: 17 Jun 2015 Posts: 1369 Location: EU or US

What brand and model?

josephg · Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2016 2:50 pm Post subject:

Toshiba A300-2C2
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"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." Edward Abbey

josephg · Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2016 9:15 pm Post subject:

it's just happened again. fan is still blowing away.. after a long time since the kernel compile and emerge finished.. coretemp is 33"C.. i think cold enough.. fan not stopping. no messages in dmesg.
what should i be looking for?
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"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." Edward Abbey

Buffoon · Veteran Joined: 17 Jun 2015 Posts: 1369 Location: EU or US

There are some utilities in portage, see app-laptop/*.

josephg · Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2016 10:12 pm Post subject:

the fan is still whirring after a few hours on coretemp scraping the bottom.. now 38"C

russK · l33t Joined: 27 Jun 2006 Posts: 665

There may be a package that helps there, but also sometimes simpler approach is smart fan settings in BIOS.

Regards

Ant P. · Watchman Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 6920

sys-apps/lm_sensors

Logicien · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 2:52 am Post subject:

Yes, lm_sensors contain a service application call fancontrol. It work for me on an Asus EeePc 900 and a Thinkpad T420. There is a problem with Fancontrol.

You can configure Fancontrol with the command pwmconfig. It create a file /etc/fancontrol who use the detected paths to the sensors and fans. After a reboot or a shutdown the Linux path to those devices can have change. You have to reconfigure Fancontrol to use the new devices paths. It is not practicle but Fancontrol work ok when the devices paths are good in /etc/fancontrol.

I manage only the processor fan with Fancontrol. It may not be able to control other fans.
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Paul

josephg · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 7:48 am Post subject:

thanks folks. i had installed lm_sensors a few days before i created this thread. it didn't work as expected, and i removed it as i don't like keeping useless stuff. i will try it again now.
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"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." Edward Abbey

josephg · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 7:55 am Post subject:

i ran sensors-detect and said yes to everything. the only module it found was coretemp. i wonder if i have crippled something, and it's supposed to find more things on my laptop. this is what's generated:

josephg · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 7:57 am Post subject:

josephg · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 8:32 am Post subject:

Zucca · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 11:30 am Post subject:

I remember I had to install a seperate module for the kernel to have at least some control over my Acer laptop fan. The module was named acerhdf. And to control the fan I neede to insert module parameters while inserting the module into the kernel. So basically I needed to edit the kernel command line.

And the case with this might be somewhat the same.

Toshiba A300s use actually omnibook (HP, yes) kernel module for acpi stuff.
There's no ebuild for it (afaik), so you must install it manually.
Before you go check that your laptop has Phoenix BIOS.

Then I'll redirect you to https://sourceforge.net/projects/omnibook/ and wish the best luck. :)
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..: Zucca :..

josephg · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 11:59 am Post subject:

i tested this in debian on the same laptop, and the above commands do the same, ie nothing! but i don't have this fan problem in debian. it seems to stop automatically when cputemp goes down.

Zucca · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 12:07 pm Post subject:

josephg · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 12:23 pm Post subject:

Zucca · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 12:34 pm Post subject:

Just in case... You have these options configured as modules or in kernel?:

CONFIG_ACPI
CONFIG_ACPI_FAN
CONFIG_ACPI_THERMAL
CONFIG_ACPI_PROCESSOR

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..: Zucca :..

josephg · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 1:22 pm Post subject:

Zucca · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 1:30 pm Post subject:

josephg · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 2:10 pm Post subject:

Zucca · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 2:27 pm Post subject:

josephg · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 3:04 pm Post subject:

Zucca · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 3:13 pm Post subject:

josephg · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 3:30 pm Post subject:

when my fan blows aggressively and the coretemp is very low, i can usually trigger a suspend which stops the fan.

i meant i don't know how to kickstart the fan to start blowing. suspend/resume does not start the fan on this laptop.
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"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." Edward Abbey