Settings for Fan

On Tue, 2006-05-30 at 20:14 +0200, JC Denton wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> Where can I configure my fan? I have a Thinkpad R40 and
the fan starts
> realy often.

Except in rare cases where the manufacturer got it wrong,
you _don't_
want to configure your fan, IMHO.

I have an Inspiron 9100, and I can control the fan from
software
(i8kutils, only for Dell's) but I don't use it because the
bios makes a
better choice.

Therefore, I'd:
1. have a look for settings in the bios about fan speeds and
temps, and
2. make sure you're not running anything that is trying to
control the
fan, and hence fighting with the bios.  In which case you
might get high
fan speeds, or weird alternating fan speeds.
3. Try another OS and see if the fan behaviour is the same.

HTH,
-- 
Iain Buchanan <iaindb at netspace dot net dot au>

There is something in the pang of change
More than the heart can bear,
Unhappiness remembering happiness.
		-- Euripides

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On 5/30/06, JC Denton <jcdentonmailyahoo.de> wrote:
> Hi!
>
>  Where can I configure my fan? I have a Thinkpad R40
and the fan starts
> realy often. The thing is, the air coming out of the
notebook is almost
> cold! Also the fan runs always in the highest mode. But
is had at least 2
> modes. I have all the acpi stuff enabled in the kernel
but no bios-support.
>
>  Can I change the temperature values (I know it is some
risk  )?
>
>  Can I set the fan speed somewhere?

Is your fan controlled by ACPI?  Do you have the ACPI fan
driver
built?  If both are true, you should get some files in
/proc/acpi/fan
that may allow you to manually control the fan.

You might also see if 'cat
/proc/acpi/thermal_zone/*/cooling_mode' or
'cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/*/trip_points' report
anything
interesting.

Unfortunately the fan in my Dell is controlled by the
hardware or
BIOS, so I can't be of a lot of help here.

-Richard
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On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 09:14 +0200, JC Denton wrote:
> 
>  This what I get:
>  
>  $ cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THM0/trip_points
>  critical (S5):           97 C 

I _think_ (note: think) that when
/proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THM/temperature
reaches
/proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THM/trip_points
then something happens!

Whether that "something" is kernel triggered,
bios triggered, or what, I
don't know.

I don't think this affects your fan directly though, rather
your fan
(obviously) affects /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THM/temperature.

Did you check out the bios?

Did you look at /proc/acpi/fan, as suggested?
-- 
Iain Buchanan <iaindb at netspace dot net dot au>

We is confronted with insurmountable opportunities.
		-- Walt Kelly, "Pogo"

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On 5/31/06, JC Denton <jcdentonmailyahoo.de> wrote:
> Hi!
>
>  This what I get:
>
>  $ cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THM0/trip_points
>  critical (S5):           97 C
>  passive:                 95 C: tc1=5 tc2=4 tsp=600
devices=0xc14defa0

Ok, assuming I am reading
/usr/src/linux/drivers/acpi/thermal.c
correctly, these mean your system will start throttling the
CPU when
it reaches 95C, and shutdown at 97C.  Unfortunately you do
not have an
'active' mode that would allow you to set the temperature
when the fan
turns on or off.

Unless you have something under /proc/acpi/fan, it looks
like your fan
is controlled by either the hardware or the BIOS.

>  $ cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THM0/cooling_mode
>  <setting not supported>
>  cooling mode:   passive
>
>  I am not used to this stuff yet. What does it mean?

It means that if the system gets too warm, all the OS can do
about it
is to throttle the CPU.  No fan control is available....

> Should I build the bios support in the kernel?

What do you mean?  Do you mean APM support?  If so, no, that
almost
certainly will not help.

-Richard

PS. Please remember that sending html emails and top-posting
are
generally considered bad-form on this list.
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