Fan speeds in Fedora on HP Core i7 system
My main Fedora workstation is an HP desktop. It’s got a Core i7 quad CPU (Q9300), 8GB RAM, and dual boots Windows 7 and Fedora 13.
Dear lazyweb, how can I make this system as quite on Fedora as it is on Windows? It’s absolutely silent when Win7 is running, but when Fedora is running the fans are quite noisy. Most of the time the system has a load average of 0.00 so it isn’t CPU spiking causing the fans to go full-bore. For temperatures I have Core0 at about 51C and Core1 at 44C and the other two cores at 48C, but the fans are running at 1583 and 1160 rpm. I can’t get the sensors to pick up temps or fan speeds on Win7 for some reason so don’t have a basis for comparison (tried a few of those “gadgets” and none show me temperatures).
There has to be a way to lower the fan speed on Fedora but I can’t find it. I tried fancontrol from lm_sensors but it complains about not being able to manually set the fans and there’s nothing I can see in the BIOS that’s even remotely relevant.
Am I doomed to a noisy Fedora box? Or is there a way I can make this thing quieter short of buying new fans? (The latter is an option I suppose, but if Win7 can run perfectly silent, then I’m of the frame of mind that Fedora should too). Running an up to date F13 (wheeee!!). Thanks for any suggestions.
Stephen Smoogen
Well it could be one of several reasons:
1) Windows turns off the fans until a higher threshhold of temperatures is reached. Do the fans ever come on in Windows? I know of several boxes that have had burnout issues because Windows (or Linux) have gotten wrong settings and left fans off too long.
2) The Thinkpad controls it via acpi so I am guessing the HP will do so similarly
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_control_fan_speed
I do not have a RAD enough system like yours to match it :0.
May 25, 2010 @ 10:15:15Chris
It’s a kernel bug, I think — see http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.acpi.devel/44618/focus=46072
Presumably there’ll be a kernel fix along in due course.
May 25, 2010 @ 12:14:44vdanen
Stephen… I don’t think this will work. In fact, I have nothing in /proc/acpi/fan/… this seems odd to me.
Chris, that looks like that might be about right (checking /proc/acpi/processor/CPU[0-3]/power shows the CPUs in state C0). Ok, so probably nothing I can do until a kernel fix is integrated. Darn.
May 25, 2010 @ 12:50:51Chris
> Ok, so probably nothing I can do until a kernel fix is integrated. Darn.
I’d suggest filing a Fedora bug against the kernel for it. The kernel developers may appreciate your help testing out a patch, and knowing that it’s affecting their users directly.
May 25, 2010 @ 13:03:55vdanen
Yeah, I was going to file a bug but wanted to make sure that it wasn’t a configuration thing first and end up wasting people’s time.
May 25, 2010 @ 13:09:39RW
.. I can’t get the sensors to pick up temps or fan speeds on Win7 …
Intel® Desktop Utilities ?, maybe …
May 25, 2010 @ 19:57:10DanielDevine
Are you sure it is the CPU Fan making the noise? It could well be your graphics card.
May 25, 2010 @ 20:56:36I have a Nvidia 9600GT and when it is not running the proprietary Nvidia drivers it is *loud*. Perhaps you should check.
vdanen
RW: errrmm… those did not come with my box. I’ll have to look for them (I never really use Windows, so I don’t know all the resources — even the logical ones).
Daniel: that’s a good idea. There is an nvidia card in this machine, and I’m not using the proprietary drivers. Something to check before filing a bug. Thanks for that tip!
May 25, 2010 @ 20:59:56C.Lee Taylor
I was looking into something similar on CentOS … You need to track down something called PWM Fans and lm-sensors … There is info regarding how to control fans and temp and I believe that Fedora should be up to spec, just not tested.
Happy Hunting!
May 26, 2010 @ 02:24:47vdanen
Ok, it is definitely the nvidia video card. Dang. Will have to figure out how to get the proprietary drivers installed. Failing that, any suggestions on a good video card that will work on Fedora and not be so bloody loud? I’m not doing any heavy graphical stuff on here at all (it’s a GeForce G210).
May 27, 2010 @ 07:54:41vdanen
Oh this is a sweet sound to my ears! Just got the kmod-nvidia installed from rpmfusion and as soon as X started the nvidia card’s fan was silent. I can hear myself think again! Thank you Daniel for the hint! =)
May 27, 2010 @ 08:25:14vdanen
More to remind myself than anything, but this is the rpmfusion page on installing/configuring the proprietary nvidia drivers: http://rpmfusion.org/Howto/nVidia
May 27, 2010 @ 09:22:33