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I know there something called fancontrol, that enables you to control the speed of your system's ventilation. I'd like to let my fans spin a bit faster as my laptop is heating up very easilly. All tutorials and stuff I've found are for old versions of Ubuntu and don't seem to be working anymore.

Can anyone explain to me or give me a good link on how I can get it working on Ubuntu? Something different with the same effect is also fine.

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Abit more information about the hardware would probably help, like brand of laptop, model name/number, and bios type/version. – filescraps Sep 29 '11 at 20:22
@filescraps Dell Latitude D620: paste.ubuntu.com/699801 – RobinJ Sep 30 '11 at 14:16
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@RobinJ - have you done the usual checks for overheating issues - check for dust/blockages - look at your processor heatsink as well. Update your bios to the latest available. Have you tried adding "acpi_osi=Linux" to your grub? Are you using any extra boot options? Basically my point is - overheating issues are dust/acpi type stuff - you shouldnt ever need to manually control your fan. – fossfreedom♦ Oct 2 '11 at 10:05
Well, the fan only starts running faster when it's at about 65°C, and it seems that it's too late then because once it starts rising it doesn't go under 75°C too quickly anymore. It's a laptop and I'm not confident enough with hardware to take it appart. What does acpi_osi=Linux do? No extra boot options, just the default GRUB. – RobinJ Oct 2 '11 at 12:16
acpi_osi sometimes works when its a hardware issue - just lets the kernel to substitute acpi (power management) issues rather than for the bios to control. Its better to update the bios. On my toshiba laptop - the CPU is available via a removable panel at the bottom. Its a honeycombe design which often fills with dust - one you've done it once - its easy :) - just remove the CPU+heatsink and blow off the accumulated dust... to give you an idea - the fan often kicked in. Once I cleaned the heatsink - the temperature rarely rose above 50 and the fan never kicked in for standard working. – fossfreedom♦ Oct 2 '11 at 19:08
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4 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

i8kutils works for controlling the fan of my Dell Vostro 3350 laptop.

# For Dell laptop only:
$ sudo apt-get install i8kutils 
$ i8kfan 1 2 # Set the left-fan at low speed(1); the right one at high speed(2).
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Only it seems something in the BIOS always sets it back to its previous value after a few seconds :P Anyway, even though it's a bit late, it's still the most helpful answer. – RobinJ Mar 4 at 14:03
up vote 6 down vote
+100

The package lm-sensors might be what you are looking for.

And as you suggested fancontrol.

Be sure that all the fans that you are trying to control via software have the 4 pin connector.

"A PWM capable fan is usally connected to a 4-pin connector (pinout: Ground, +12V, sense, control)."source

When I run pwmconfig which is a part of fancontrol I get

/usr/sbin/pwmconfig: There are no pwm-capable sensor modules installed It will guide you if you have compatible hardware.

Here are some scripts to use in conjunction with that generated config file. I assume that you could set a higher value here.

label fan1 "Side Fan"
set fan1_min 1000
label fan2 "PSU Fan"
set fan2_min 1000
label fan5 "CPU Fan"
set fan5_min 1000

But as I said, I can't test this myself, since my hardware don't support it, I can control my fans from the bios, but it's a grade of 3. I use it for keeping my fan's slow and silent.

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/usr/sbin/pwmconfig: There are no pwm-capable sensor modules installed Any other ways? – RobinJ Sep 29 '11 at 19:39
You usually need to run sensors-detect first, and load a module it says to get temperature and fan speed readout, and then pwmconfig can manipulate it. – psusi Sep 30 '11 at 0:58
@RobinJ, it appears that you do not have a recognized/supported chip. – psusi Oct 7 '11 at 2:15
I'm going to award the bounty to you as this was the most informative answer wich could help most other people. – RobinJ Oct 8 '11 at 9:56
up vote 3 down vote

Ok, this might not be the answer you are looking for, but my overheating problems were solved, when removed the dust by putting a vacuum cleaner on the ventilation inlets. If you experience overheating at low cpu-frequencies, this might be worth a try. Be aware that maybe small parts may get sucked in. If you are lucky this method might solve you overheating problems.

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I awarded the bounty to th eanswer above because it was the most informative one, but my issue seems to be hardware-related, so your answer came closest to the solution. But as I'm not confident enough to mess aroudn with my laptop's hardware I just brought it to the shop as it was still under guarantee. – RobinJ Oct 8 '11 at 9:57
I just tried this and it worked. Thanks! My fan had started to get louder and I did have one or two shutdowns due to overheating. Hopefully this has fixed it. The fan is now cycling on and off with normal CPU utilization which is great (before it stayed on all the time). – Cymen Apr 14 '12 at 21:08
up vote 0 down vote

Have a look at i8kutils, it should work on the Dell Latitude D620.

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