Speedfan for linux?

slipknottin · Post by **slipknottin** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 5:16 pm

Is there a program similar to speedfan for linux?

I just installed ubuntu, and i need something to slow down the fans.

Trunks · Post by **Trunks** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 5:37 pm

Setup lm-sensors
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=42737

slipknottin · Post by **slipknottin** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 5:42 pm

Sheesh, thats only slightly over my head.

Oh well.

Trunks · Post by **Trunks** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 7:17 pm

you could try posting on the Ubuntu forums. My fan speeds controlled by APCI worked with out me doing anything, well after I upgraded to the kernel for 586i. good luck.

Trekmeister · Post by **Trekmeister** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 3:09 pm

Like the man said, lm-sensors and fancontrol. not really that hard to setup. works better than speedfan ever did in my setup!

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 5:18 am

If you just want to lower the speed of your fans, you just need to install lm_sensors. Then you just need to locate the registers of the fan controller chip and change the values by hand (assuming that the motherboard supports fan control).

According to the fancontrol script, the registers should be located in these locations: /proc/sys/dev/sensors or /sys/bus/i2c/devices. There should a subdirectory (something like 1-0290). Inside you should find either pwmx or fanx_pwm "files" (there are several other files). Normally there are two or three of these "pwm-files". You can view these "files" using cat-command. Depending on if you have a BIOS-based fan control or not, these values can be in range of 0-255. If there is no BIOS-based control (or it's disabled), all pwmx values should be 255 (full speed).

Now, to change these values, you need use echo-command. Like "echo 128 > pwm1" (sans the quotation marks). Only root has write access to these "files", so you need to use sudo (IIRC Ubuntu doesn't have a root user by default).

Test them one by one: first read the value, then set it to zero, re-read it to see if the set value sticks, (some chips may offer read-only access depending on the configuration). Check if one of the fans has stopped. There is no defined standard on matching a fan header and the "pwm-file", so the cpu fan can be any of them.

Don't forget to reset the value back to it's original value, if you manage to stop a fan! Once you've found the right "pwm-files", you need to experiment with the value to find a suitable one, just like with a separate fan controller with a knob.

Good luck.

Cheers,

Jan

PS. I checked the installation guide from the link above, and it seems quite challenging. I'd suggest using the Synaptic Package Manager included in Ubuntu. You'll find the lm-sensors package there, hopefully it'll work...

Jay_S · Post by **Jay_S** » Sun Apr 30, 2006 11:59 am

I have ubuntu running on my p3 server, and tried to get lmsensors working. It was quiet a challenge, but I am a total linux novice. In the end I think it's working but my dell i810 motherboard doesn't report temp/rpm info - all I get is ram stats. Remember too that even when you get it working, you will/may have to calibrate your sensors (I didn't get that far). And lmsensors is just the beginning - all it does is report. I never got far enough to begin trying to implement fan control. In the end, I don't know if it's working properly, mainly because I don't know if my motherboard is capable of reporting this stuff. I wish I had left Win98 on there just to get temp readings before wiping it and installing linux.

EDIT:
The thing with package manager is that - even if you use it to get lmsensors, all the configuration has to be done manually for your specific sensors. Given this, I'm not sure what advantage package manager has over apt get.

Jay