Hello...
I'm having trouble with my laptop fan. It is constantly running in critical mode!
It also seems as if my temperature doesn't update correctly.
When I do "cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature", it _always_ says 75C. I doesn't matter how long it has been on or what I've been doing. It's constantly at 75C. What the heck is going on here? How can I fix it?

Using Kernel 2.6.16.17 with ACPI enabled. I have disabled APM.

Depending on the notebook model? it may work better with APM. It may not fully ACPI compliant as far as the ACPI standard goes.

Brian1

It is a custom made notebook.. I chose the parts and then the webshop assembled it for me, so no spesific model :/ I'll try to enable APM and disable ACPI.

EDIT:
I'm now running with ACPI disabled and APM enabled...The fan is still spinning like there's no tomorrow..:/ Because I disabled ACPI, I can't check the temperature anymore. The fan had no trouble shutting down when I was running windows on it. I just can't figure out WHY the temperature won't update. I'm sure that's the reason for the fan not slowing down...

Boot up with a Knoppix Live CD and see it does the same thing.

Look for say /proc/acpi/fan/FAN and see if there is anything in there. If so post output of the files in there using the command cat. ' cat state ' or whatever if anything. Need to be using acpi of course. If the state says on or off or a 0 or 1 then you can see if you can controll the fan by running the command as root.
' echo -n 0 > /proc/acpi/fan/FAN/state '

Custom built I assume one of the Clevo notebooks under many differnet names.

Brian1

When I have ACPI enabled with slackware there is nothing inside the FAN folder...
I did some research and found out that I have a Uniwill laptop. Uniwill 259IA3 to be spesific. I had to dig into my receipts to find this out as there is no info whatsoever on the laptop itself :P

I'll download Knoppix and see if it stops the fan and reads the temperature correctly.


UPDATE:
Ok, I found an old Knoppix CD lying around. Knoppix 3.6. I booted it and entered /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM and did a 'cat temperature'. Of course it showed up as "75 C". Argh! I then entered the "fan" directory. There's nothing inside. I'm beginning to wonder if I ever will be able to fix this stupid problem.

Look at my homepage (link in my sig). If you have everything ACPI enabled in the kernel, there is a script in there that will turn fan off, on when it hits certain temp, etc...

You'll also find some info here - is a discussion from a few months ago. Also has some goodies posted by cwwilson721 in regards to cputemp v fan trip points etc.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=426494

.

Hello,

I had a similar problem with my Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo L1310G laptop. I enabled acpi, disabled apm and passed the following lines to the rc.local (credits to cwwilson721, thank you man!)

echo -n "100:0:90:65:55" > /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/trip_points
echo -n "30" > /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/polling_frequency
echo -n "3" > /proc/acpi/fan/FAN0/state


Now, I actually get the right temperature value but I still cannot make the fan stop when temperature is below 55. But what is really interesting is that when temperature rises to 55-56 (during a long compilation)and then falls below 55 THE FAN STOPS and from that time ahead it goes on only when temperature is above 55. It means that for the fan to work properly it has to pass the first trip point (55). My question is, Is there any way to force my fan to stop when temperature is below 55?

Thanks for all the replies! I think I've found out what the problem is. Many other people with the same laptop as I have is having the same problem. Some people with another Uniwill-model fixed it by upgrading the BIOS. I'll try to upgrade my BIOS and see if it helps. If not, I don't think there's much to do. I've sent an e-mail regarding the issue to Uniwill. Hopefully they'll fix it, but I can't say I'm expecting it :-)
Btw, I've tried to use that script, but since there's nothing inside my /proc/acpi/fan folder, it won't work. Thanks for all the help anyway! This is an awesome forum :-)

You need ALL ACPI OPTIONS enabled for the script to work. You can't just pick/choose. Here's my config for 2.6 kernel, look thru it and the ACPI section to see what you missed: config

That's the problem here.. Even with all the ACPI options enabled, the FAN directory remains emtpy and the temperature doesn't update. It stays at "75 C". I could put the notebook on ice, and it would still show 75.
I've tried to upgrade the BIOS, but that didn't help a thing.

Bummer....


Well, sometimes, stuff just won't work

Yep, this is the first time I haven't been able to fix it though :/ But I'm not gonna switch to windows just because of that.. I love slack too much :-) At least i'm not gonna have any overheating problems ;-) I'll know that there is something wrong if the fan shuts off :P

Won't have real long battery life either....

But it is not a Slackware thing, you've at least narrowed it down to hardware shortcomings (As far as Linux is concerned). It should act the same if you use any distro...Do you have a live cd like Mepis or Slax? If so, try it with either of those, see if fan shuts off. If it does, we can get it too

It is definitely a hardware problem. Just tried the newest version of the Knoppix DVD (4.0.1), and there was no fan and it didn't read the temperature correctly. I'm pretty sure it's a problem with the BIOS. Too bad they've stopped updating it..