[Help Requested] Setting up GPU and Fan Support on MSI GF65 Thin 9SE

Hello!

I am reaching out to ask for support with properly setting up my GPU and laptop fans to function with my qubes installation on an MSI GF65 Thin 9SE. The device boots properly and basic functionality of all systems appears to be in working order, the aforementioned devices non-withstanding.

To contextualize these issues here’s the steps I did while installing the qubes 4.2 to this device:

  • Enabled Legacy Mode in BIOS
  • Disabled Secure Boot
  • Added set nouveau.modset=0 in the installation command list near the beginning.
    Also note that I am a beginner to qubes and while I have some familiarity with linux, I have not spent enough time with the OS to know all its quirks. Apologies for the ignorance.

GPU Issue Summary: To begin with my attempts to setup my GPU, I began by simply testing attaching it to a basic debian qube first normally, then with the permissive=true and no-strict-reset=true flags. Unfortunately, with all combinations of these arguments initializing the qube with the GPU attached resulted in a total system crash followed by a restart. I also tried applying these options after installing the NVIDIA drivers from their website into the qube where I was attempting to attach the GPU but no dice. How can I proceed to troubleshoot from here? I understand a crash log would be useful to look into, however, my device crashes immediately and restarts immediately post crash so I don’t have a chance to read out anything. Is there a way to retrieve the logs postmortem? If so, I will attach any logs I find to this thread.

Fan Control Summary: With respect to fan control I attempted to run qvm-pci to setup the fan control for my device but discovered that the setup script could not recognize the fans for my device. I later discovered the following tool for setting up proper fan control on an MSI device running linux, however, I have questions pertaining to the best way to install this. My first thought was to install it on a qube such as sys-usb and to pass through the fans to sys-usb whereby they would be controlled, but it appears the fans are bound tightly to dom0. Is my best approach to download the linked software to a secondary qube, transfer it to dom0, and install it there or is there a more secure recommendation? Furthermore, does anyone have experience setting up fan control on an MSI device and have any advice to share?

Thank you very much for the reading and for any support you may provide.

Show

ls /etc/X11/xofg.conf.d/

Did you follow the guide and hide the GPU from dom0?

Also see this:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/MSI_GS65#Firmware

It’s using Embedded Controller to control the fan speed and you can’t passthrough it to another qube, so the only way is to use MControlCenter directly in dom0.