Thinkpad Fan noise

Loutchi · August 22, 2021, 5:07pm

Hello,
I’m working with QubesOS on a thinkpad W541 corebooted (i7-4940mx, 32 gb ram) My laptop fan makes a lot of noise all of a sudden, and I would like to solve this problem. I searched a bit and I discovered thinkfan very quickly. I installed it in dom0 (sudo qubes-dom0-update thinkfan). But it didn’t change my problem.
I said to myself that I had to start it (sudo systemctl start thinkfan) nothing changed.
So I looked at what was happening (thinkfan -n) and there are files that are not present (/proc/acpi/ibm/thermal fan) there is also a problem when acquiring the temperature (add_sensor: Error getting temperature)
Does this problem come from dom0 and I have to execute a command? or does it comes from the fact that I corebooted the laptop ?
anyway I am all ears. I’ve already searched a bit but I haven’t found anything similar

here is the exact output command from dom0 :

@dom0 ~]$ sudo thinkfan -n

WARNING: Using default fan control in /proc/acpi/ibm/fan.

WARNING: Using default temperature inputs in /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal.
/proc/acpi/ibm/thermal: No such file or directory

add_sensor: Error getting temperature.
/proc/acpi/ibm/thermal: No such file or directory

Error parsing temperatures:
readconfig: Error getting temperature.
Refusing to run without usable config file!

Sven · August 23, 2021, 4:49am

Refusing to run without usable config file!

Here is a good summary.

And this is my fan pattern:

tp_thermal /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal
tp_fan     /proc/acpi/ibm/fan

# t_junction 105
# t_max       90
# t_idle      65

(0,     0,      68)        #    0 rpm
(1,     60,     72)        # 3432 rpm
(2,     64,     76)        # 3754 rpm    delta 322
(3,     68,     80)        # 3994 rpm    delta 240
(4,     72,     84)        # 4143 rpm    delta 149
(5,     76,     88)        # 4567 rpm    delta 424
(7,     80,     92)        # 5319 rpm    delta 752 // no delta between 6 & 7!
(127,   84,     32767)     # 6097 rpm    delta 778

… your values will be different but you’ll get the idea.

Loutchi · August 23, 2021, 10:19am

Thank you for your reply.
I had seen the github page of thinkfan, I thought I was missing the package “lm-sensors” but I could not install it with “sudo qubes-dom0-update lm-sensors”, I thought it was not necessary …
I’ll try again if you tell me that it should not have problems with coreboot.

Loutchi · August 23, 2021, 12:22pm

here is my thinkfan.conf file
I struggle to load the thinkpad_acpi module i think, but i can’t even find him …
here is now the output

@dom0 ~]$ thinkfan -n

WARNING: Using default fan control in /proc/acpi/ibm/fan.

/proc/acpi/ibm/fan: No such file or directory
Error opening /proc/acpi/ibm/fan. Is this a computer really Thinkpad? Is the thinkpad_acpi module loaded? Are you running thinkfan with root privileges?
Cleaning up and resetting fan control.

/proc/acpi/ibm/fan: No such file or directory

also, yes this is a thinkpad (W541)

Sven · August 23, 2021, 10:43pm

It won’t work unless you call ‘sudo thinkfan -n’

Loutchi · August 24, 2021, 7:20am

Yeah sorry, I’ve also tried in sudo mode (sudo thinkfan -n and sudo su && thinkfan -n)

janglingquo_575 · December 22, 2023, 4:52am

What is an appropriate fan speed for 71 Celsius?

What is the cpu fan rpm ceiling? (the rpm range)

What is the temperature ceiling?

What is the appropriate rpm/temp ratio? (e.g. 40C = 4000 rpm which is 100:1 ratio)

janglingquo_575 · December 22, 2023, 4:54am

What is a reasonable CPU temperature for running QubesOS on an IBM Thinkpad X230?

I have 71 Celsius and fan speed at 4331 rpm

janglingquo_575 · December 22, 2023, 7:30pm

Output of “sudo qubes-dom0-update thinkfan”:

No match for argument:
thinkfan

Error: Unable to find a match: thinkfan

which Qubes repo is thinkfan located?

janglingquo_575 · December 22, 2023, 8:11pm

What is an appropriate fan speed for 71 Celsius?

What is the cpu fan rpm ceiling? (the rpm range)

What is the temperature ceiling?

What is the appropriate rpm/temp ratio? (e.g. 40C = 4000 rpm which is 100:1 ratio)?

What is a reasonable CPU temperature for running QubesOS on an IBM Thinkpad X230?

Output of “sudo qubes-dom0-update thinkfan”:

No match for argument:
thinkfan

Error: Unable to find a match: thinkfan

which Qubes repo is thinkfan located?

unman · December 23, 2023, 2:46am

Difficult to answer any of your questions without knowing your
hopes and expectations.
Also what balance you want between fan use and temperature, and what
hardware you have and what state it is in.

I am running an x230 now at idle 52.
On this machine my thinkfan.conf is wildly different from that quoted -
I set the bands much higher temperatures - I dont have an issue running
hot.

The best advice is for you to start with some conf file, and see how it
works on your machine with your work. Then start tweaking the bands to
get the effect you want (fan use /heat).

thinkfan isnt a Qubes package - it’s available from the Fedora repos: I
dont know why you get “no match”, since it’s there. Check you have
fedora repos enabled.

janglingquo_575 · December 23, 2023, 3:23am

Where specifically do I check for the Fedora repos to be enabled?

My CPU has been overheating and shutting down so I want to increase fan speed rpm by 20% for each tier.

Is there a tutorial for noobs on downloading and installing thinkfan and tweaking settings?

Can somebody just write a clear step by step HOWTO?

I think this topic is relevant enough to have specific QubesOS documentation.

apparatus · December 23, 2023, 5:58am

Check the content of the repo configs in dom0:

/etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repo
/etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo

janglingquo_575 · December 23, 2023, 6:20am

for anything specific? I have fedora 32 repos in there.

x86_64

debug

source

apparatus · December 23, 2023, 6:55am

Can you post the content of [fedora] block?
Also post the full output of this command in dom0:

qubes-dom0-update thinkfan

unman · December 23, 2023, 8:15am

You need:

sudo qubes-dom0-update thinkfan

run in dom0

If that fails, contents of etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repo - the [fedora]
section.

What Qubes version do you use?

janglingquo_575 · December 23, 2023, 4:36pm

sudo qubes-dom-update thinkfan:

3isec Qubes Dom0 Repository (updates)
Qubes Dom0 Repository (updates)
Qubes Dom0 Repository (security-testing)

No match for argument:

thinkfan

Error: Unable to find a match: thinkfan

Qubes version is 4.1.2

apparatus · December 24, 2023, 4:26am

Post the content of [fedora] block from /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repo.

unman · December 24, 2023, 1:28pm

You do not have the fedora repository enabled.
Look in the files /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora and
/etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo
In the first stanza , headed fedora and updates respectively, set
enabled=1.

I never presume to speak for the Qubes team. When I comment in the Forum or in the mailing lists I speak for myself.

janglingquo_575 · December 24, 2023, 10:17pm

Is there a way to do this using the GuiVM (Qubes Manager). I mean does this mean that dom0 updates did not have access to the fedora repos? How have dom0 updates been occurring up to this point?

We are talking about fedora32 which is what dom0 is currently using here.

This should be accessible from the Qubes Global Settings GUI in my opinion.