Help controlling CPU fan speed in Mandriva 2008 Spring
 

I recently installed Mandriva 2008 Spring, and its wonderful, except it doesn't seem to control my CPU fan speed. I had the fan speed control set in the BIOS, and with XP the fans do eventually slow down when not under heavy usage, but with Mandriva they just blow full power constantly. Does anyone know how I can set up Mandriva so that the CPU fan speed throttles with usage, and slows down when not in use? Thanks in advance.

Hi, I use qfan.

I'm not sure of the deps or other details, works with my AMD chip.

[edit] oops, I just checked and I can not reference that qfan is the app.[/edit]

sorry. GW

Hi, the app was called QtFan. Installed from source, I found a doc in my document folder...

QtFan

68161-qtfan-1.0.tar.gz

1. Download the source file
2. open a terminal and cd into the directory where you saved the file.
3. tar xf qtfan-1.0.tar.gz
4. cd qtfan
5. qmake
6. make
7. sudo make install (or su -c 'make install' )
8. start qtfan from kmenu->system->qtfan


qmake
make
make install

ref: http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show...?content=68161

QtFan software provides a GUI to fan speed control.

To use this application you must have the right modules loaded.

The easiest way to get the right modules loaded is by installing lm_sensors and running sensors-detect.

Some motherboards doesn't have the ability to control the fans.

Requirements:

· Qt 4.x

ref: http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Syste...an-31543.shtml

cheers, Glenn

Most likely this is something you should not be attempting to control.

When a BIOS is configured for automatic fan speed control, its usually a feature of the BIOS alone. Meaning whatever OS you are running does not have any effect on the fan control. As a result, if the CPU was near idle, it should slow the fan down automatically. By controlling it yourself, you may be creating overheating issues.

At the same time, I have seen some computers (usually older HPs) that the fan does not slow down until windows boots. It may have something to do with the OS taking control of the ACPI? It's possible that your ACPI settings in Mandriva are not correct. However, that is something that is beyond me and you would have to look to someone with my experience with the inner workings of Linux for help with that. It's just an idea though...

I can't figure out what is happening, but on my 2008.1 install I can't get the program to compile.

I have other ways to monitor the fan speeds within my system, and there are quite a few programs that will do it from a package rather than source.

I'm not asking for help with that, I just wanted to give a heads-up.

Glenn.