Fan control problems

[csopi]

Hi,

I would like to adjust the speed of the CPU fan. However I can't get fancontrol to work. I tried the followings:

1. sensors-detect, here is the output:

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# sensors-detect revision 6031 (2012-03-07 17:14:01 +0100)
# System: FUJITSU SIEMENS ESPRIMO Mobile V5545 [20] (laptop)

This program will help you determine which kernel modules you need
to load to use lm_sensors most effectively. It is generally safe
and recommended to accept the default answers to all questions,
unless you know what you're doing.

Some south bridges, CPUs or memory controllers contain embedded sensors.
Do you want to scan for them? This is totally safe. (YES/no): 
Module cpuid loaded successfully.
Silicon Integrated Systems SIS5595...                       No
VIA VT82C686 Integrated Sensors...                          No
VIA VT8231 Integrated Sensors...                            No
AMD K8 thermal sensors...                                   No
AMD Family 10h thermal sensors...                           No
AMD Family 11h thermal sensors...                           No
AMD Family 12h and 14h thermal sensors...                   No
AMD Family 15h thermal sensors...                           No
AMD Family 15h power sensors...                             No
Intel digital thermal sensor...                             Success!
    (driver `coretemp')
Intel AMB FB-DIMM thermal sensor...                         No
VIA C7 thermal sensor...                                    No
VIA Nano thermal sensor...                                  No

Some Super I/O chips contain embedded sensors. We have to write to
standard I/O ports to probe them. This is usually safe.
Do you want to scan for Super I/O sensors? (YES/no): 
Probing for Super-I/O at 0x2e/0x2f
Trying family `National Semiconductor/ITE'...               No
Trying family `SMSC'...                                     No
Trying family `VIA/Winbond/Nuvoton/Fintek'...               No
Trying family `ITE'...                                      No
Probing for Super-I/O at 0x4e/0x4f
Trying family `National Semiconductor/ITE'...               Yes
Found unknown chip with ID 0xfc11

Some hardware monitoring chips are accessible through the ISA I/O ports.
We have to write to arbitrary I/O ports to probe them. This is usually
safe though. Yes, you do have ISA I/O ports even if you do not have any
ISA slots! Do you want to scan the ISA I/O ports? (YES/no): 
Probing for `National Semiconductor LM78' at 0x290...       No
Probing for `National Semiconductor LM79' at 0x290...       No
Probing for `Winbond W83781D' at 0x290...                   No
Probing for `Winbond W83782D' at 0x290...                   No

Lastly, we can probe the I2C/SMBus adapters for connected hardware
monitoring devices. This is the most risky part, and while it works
reasonably well on most systems, it has been reported to cause trouble
on some systems.
Do you want to probe the I2C/SMBus adapters now? (YES/no): 
Using driver `i2c-i801' for device 0000:00:1f.3: Intel 82801H ICH8
Module i2c-dev loaded successfully.

Next adapter: SMBus I801 adapter at 1c00 (i2c-0)
Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): 
Client found at address 0x50
Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1033'...                     No
Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1034'...                     No
Probing for `SPD EEPROM'...                                 Yes
    (confidence 8, not a hardware monitoring chip)
Probing for `EDID EEPROM'...                                No
Client found at address 0x52
Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1033'...                     No
Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1034'...                     No
Probing for `SPD EEPROM'...                                 Yes
    (confidence 8, not a hardware monitoring chip)

Next adapter: Radeon i2c bit bus 0x90 (i2c-1)
Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): 
Client found at address 0x50
Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1033'...                     No
Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1034'...                     No
Probing for `SPD EEPROM'...                                 No
Probing for `EDID EEPROM'...                                Yes
    (confidence 8, not a hardware monitoring chip)

Next adapter: Radeon i2c bit bus 0x91 (i2c-2)
Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): 

Next adapter: Radeon i2c bit bus 0x92 (i2c-3)
Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): 

Next adapter: Radeon i2c bit bus 0x93 (i2c-4)
Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): 

Next adapter: Radeon i2c bit bus 0x14 (i2c-5)
Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): 

Now follows a summary of the probes I have just done.
Just press ENTER to continue: 

Driver `coretemp':
  * Chip `Intel digital thermal sensor' (confidence: 9)

To load everything that is needed, add this to /etc/modules:
#----cut here----
# Chip drivers
coretemp
#----cut here----
If you have some drivers built into your kernel, the list above will
contain too many modules. Skip the appropriate ones!

I've added coretemp to /etc/modules.

2. I've done some research among various forums, they suggested to load it87 kernel module. No result:

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sudo modprobe it87
ERROR: could not insert 'it87': No such device

I've also added "acpi_enforce_resources=lax" to the kernel parameters, no effect.

3. Of course, after this pwmconfig also fails:

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/usr/sbin/pwmconfig: There are no pwm-capable sensor modules installed

4. Interestingly, no fan appears in the output of sensors:

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acpitz-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:        +57.0°C  (crit = +96.0°C)
temp2:        +54.0°C  (crit = +120.0°C)

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 0:       +52.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1:       +54.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

radeon-pci-0100
Adapter: PCI adapter
temp1:        +38.0°C 

Seems to me that the fan is not even recognized... However, automatic fan control works, i.e. speed increases, when doing some cpu-demanding tasks.

Any ideas? Any help would be highly appreciated.

[eule]

I have the exact same problem on the same laptop. It overheats after ~20 minutes of CPU intensive stuff like watching a Youtube video, the fan control is too conservative. On Windows the fan gets way louder than on Debian.

I also tried all of the above to no effect and no fan appears when executing sensors. Any ideas?

[stevepusser]

It is very common for laptop users to have no way to detect and control the fan speed in the way that desktop users can. If you have Windows, have you found any utility to do it on that OS?

Are you trying to change it just for the lulz, or do you have a need to do so?

[eule]

There was no need to set the speed on Windows, as the laptop did not overheat even when the CPU was at 100% for quite some time. But on Debian (and other Linuxes too I guess) it does overheat rather quickly because the fan doesn't get as loud as on Windows... The BIOS is very rudimentary with no options at all too. Maybe it's possible to force a higher fan speed via some ACPI calls?

Sadly Fujitsu Siemens laptops aren't as popular as e.g. Thinkpads and not much can be found about their quirks and problems on Linux. Everything except the fan control works beautifully however, even the function keys.

Edit: I found https://github.com/hirschmann/nbfc and it supports a very similar laptop (FS Esprimo V5505), maybe that will work.