[sclug] Linux fan control

[Alex Butcher]

On Thu, 1 Apr 2010, Matt Cox wrote:

> Has anyone had any experience with fan control on Linux?  I have an Ubuntu
> 9.04/Windows 7 dual-boot system, but the fans seem to run full-pelt with
> Ubuntu.  When running Windows 7 the fans quiten down during the boot
> process.

I've not set it up myself, but look at the man pages for pwmconfig and
fancontrol for starters.

> I've tried playing with lm-sensors, but don't seem to get anywhere!  I would
> like to get this sorted as its the only niggle I have, everything else is
> great.  My motherboard is an MSI MS-7280 (I think it's also known as a K9A
> Platinum).

Sensor support is a bit of a nightmare, as different boards tend to end up
using the various sensor chips in ways other than specified in their
corresponding reference design. As such, potentially each motherboard
requires a different configuration stanza in the lm_sensors config. :-(

> If there's another distro that has a better implementation of fan control
> I'd be happy to try it if necessary.

I'd be surprised if any distro attempted to do anything out-of-the-box with
respect to fan control.

> Thanks,
> Matt.

HTH,
Alex