12.3 - Fan is running a lot

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

Just like the title says, I’m surprised how long and how often the fan on my thinkpad sl410 comes on, even when idle. I’ll leave it with nothing running except the kde desktop and thunderbird, go into the other room, and fan comes on every minute.

I’ve tried disabling as many effects and settings as possible, graphics to low and cpu to low, etc, but it makes no difference. Nothing unusual on top, but on powertop I see this:

Summary: 134.4 wakeups/second,  6.8 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and 2.0% CPU use

                Usage       Events/s    Category       Description
            100.0%                      Device         Audio codec hwC0D0: Realtek
            100.0%                      Device         Audio codec hwC0D3: Intel

Those entries are at the very top. I googled around a bit and it seems to be a known bug, but I’m wondering if this is actually the cause.

A suggested workaround is:

linux-9myz:/home/sillva # echo Y | sudo tee /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save_controller
linux-9myz:/home/sillva # echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save

Some relevant links:
Audio codec consuming high battery power - Ask Ubuntu
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/877560

#2

“Thinkpads” probably think a lot and get heated up
You might be interested in this https://forums.opensuse.org/blogs/jdmcdaniel3/c-f-u-cpu-frequency-utility-version-1-20-use-cpufrequtils-package-40/

#3

If you are using KDE, then you might be able to stop that by turning of audio notification.

“Configure Desktop” → “Application and System Notifications” → “Player Settings”
and check “No audio output”.

#4

I’m running Linux (Fedora 18, actually) on a Thinkpad Edge E330.
The machine runs very cool, without fan noise.
It has an integrated grphic card (Intel HD 4000).
Does your notebook have a discrete card? :expressionless:

#5

@vazhavandan I had a quick look, but the first bit of advice I checked out seemed to be contradicted by the KDE documentation. Specifically with respect to setting the power profile via yast.

@nrickert no effect. Supposedly kernel 3.8 has a fix.

@peElie I found it quieter under Fedora 17 & 18 as well, however I’m done trying to make it work with Gnome and am underwhelmed with their XFCE and KDE offerings. Both Kubuntu and Xubuntu are better, but its harder to get support because of all the stupid Ubuntu only stuff under the hood (apparently only getting worse - their own display server?). Besides, it’s a minor annoyance at this point, not something to switch Distro’s over.

#6

Wau thanks a lot. Finally it works for me too on my hp pavillon (dv7-6c70ez)!! 12.1 did not work well and changing governor did not change
anything for the fan. Now it works great, for example governor CONSERVATIVE will not start fan even now working “hard” :slight_smile: THANKS A LOT!!

#7

Well, I was wrong about the 3.8 kernel having a fix, after switch repos to kernel stable and zypper dup, problem remains.

Summary: 389.0 wakeups/second,  35.8 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and 5.7% CPU use

                Usage       Events/s    Category       Description
             14.2 ms/s     115.8        Process        kdeinit4: konsole [kdeinit]
            100.0%                      Device         Audio codec hwC0D3: Intel
            100.0%                      Device         Audio codec hwC0D0: Realtek
              2.3 ms/s     118.2        Interrupt      PS/2 Touchpad / Keyboard / MouseSummary: 389.0 wakeups/second,  35.8 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and 5.7% CPU use

                Usage       Events/s    Category       Description
             14.2 ms/s     115.8        Process        kdeinit4: konsole [kdeinit]
            100.0%                      Device         Audio codec hwC0D3: Intel
            100.0%                      Device         Audio codec hwC0D0: Realtek
              2.3 ms/s     118.2        Interrupt      PS/2 Touchpad / Keyboard / Mouse
              2.2 ms/s      38.3        Process        kwin
             17.6 ms/s      13.7        kWork          i915_hotplug_work_func
            519.8 µs/s      24.2        kWork          od_dbs_timer
              10.1 ms/s      16.3        Process        /usr/bin/Xorg -br :0 vt7  -nolisten tcp -auth /var/lib/xdm/authdir/authfiles/A:0-PcMqAa
            296.4 µs/s      17.4        Interrupt      [4] block(softirq)
            437.7 µs/s      16.8        Interrupt      [6] tasklet(softirq)
            672.0 rpm                   Device         Laptop fan
            178.7 µs/s      11.0        Timer          hrtimer_wakeup
            177.3 µs/s       3.8        Process        [kworker/0:2]
              1.0 ms/s       6.9        Timer          tick_sched_timer
             90.8 µs/s       6.8        kWork          ieee80211_iface_work
            125.8 µs/s       2.7        Process        [kworker/u:5]
             67.0 µs/s       5.7        Process        /usr/sbin/haveged -w 1024 -v 0 -F
            513.9 µs/s       5.3        Interrupt      [7] sched(softirq)
            242.3 µs/s       3.0        Interrupt      [47] i915
            292.0 µs/s       2.2        Interrupt      [9] acpi
             19.4 µs/s       1.8        Process        [usb-storage]
             33.2 µs/s       1.7        Interrupt      [19] ehci_hcd:usb1
             48.4 µs/s       1.6        Process        [rcu_preempt]
              2.3 µs/s       1.6        kWork          scsi_requeue_run_queue
             15.2 µs/s       1.2        Timer          ehci_hrtimer_func
              0.8 ms/s       0.7        Interrupt      [49] iwlwifi
             43.6 µs/s       0.8        kWork          iwl_bg_run_time_calib_work
             88.2 µs/s       0.7        Process        python /usr/bin/hp-systray
            522.1 µs/s       0.5        kWork          acpi_os_execute_deferred
              5.3 µs/s       0.5        Timer          sched_rt_period_timer
             85.0 µs/s       0.5        Process        kdeinit4: krunner [kdeinit]
              2.9 µs/s       0.5        Timer          menu_hrtimer_notify
              1.0 µs/s       0.4        kWork          blk_delay_work
            100.4 µs/s       0.4        kWork          cache_reap
              0.9 ms/s      0.05        kWork          disk_events_workfn
              1.0 µs/s       0.4        kWork          cfq_kick_queue
              0.7 ms/s      0.10        Process        [khugepaged]
              0.7 ms/s      0.10        Process        powertop
             38.5 µs/s      0.30        Process        avahi-daemon: running [linux-9myz.local]
            130.4 µs/s      0.25        Interrupt      [46] SATA controller
            220.0 µs/s      0.20        Process        [flush-8:0]
              5.8 µs/s      0.25        kWork          i915_gem_retire_work_handler
              2.2 ms/s      38.3        Process        kwin
             17.6 ms/s      13.7        kWork          i915_hotplug_work_func
            519.8 µs/s      24.2        kWork          od_dbs_timer
             10.1 ms/s      16.3        Process        /usr/bin/Xorg -br :0 vt7 -nolisten tcp -auth /var/lib/xdm/authdir/authfiles/A:0-PcMqAa
            296.4 µs/s      17.4        Interrupt      [4] block(softirq)
            437.7 µs/s      16.8        Interrupt      [6] tasklet(softirq)
            672.0 rpm                   Device         Laptop fan
            178.7 µs/s      11.0        Timer          hrtimer_wakeup
            177.3 µs/s       3.8        Process        [kworker/0:2]
              1.0 ms/s       6.9        Timer          tick_sched_timer
             90.8 µs/s       6.8        kWork          ieee80211_iface_work
            125.8 µs/s       2.7        Process        [kworker/u:5]
             67.0 µs/s       5.7        Process        /usr/sbin/haveged -w 1024 -v 0 -F
            513.9 µs/s       5.3        Interrupt      [7] sched(softirq)
            242.3 µs/s       3.0        Interrupt      [47] i915
            292.0 µs/s       2.2        Interrupt      [9] acpi
             19.4 µs/s       1.8        Process        [usb-storage]
             33.2 µs/s       1.7        Interrupt      [19] ehci_hcd:usb1
             48.4 µs/s       1.6        Process        [rcu_preempt]
              2.3 µs/s       1.6        kWork          scsi_requeue_run_queue
             15.2 µs/s       1.2        Timer          ehci_hrtimer_func
              0.8 ms/s       0.7        Interrupt      [49] iwlwifi
             43.6 µs/s       0.8        kWork          iwl_bg_run_time_calib_work
             88.2 µs/s       0.7        Process        python /usr/bin/hp-systray
            522.1 µs/s       0.5        kWork          acpi_os_execute_deferred
              5.3 µs/s       0.5        Timer          sched_rt_period_timer
             85.0 µs/s       0.5        Process        kdeinit4: krunner [kdeinit]
              2.9 µs/s       0.5        Timer          menu_hrtimer_notify
              1.0 µs/s       0.4        kWork          blk_delay_work
            100.4 µs/s       0.4        kWork          cache_reap
              0.9 ms/s      0.05        kWork          disk_events_workfn
              1.0 µs/s       0.4        kWork          cfq_kick_queue
              0.7 ms/s      0.10        Process        [khugepaged]
              0.7 ms/s      0.10        Process        powertop
             38.5 µs/s      0.30        Process        avahi-daemon: running [linux-9myz.local]
            130.4 µs/s      0.25        Interrupt      [46] SATA controller
            220.0 µs/s      0.20        Process        [flush-8:0]
              5.8 µs/s      0.25        kWork          i915_gem_retire_work_handler

Oh and @vazhavandan disregard my last. Upon further reading I see that’s the suggested method for making changes to the governors stick across reboots. Currently using the cpupower tool to change it to conservative. If it makes a differences I’ll end up using the power profiles to make that persistent across reboots.

#8

You are welcome. You should also thank the blogger (jdmcdaniel3) and provide useful feedback to him. He has lot of such nifty scripts in his blog. He also posts articles