CPU fan running flat out.....or Not!

Hi folks,

For those of you that have recently installed openSuse (or any other distro of Linux) and have same trouble as I had, i.e. fan runs at full speed, where as it runs fine in Windows, this may help.

Firstly, I have only been using Linux for a week. Secondly, I use a triple boot system:- XP/Vista/openSuse 11.0. The 2 Windows OS’s are on their own Hard Drive.

When I started up the installation disk of Suse the fan did not drop down to a more leisurely speed like it does when I get to the XP/Vista screen after initial start up.

I went through with the installation and after booting into Suse from the hard drive, the fan was still running flat out. I then installed updates from openSuse OSS/non OSS/updates and then restarted PC.

I then added the nVidia Repository and run ‘autocheck’ updates. I restarted my PC and lo and behold the fan speed dropped to the same speed as in Windows. I am currently using driver version 173.14.12 for a 8600GTS.

When updated to the 177.***** driver the fan speed reverted to full blast again. I could not get it to slow down, even after removing the new driver and reverting to the 173.*** one and trying various ‘solutions’ I saw in numerous forums.

Do NOT do the following; I have the time & money to build a new PC – you may not!

Before I switched off and reinstalled Suse I took the side cover off my PC & disconnected the CPU fan connector & then found that it was actually the PSU fan that was running flat out/making all the noise, this may be the same problem you are having.

I am sure that the more experienced members/users of Suse/Linux, may know of solutions to the problem of PSU fans running at full speed & what causes them to slow down after the initial boot stage .

This is one of the major reasons I’m abandoning OpenSuse 11.1 for now. When I leave my computer in standby mode at night, the fans blast all night at nearly full speed, even after the monitor has turned off and the system is completely idle.

I can’t afford to use all that power and I don’t want to replace hardware just because of this annoying problem. Plus it’s hard to sleep with all that noise.

I assumed it was my video card or CPU fan, but I will check tonight to see if it’s the PSU fan.

The problem also exists sometimes in OpenSuse 11, but it’s not nearly as noticeable, and has gotten MUCH worse in the new release.

> even after the monitor has turned off and the system is completely
> idle… it’s hard to sleep with all that noise.

For crying out loud, if it is completely idle then SHUT it down,
sleep in peace AND save a rain forest!

I mean, mine boots up in less than two minutes, do you really need to
burn all that IDLE electricity to save two minutes in the wakeup?

[Hint: hit the power up button on the way to your morning
whizzzzz…when done your SUSE is ready to ROCK!!]

yeap i faced that problem with another linux disto (centos) but never with suse.when i checked the system monitor ( in centos) some process used to use up all the memory.there must be some memory leak in some process.i am no expert in fixing that.so i simply changed back to openssue11.i have used 11.1 only for couple of days.i had no problem with it.(except i use an application Tora which has some dependency issues in 11.1 so had to stick with 11 for now)

I had the probem with another Linux distribution after installing Nvidia, but with OpenSUSE 11.1 I don’t have the issue. The fan on my HP Pavilion laptop is working as it should, not running all the time.

As for cost, I suspect if you calculated the energy draw of the fan and multiplied it by whatever your rate is per kwh (or whatever units they use where you are) you’d see that the fan can’t be costing a lot. But it can be annoying.