So I have been using Suse for a month and am very impressed. It’s not my first linux distro but my favorite so far. I recently bought a new laptop, a Toshiba Satellite L305-S5921. I ran Windows to confirm that everything worked, and then installed Suse 11.1. Everything pretty much worked at the end of the install, except that when the cpu fan comes on it stays on at that rpm regardless of cpu temp and load. It basically latches on to whatever rpm it reaches (blowing cold air) until you reboot or suspend the machine and than it starts all over again.
So far I have: Checked the bios for other settings, and none.
I have cheeked the repository for updates, acpi packages, Toshiba packages, ect. I have searched the web extensively to no avail.
I hope one of you linux gods has an answer because this is not only noisy but wrecks the battery life too.
In the Power Manager (Powerdevil in kde4) Look for CPU frequency scaling or In the older kpowersave I think the setting was Dynamic. This keeps your CPU frequency down and so should do the same for the fan. For me there are settings in the BIOS too.
I have the cpu set to dynamic and still the fan sticks on. It’s not really cpu speed because the cpu usage will pop up to 20% +/- for a minute or so, generate some heat, and then the fan comes on and stays on. The cpu will cool down but the fan will still be on. I almost think its a program loop issue. In Vista the fan comes on, does its job, then goes off, but Windows is awful, as we know.
Well I looked through the DSDT information provided and could not find a patch for this model. I also kept hitting dead ends with the info, as many of the sites are down.
So my next question is there an add-on that will give me manual control of the cpu fan settings? I will even resort to the terminal if necessary, altho I am a noob when it comes to command line.
Please note I have tried all the cpu frequency control settings only to have fan eventually come on and stay on until reboot.