[SOLVED] Loud Fan All the Time

jlacroix · 2011-09-14 19:11:39

Hello everyone, I'm trying to troubleshoot my laptop and was hoping someone may have some insight. I have a Latitude E6410 with Intel graphics, Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and I'm using KDE. My fan seems to want to be on high most of the time, and I'm not really sure why.

For a bit of background, I was using Kubuntu on this laptop for about a month, and stopped using Kubuntu and went back to Arch this week. With Kubuntu, I didn't have this problem, but I prefer Arch over Kubuntu, and the Kubuntu experience wasn't all that great but that's another story.

The fan seems to have two levels, slow and fast. It's always on slow at least. When it starts up, it will run fast for a few seconds at the Dell logo, and slow down to slow. Once Arch loads, it goes to fast and stays there most of the time. Sometimes the fan will slow down to the slow speed, but only for a few seconds before it runs fast again.

Here are the things I tried:

* I checked my CPU usage, and each core is anywhere from 0-8% in use.

* I doublechecked cpufreq to make sure it's running, and it is. Each core is running at 1199mhz most of the time.

* I followed the wiki and installed lm_sensors. The temps are 114f and 111.2f (46c and 44c respectively) which should be reasonable.

By all intents and purposes, the fan speed shouldn't be so high given what I've found during my troubleshooting. I'm hoping one of you guys may hold an answer for me.

Last edited by jlacroix (2011-09-22 03:59:14)

the sad clown · 2011-09-14 20:41:40

Try this: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=125954. I had done everything I could with laptop tools and cpufreq and still couldn't get my fan to stop running. After I applied this to the grub kernel line, the power usage went down almost 10W and the temperature also went don 10c. Now my fan only runs when I'm making my processor do something.

jlacroix · 2011-09-15 15:51:35

the sad clown wrote:

Try this: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=125954. I had done everything I could with laptop tools and cpufreq and still couldn't get my fan to stop running. After I applied this to the grub kernel line, the power usage went down almost 10W and the temperature also went don 10c. Now my fan only runs when I'm making my processor do something.

Thank you for the response. I was under the impression that the power regression was related to the Sandy Bridge chipsets only, but I could be wrong. Using the setting you recommended doesn't seem to do much, other than increase my temperature by 10 degrees or so. I will try some further troubleshooting tonight.

the sad clown · 2011-09-15 16:17:27

Sorry, you are right. I saw you mention i5 but didn't look up which one you have on your computer. The spec sheet I found for your computer mentions either a i5-540M or i5-520M, so no, the fix I suggested wouldn't work for you.

However, the behavior you described would seem to indicate that your are running hot. Have you checked for physical reasons for this? Perhaps you need to blow out the vents?

jlacroix · 2011-09-15 16:54:03

the sad clown wrote:

Sorry, you are right. I saw you mention i5 but didn't look up which one you have on your computer. The spec sheet I found for your computer mentions either a i5-540M or i5-520M, so no, the fix I suggested wouldn't work for you.
However, the behavior you described would seem to indicate that your are running hot. Have you checked for physical reasons for this? Perhaps you need to blow out the vents?

I usually blow out the vents about once a month or so. I wouldn't think that would be the issue because it idles at around 108-117F which I think is about normal. The sensors command reports the high temperature as 200F (somewhere around there) and critical is reported as somewhere around 220F, which it's nowhere near. It pretty much stays at 108-117F when I am doing my daily routine with it. When I am crunching a bunch of data it will spike to 157F, but I'd have to be doing a lot. (For example, Unison syncing about 100GB of data, like I was earlier today).

It almost seems as though acpi isn't telling the fan to slow down or something. The fan does sometimes slow down, but it doesn't seem to go by any specific temperature.

the sad clown · 2011-09-15 17:05:22

So the slowdowns are uncorrelated with temperature?

jlacroix · 2011-09-15 23:33:11

the sad clown wrote:

So the slowdowns are uncorrelated with temperature?

I need to do some more testing, but as of right now that statement seems correct. It doesn't seem to correlate at all. For the point of reference, I just woke it up from sleep right now and at 102F the fan is barely on at all, I can't hear it. When I initially posted the message it was on load and nothing would make it stop, not even with no programs open at all.

Last edited by jlacroix (2011-09-15 23:33:43)

the sad clown · 2011-09-16 00:07:02

I see you've had this problem for a while.

I hate to say this, but your problem might not be Arch or even Linux. Apparently the E6410 has a reputation for being loud. Have a look at these threads (do a search for the word fan):

http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-la … ead-2.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-la … ad-48.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-la … d-235.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-la … t-off.html

My last question is how warm is the air coming out of the vent. That ought to decide if for you whether it is a heat issue or not. If it isn't that warm, then it is a fan issue (and possible a bios matter, not Arch issue) and not a over-heating problem.

Last edited by the sad clown (2011-09-16 00:10:13)

Awebb · 2011-09-16 06:12:32

If Arch has the problem and Kubuntu does not... have you tried having a look at Kubuntu to find out, what they did that you didn't do on Arch yet? I'd install Kubuntu again and play with the energy relevant settings until the thing goes loud.

the sad clown · 2011-09-16 06:49:15

Awebb wrote:

If Arch has the problem and Kubuntu does not... have you tried having a look at Kubuntu to find out, what they did that you didn't do on Arch yet? I'd install Kubuntu again and play with the energy relevant settings until the thing goes loud.

I must have missed where he said it was working with Kubuntu.

Edit: Duh, now I see it in the first post. Yes, try using a live cd of Kubuntu and check the related config files and settings for help.

Last edited by the sad clown (2011-09-16 06:50:46)

jlacroix · 2011-09-16 12:31:26

Thanks guys, I will play with Kubuntu again this weekend. Also, I am going to install Windows on a spare drive and see if I have the problem there as well. The last time I had this problem in Arch, it was because CPU frequency scaling wasn't working (I forgot to put it in rc.conf) and also I forgot to add acpid. Neither are the case this time, as I tested both.

jlacroix · 2011-09-19 19:05:20

I've done some further troubleshooting on this, and here are my results so far.

First of all, I used Windows 7 on this laptop for a few days and also tested Kubuntu, and both didn't have an issue. Both seemed to operate normally.

The problem with my Arch Linux install has actually gotten a bit better, but the problem is still present. Today for example, my fan kicked on high speed and the temp grew to about 160F when I checked it. The culprit that time was npviewer.bin, which was eating a ton of processor. I killed it, and the temperature dropped to about 120F, and about five minutes later the fan slowed down. This seemed pretty normal.

Then again, during the same use session, the fan kicked on high once when the temperature was in the 120's, which previously was the temperature (or slightly below) that caused the fan to slow down last time. At the time, I had chromium and several konsole windows open. I don't understand why that would cause the fan to kick on high speed.

Later on, the temp went up to somewhere above 130F with only chromium open, and the temperature was continuing to rise, then the fan came on and cooled it down. I found it weird that one Chromium window, and 1% of CPU, would cause the CPU temp to steadily rise like that.

Now, as I type this sentence, with the said Chromium window open, the processor temp is hanging around 115F and the fan is on high. About 12% CPU is being used overall. And even with the temp around 115F, the fan isn't stopping. It just keeps going. Previously, the fan slowed down at 120F. Now, it just seems like it's intent to keep the fan going for no apparent reason.

When I first created this topic, I was using Virtualization (I had a Windows 7 VM running) so I could kind of understand the high fan while running two operating systems at the same time, but even after closing the VM, the fan NEVER slowed down (which is what prompted me to create this topic). In that use cycle, I waited about 30 minutes for the fan to slow down. It never did.

The problem here is that I can't really point the finger at any one thing.

jlacroix · 2011-09-22 03:58:58

I've done a lot more troubleshooting between yesterday and today, and I'm going to mark this solved as I don't think it's an Arch Linux problem anymore. It's still something that may be fixable with a Linux tweak, but barring that there's probably nothing you can do.

After further troubleshooting, the problem does happen in Kubuntu and Windows 7, but not as often. The behavior is a bit different in each scenario:

Windows 7: Fan is while logging in. Fan kicks on when the temp gets about 130F and then kicks off when it gets below 98F.
Kubuntu: Same as Windows 7.
Arch Linux (KDE): Same as above, but the fan doesn't turn off until about ten minutes after the temperature drops.
Arch Linux (XFCE): Same as Windows 7 and Kubuntu, fan turns off immediately after cooling.

In all the examples above, no program is running, and there is no load at all. The temperature just climbs slowly on it's own. My line of thinking is that the CPU should only heat up and the fan come on when I'm doing something, not when it's just sitting with about 5% CPU usage.

I appreciate all your help in this topic. I'm going to turn my attention on the hardware now to determine what the actual baseline for this model is. Perhaps I'm just noticing the fan more because I visit the local Library more often, but my inclination is that this isn't normal. I could be wrong.

Thanks again!

Arch Linux

#1 2011-09-14 19:11:39

[SOLVED] Loud Fan All the Time

#2 2011-09-14 20:41:40

Re: [SOLVED] Loud Fan All the Time

#3 2011-09-15 15:51:35

Re: [SOLVED] Loud Fan All the Time

#4 2011-09-15 16:17:27

Re: [SOLVED] Loud Fan All the Time

#5 2011-09-15 16:54:03

Re: [SOLVED] Loud Fan All the Time

#6 2011-09-15 17:05:22

Re: [SOLVED] Loud Fan All the Time

#7 2011-09-15 23:33:11

Re: [SOLVED] Loud Fan All the Time

#8 2011-09-16 00:07:02

Re: [SOLVED] Loud Fan All the Time

#9 2011-09-16 06:12:32

Re: [SOLVED] Loud Fan All the Time

#10 2011-09-16 06:49:15

Re: [SOLVED] Loud Fan All the Time

#11 2011-09-16 12:31:26

Re: [SOLVED] Loud Fan All the Time

#12 2011-09-19 19:05:20

Re: [SOLVED] Loud Fan All the Time

#13 2011-09-22 03:58:58

Re: [SOLVED] Loud Fan All the Time

Board footer