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tomislavski

Member

Registered: 2010-02-09

Posts: 87

How to configure lm_sensors for the Intel H87 (DH87RL?) chipset?

Hi,

I am experiencing issues with the configuration of lm_sensors in Arch Linux on the XMG A523 Laptop. All over the forum I have found different posts of users complaining about the fans blowing at max speed after the computer has been brought back from hibernation/suspended mode.

Following the lm_sensors fan speed control configuration tutorial, I have stopped directly at edigint the '/etc/sensors3.conf' file. The chipset that is installed in the laptop is the Intel H87 Express Chipset. The laptop config is can be found here.

Searching through lm_sensors configuration wiki for Intel I couldn't find the configuration specification for the H87 chipset.

Is H87 equivalent to DH87RL?

What should I do? Every time I work for longer than an hour, the fans start blowing like hell, and the cpu temperatures are below 45 degrees centigrade... it's really annoying ...

Thanks for the help!

Last edited by tomislavski (2014-07-17 09:33:00)

ukhippo

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Registered: 2014-02-21

Posts: 366

Re: How to configure lm_sensors for the Intel H87 (DH87RL?) chipset?

You need to determine the sensor chip; this is not the same as the chipset.
The lm_sensors wiki page you pointed to is for Intel motherboards; I know nothing about XMG, but it is unlikely they've used an Intel motherboard

What you need to do is run sensors-detect - see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lm_sensors

That would tell you which sensor chip you have. You can then proceed with the fan control setup.

tomislavski

Member

Registered: 2010-02-09

Posts: 87

Re: How to configure lm_sensors for the Intel H87 (DH87RL?) chipset?

What you need to do is run sensors-detect - see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lm_sensors

I have already followed the lm_sensors tutorial on the wiki page before I started with the fan speed control setup. This is the output that I got:

''
Now follows a summary of the probes I have just done.
Just press ENTER to continue:

Driver `coretemp':
  * Chip `Intel digital thermal sensor' (confidence: 9)

Do you want to overwrite /etc/conf.d/lm_sensors? (YES/no): yes
Unloading i2c-dev... OK
Unloading cpuid... OK
''

Looking at the output shown at the lm_sensors wiki page,

"
Driver `coretemp':
  * Chip `Intel digital thermal sensor' (confidence: 9)

Driver `lm90':
  * Bus `SMBus nForce2 adapter at 4d00'
    Busdriver `i2c_nforce2', I2C address 0x4c
    Chip `Winbond W83L771AWG/ASG' (confidence: 6)
"

and comparing it to what I got, I don't see any "Chip" entry.

Also, this line from https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fan_Speed_Control : " In other words, using the lm_sensors.service causes inconsistencies boot-to-boot which will render the configuration file for fan control worthless for a consistency point of view. " worries me, as I haven't manually configured the modules required for fancontrol - the information provided on that page is not enough for me to do that (don't want to mess anything up).

Last edited by tomislavski (2014-07-17 11:28:40)

ukhippo

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From: Non-paged pool

Registered: 2014-02-21

Posts: 366

Re: How to configure lm_sensors for the Intel H87 (DH87RL?) chipset?

It looks like your hardware doesn't provide direct access to the chip, so sensor-detect can't find it. I did google a bit and found that these are also sold under the brands “Clevo”, “Sager” and “Eurocom” (and no doubt others...) and it seems a common issue that the sensor chip isn't available to Linux...

Unless someone who owns one of these brands has figured out how to access the sensor, it looks like you're out of luck

tomislavski

Member

Registered: 2010-02-09

Posts: 87

Re: How to configure lm_sensors for the Intel H87 (DH87RL?) chipset?

It looks like your hardware doesn't provide direct access to the chip, so sensor-detect can't find it. I did google a bit and found that these are also sold under the brands “Clevo”, “Sager” and “Eurocom” (and no doubt others...) and it seems a common issue that the sensor chip isn't available to Linux...

Unless someone who owns one of these brands has figured out how to access the sensor, it looks like you're out of luck

Oh crap.

Is there another way to control the fans, something else I can do? I mean, obviously something does happen, since the fans start blowing when the temperatures rise. If I just execute 'sensors', I see this:

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Physical id 0:  +48.0°C  (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 0:         +48.0°C  (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1:         +47.0°C  (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 2:         +48.0°C  (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 3:         +44.0°C  (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

And when the core{0..3} temps get above 50 degrees centigrade, then the fans start blowing like hell.

Edit: this also happens, when i try to run pwmconfig: /usr/bin/pwmconfig: There are no pwm-capable sensor modules installed

Last edited by tomislavski (2014-07-17 13:35:40)

ukhippo

Member

From: Non-paged pool

Registered: 2014-02-21

Posts: 366

Re: How to configure lm_sensors for the Intel H87 (DH87RL?) chipset?

It's the BIOS doing that, so check to see if there are settings to configure the fan thresholds.

tomislavski

Member

Registered: 2010-02-09

Posts: 87

Re: How to configure lm_sensors for the Intel H87 (DH87RL?) chipset?

It's the BIOS doing that, so check to see if there are settings to configure the fan thresholds.

Thanks a lot for all the help. I didn't edit any BIOS settings yet, but I've used "powertop" and I have switched the "bad" options to "good", and it seems to have helped with the fans.

Now, sensors output slightly higher temps:

sensors
coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Physical id 0:  +58.0°C  (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 0:         +57.0°C  (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1:         +57.0°C  (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 2:         +58.0°C  (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 3:         +57.0°C  (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

But at least the fans are not blowing like hell anymore. I'll set the BIOS options for the fans, maybe I can get the temps down 10 degrees or so. Thanks again.

tomislavski

Member

Registered: 2010-02-09

Posts: 87

Re: How to configure lm_sensors for the Intel H87 (DH87RL?) chipset?

Unfortunately, I need to revive the thread. There are no BIOS settings available that allow me to control the fan speed, and as soon as temps higher than 58 degrees are hit, the fans start blowing at max speed and they don't stop. The BIOS menu is rudimentary, allowing only boot option changes and some other things unrelated to fan speed.

I tried detecting the sensors using the newest sensors detect following the lm_sensors Wiki. The next option would be to update the BIOS in hope that the new version supports access to the fan speed control.

Is there any other way around this? If I update the BIOS and this fails, the machine will be rendered unusable for a longer period of time than I can afford.

Last edited by tomislavski (2014-07-24 10:08:25)