Arch Linux

uberben

Member

Registered: 2010-08-18

Posts: 78

Radeon 6870 fan is loud after switching to open source driver

Over the weekend I switched from the proprietary Catalyst driver to the open source Radeon driver. I initially made the switch due to issues with the catalyst driver preventing me from booting (and I had been meaning to switch for some time anyway).

After the switch, everything is working great except that the GPU fan is much louder at idle than it was before.

So far, I have read through the wiki page on the driver, specifically the parts about dynamic power management and manual fan speed control. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AT … management

I have tried manually enabling dpm in the kernel parameters, which did not seem to have any effect.

I have tried

# echo battery > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_dpm_state

with no effect and

# echo low > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_dpm_force_performance_level

gets the error

bash: echo: write error: Invalid argument

# echo 1 > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/hwmon/hwmon1/pwm1_enable

gets the error

bash: /sys/class/drm/card0/device/hwmon/hwmon1/pwm1_enable: Permission denied

I have searched through the forum as well and basically everything points to manually enabling dpm, which so far has not worked for me.

At this point I'm out of ideas. Any and all suggestions are welcome. Let me know if there is extra info I can provide.

Last edited by uberben (2015-10-22 01:40:35)

lzs

Member

Registered: 2008-01-23

Posts: 39

Re: Radeon 6870 fan is loud after switching to open source driver

DPM did nothing to quieten my card's fan.
I'm now using radeon-profile from AUR, which lets you set the fan speed manually. You can also change the DPM modes with the program.
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/radeon-profile-git/

uberben

Member

Registered: 2010-08-18

Posts: 78

Re: Radeon 6870 fan is loud after switching to open source driver

I ran radeon-profile as root and it seems to do the same thing as

# echo battery > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_dpm_state

and

# echo low > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_dpm_force_performance_level

. I am able to change between battery, balanced, and performance profiles without effect, and I am unable to switch between low, high, and auto fan modes.

lzs

Member

Registered: 2008-01-23

Posts: 39

Re: Radeon 6870 fan is loud after switching to open source driver

I am unable to switch between low, high, and auto fan modes.

Is there no tab called "fan control" at the bottom of the GUI?
I've got a 7700-series GPU, maybe it's a new feature.

uberben

Member

Registered: 2010-08-18

Posts: 78

Re: Radeon 6870 fan is loud after switching to open source driver

The Fan Control tab is disabled (grey text). I guess that feature is not available on my card.

uberben

Member

Registered: 2010-08-18

Posts: 78

Re: Radeon 6870 fan is loud after switching to open source driver

I never got a software fix figured out, but I did pop the card out of the case and removed the plastic cover (just a few plastic clips holding it on). The heat sink was basically packed full of dust and after cleaning it out it is as silent as can be. Now I'm a tad concerned that the proprietary driver wasn't adequately cooling the card.

Moral of the story: if your PC is loud, clean it out before blaming the software.

Last edited by uberben (2015-11-02 01:46:28)