[SOLVED] Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo: Fan stops after a while

chochem · 2008-08-18 19:59:56

I'm on a Fujitsu Siemens AMILO L1310G. After boot, the fan will work for a while - often quite intensively - and then stop (probably when it hits whatever is designated as an acceptable temperature though Ic annot say for sure). Needless to say the CPU will get warm again and normally (read: on Ubuntu) this would prompt it to spring back into action. However, this doesn't happen - the fan stops and is never heard from again until next reboot.

I'm probably just missing something in my setup but I cannot tell what. My modules list:

MODULES=(!ath5k !wlan acpi-cpufreq b44 mii ath_hal ath_pci ac97_bus snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm-oss snd-page-alloc snd-pcm snd-timer snd snd-ac97-codec snd-atiixp-modem snd-atiixp soundcore)

And the daemons:

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network netfs crond acpid cpufreq alsa hal mpd spamd net-profiles)

Now, when I installed Arch yesterday, I didn't notice anything. Only today did I become aware that it was awfully quiet and hot - which opens the possibility that it was something I installed rather than something I haven't installed but again, I'm really not sure. I tried rebooting, clearing out the message log (sudo dmesg -c) and waited for the fan to drop out. After that happened, dmesg was still empty.

Any help appreciated.

EDIT: The wiki to the rescue once again. I tried disabling and reenabling the fan module (rmmod fan; modprobe fan) and it starts up again. It will do the same thing as on boot: cool down the cpu and then shut off. Here's the dmesg log that results from reenabling the fan:

ACPI: PNP0C0B:00 is registered as cooling_device1
ACPI: Fan [FAN0] (on)
ACPI: Transitioning device [FAN1] to D0
ACPI: PNP0C0B:01 is registered as cooling_device2
ACPI: Fan [FAN1] (off)

Last edited by chochem (2008-08-30 14:24:26)

chochem · 2008-08-22 13:02:54

I haven't really progressed much beyond maunally restarting the module. I've read a bit of the acpid handler script but it doesn't relaly seem to cover it. the wiki entry on laptops (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Laptop) doesn't even mention fans. And whatever else I've found is usually specific to Thinkpads, ASUS, and what have you.

I had a short dabble with manually echoing values into /proc/acpi/fan/ state files but chickened out when I found I could turn it off (echo 3 > state) but not on (echo 0 > state) again.

Can't anyone direct me to some sort of generic fan controller daemon?

briest · 2008-08-22 20:45:46

Have you tried finding DSDT for your laptop? It solved all ACPI-related problems for me, including fan control...

chochem · 2008-08-22 23:51:01

It's kinda late so spologies if this is a stupid question... but what is dsdt and how do i find it?

chochem · 2008-08-23 23:03:00

Okay, the wikipedia entry didn't leave me much the wiser but I tracked down this sort of thing
http://acpi.sourceforge.net/dsdt/view.php?id=894
and downloaded it.

Now, am I right in my sneaking suspicion that this means patching and compiling kernel source.... And if so, a) doesn't this mean that I'll have to do it each time I want the kernel upgraded, and b) what about the modules? Didn't I read something about 'if you compile the kernel yourself, you're on your own module-wise too'...? Or was that just a bad dream?

Last edited by chochem (2008-08-23 23:06:09)

briest · 2008-08-24 11:07:03

No, there's no need to mangle with kernel, IIRC you only have to:
- find the proper DSDT
- place it in /lib/initcpio/ as custom.dsdt
- add dsdt hook to mkinitcpio.conf
- re-run mkinitcpio
- reboot.

I cannot guarantee it would help; but it is the first thing I'd try dealing with ACPI problems.

chochem · 2008-08-24 13:17:12

Ok thanks for the pointers. However, when I rebooted, I got a $ramfs rescue shell and had to reboot using the fallback option.

Here's what I did:
- Extracted and .als file from the downloaded gzip file
- Copied the extracted file to /lib/initcpio/custom.dsdt
- Edited the /etc/mkinitcpio.conf file's last line to read: HOOKS="base udev autodetect pata scsi sata keymap filesystems dsdt" (only added the dsdt bit)
- sudo mkinitcpio (upon completion I was told that this had been a dry run, so reading up a bit on the wiki, I did
- sudo mkinitcpio -g /boot/kernel26.img
- and rebooted.

However, I'm now remembering that although the product name matches exactly, a hardware geek friend of mine switched the original Celeron CPU for a more powerful, non-Celeron one. Assuming that the CPU architecture is relevant to this stuff (sounds pretty damn likely), I guess that kinda leaves me hanging...

For now, I've set up a root user cron job to run every second minute:

#! /bin/bash

maxtemp=65
nowtemp=$(cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature | grep -oE [0-9]+)

if [ $nowtemp -gt $maxtemp ]; then
    rmmod fan
    modprobe fan
fi

Hopefully I can replace this hack with a better solution soon.

Last edited by chochem (2008-08-24 13:27:23)

chochem · 2008-08-28 06:46:32

Tried booting with the noacpi kernel parameter which makes the fan operate 'normally', i.e. turn on and off. If I've understood correctly, this simply means that the BIOS is in control instead of the acpi daemon (or other software?) (And it's not really a viable solution since the network adapter is dependant on it.... )

So obviously there is some sort of problem with the way acpi is handled... and I guess that must mean the acpid daemon, right? The fan module itself is just a driver and doesn't implement any sort of policy for turning it on and off (or? and if so why does disabling it and then re-enabling it bring the fan back to life albeit for a short time?) However, perusing all the acpi files (/etc/acpi) doesn't contain a single reference to the fan and googling doesn't reveal much either...

I hate saying it (and it's not a complaint, mind you) but... it worked in Ubuntu So I think it should be able to work without bad hacks like my shell script...

chochem · 2008-08-28 11:59:55

Tried installing lm_sensors and noticed that the package includes a fancontrol daemon. In order to configure it, howeer, I need to run pwmconfig. In order to run that, I have to have the sensor modules up and running which in turn means running the sensors-detect script so it'll know what modules to run.... And the sensors detect script...? It can't detect any sensors I've tried running the version hot off the press with the same results...

Any inputs as to whether this might a relevant path? And if so, the scripts suggests going to http://www.lm-sensors.org/wiki/Devices for driver status, "If you find out what chips are on your board". I have no idea what chips are on my board - any suggestions as to how I could find out?

chochem · 2008-08-30 14:14:16

I finally got the DSDT solution working. As it turned out,
a) I needed to compile the .asl file (seems like people only refer to 'dsdt files' rather than being specific.... fortunately the gentoo wiki was more helpful)
b) the one on sourceforge is crap, I found one on launchpad instead.
Either my search-fu has died or there is a big, gaping hole where there should be documentation here. I'll probably have to try to hack something together for the wiki... Does anyone know of any kind of documentation for the dsdt/mkinitcpio method? The mkinitcpio entry mentions the dsdt hook only in passing as I said, how would a noob (like myself) know whether a 'dsdt file' was a source file, a compiled file, a hex table, a .dat file made from /proc/acpi, or for that matter the compressed file from sourceforge or elsewhere?

EDIT: And here it is... opefully it will get picked up on and used.

Last edited by chochem (2008-09-06 01:02:48)

chochem · 2008-12-22 21:13:03

dnaura wrote:

I have exactly the same problem on my amilo L1310G withmandriva so I will try your solution.
Thanks.

Good luck and post back if you're having trouble

Arch Linux

#1 2008-08-18 19:59:56

[SOLVED] Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo: Fan stops after a while

#2 2008-08-22 13:02:54

Re: [SOLVED] Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo: Fan stops after a while

#3 2008-08-22 20:45:46

Re: [SOLVED] Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo: Fan stops after a while

#4 2008-08-22 23:51:01

Re: [SOLVED] Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo: Fan stops after a while

#5 2008-08-23 23:03:00

Re: [SOLVED] Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo: Fan stops after a while

#6 2008-08-24 11:07:03

Re: [SOLVED] Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo: Fan stops after a while

#7 2008-08-24 13:17:12

Re: [SOLVED] Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo: Fan stops after a while

#8 2008-08-28 06:46:32

Re: [SOLVED] Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo: Fan stops after a while

#9 2008-08-28 11:59:55

Re: [SOLVED] Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo: Fan stops after a while

#10 2008-08-30 14:14:16

Re: [SOLVED] Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo: Fan stops after a while

#11 2008-12-22 21:13:03

Re: [SOLVED] Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo: Fan stops after a while

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