hp omnibook xe4500 fan control

hp omnibook xe4500 fan control

[Thomas Perl]

Hello, List!

I'm having a problem with HP's Omnibook XE4500.

I cannot control the fan using its /proc/acpi interface. There is a fan 
entry and I can try to set some options, however - they are not set 
effectively (seems like Linux isn't in control of the fan). I'd like to 
set the trip_points to some values so that the fan doesn't come on so 
often. Any hints on where to start? Or it is not possible on Linux anyway?

There is a fan.exe on the diagnostic partition which switches the fan on 
and then off for diagnose purposes, so it _should_ be possible to 
control the fan by software.


Thanks for any information!
Thomas

PS: Please cc the reply also to me, I'm currently not on the list.


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RE: hp omnibook xe4500 fan control

[Li, Shaohua]

Hi,
>
>Hello, List!
>
>I'm having a problem with HP's Omnibook XE4500.
>
>I cannot control the fan using its /proc/acpi interface. There is a fan
>entry and I can try to set some options, however - they are not set
>effectively (seems like Linux isn't in control of the fan). I'd like to
>set the trip_points to some values so that the fan doesn't come on so
>often. Any hints on where to start? Or it is not possible on Linux
anyway?
>
>There is a fan.exe on the diagnostic partition which switches the fan
on
>and then off for diagnose purposes, so it _should_ be possible to
>control the fan by software.
IIRC, fan device is a dummy device in many systems. That is acpi can't
really control fan. Your system might be such one. Sure, it's just my
guess :), did you see any error messages printed out? fan.exe might use
other methods like i2c.

Thanks,
Shaohua


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Re: hp omnibook xe4500 fan control

[Andrew Haninger]

On 6/26/05, Thomas Perl <thp-MhksZLCqGG5eoWH0uzbU5w@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> I'd like to set the trip_points to some values so that the fan doesn't
> come on so often. Any hints on where to start? Or it is not possible
> on Linux anyway?
FWIW, here are the lines I use to turn the fan on and off on my
Gateway SOLO 2500 (~5-6 years old so it requires acpi=force in the
boot parameters):

This one makes the fan turn on when the CPU is at 20degC (so, all the
time since it idles around 30degC):
echo "80:0:70:20:0" > /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/trip_points

This one makes the fan turn on when the CPU is at 60degC; so only
under with long CPU-intensive stuff (default):
echo "80:0:70:60:0" > /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/trip_points

This turns on the fan immediately:
echo 0 > /proc/acpi/fan/FAN/state

This turns off the fan immediately:
echo 3 > /proc/acpi/fan/FAN/state


I don't know why you echo 3 to turn off the fan and 0 to turn on the
fan and not 0 to turn off the fan and 1 to turn on the fan; or, better
"on" and "off". That's what works for me. I have these in tiny scripts
so I don't have to remember them.

They don't always work, though, so sometimes I have to run my script
to turn on the fan, then the one to turn off the fan, and then the one
to turn on the fan to get the fan to turn on. Very confusing, but it
works.

Hope this helps.

-Andy


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Re: hp omnibook xe4500 fan control

[Danny Kukawka]

On Sunday 26 June 2005 09:06, Thomas Perl wrote:
> I'm having a problem with HP's Omnibook XE4500.
>
> I cannot control the fan using its /proc/acpi interface. There is a fan
> entry and I can try to set some options, however - they are not set
> effectively (seems like Linux isn't in control of the fan). I'd like to
> set the trip_points to some values so that the fan doesn't come on so
> often. Any hints on where to start? Or it is not possible on Linux anyway?
>
> There is a fan.exe on the diagnostic partition which switches the fan on
> and then off for diagnose purposes, so it _should_ be possible to
> control the fan by software.

Did you tried the omnibook kernel modules [1] ? They should also support the  
XE4500.   

Danny

[1] http://sourceforge.net/projects/omke/

-- 
Danny Kukawka
dkukawka-l3A5Bk7waGM@public.gmane.org
Mobile Devices
SUSE LINUX a Novell Business
Maxfeldstr. 5, D-90409 Nuernberg, Germany


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