How do I tell if my laptop fans can be controlled by Ubuntu

Solution 1:

Controlling the fan speed using fancontrol is not possible with many laptops because of the design of the fan control hardware. So how do you tell if it is possible on your laptop? I am going to use an example of an MSI GS60 laptop to show the steps to take to find out. I also intend to update this answer with the results of answering this sort of question so you may find out instantly from this answer.

First the safest and often the best way of controlling the fan speed is to use the BIOS, not fancontrol. If you are having issues with a fan that runs too slowly or too fast it is important to determine if there is an underlying problem causing this. Fans running too fast is often a sign of a power management issue that needs to be resolved in the BIOS or by installing tlp or laptop-mode tools. It can also be caused by a fan or vent clogged with dust.

Step 1 determine the exact model of your laptop. sudo dmidecode | grep -A 9 "System Information"

Step 2 Go to the manufacturers website and read the owners manual. For the MSI G60 it is here. This shows that some models of this laptop have a "cooler boost" button that controls the fan speed. It also shows that pressing Fn+F5 cycles the laptop through different power management modes. If I was the user of this laptop I would stop here as this is a fast reliable method of controlling the fan speed and performance.

Step 3 Determine the chipset used on the laptop's motherboard. In the Owners Manual this is given as "Intel Lynx Point HM8 series". Now if you google this the top hit takes you to a page showing that the chipset may be any one of a number of products. We need to find the exact product used. If you are the user of the laptop lspci will tell you this information. I cant do this. Next try the specifications page on the manufacturers site. This states it is Intel HM87.

Step 4. Read the datasheet for the HM87 chipset on Intel's Website here. This may take you a while as it has 822 pages. The index tells us that PWM is on page 247 and this immediately states (Server/Workstation Only). If you read the introduction it is clear that this chipset comes in three versions mobile, workstation and server. As you have a laptop you have the mobile version and thus there is no PWM hardware for Ubuntu to use to control the fan speed. This is a deliberate decision as manufacturers don't want laptops returned under warranty when a user has been doing high utilisation tasks but has turned the fan off as it was too noisy.

Step 5. If it is not already there update the following table.

Chipset               PWM hardware     Used in  
Intel H76 (mobile)    No               Asus K75VM 
Intel HM97 (mobile)   No               MSI G60
Intel Q87 (mobile)    No               Lenovo T540p
Intel QM87            No