Thinkfan configuration

setup.md

Thinkfan setup

Note: I configured this thinkfan setup for my old Thinkpad w520 on Ubuntu 17.10.

1. Install necessary programs

Install lm-sensors and thinkfan.

sudo apt-get install lm-sensors thinkfan

2. Setup configuration

Find the temperature control devices with

find /sys/devices -type f -name "temp*_input"

Add them to /etc/thinkfan.conf, including (level, min_temperature, max_temperature):

hwmon /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon3/temp3_input
hwmon /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon3/temp4_input
hwmon /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon3/temp5_input
hwmon /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon3/temp1_input
hwmon /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon3/temp2_input

(0,	0,	60)
(1,	60,	65)
(2,	65,	70)
(3,	70,	75)
(4,	75,	80)
(5,	80,	85)
(7,	85,	32767)

3. Enable fan control

echo "options thinkpad_acpi fan_control=1" > /etc/modprobe.d/thinkfan.conf
modprobe thinkpad_acpi

• You can check with lsmod if thinkfan_acpi is running
• To reload a module you need to remove it with sudo modprobe -r <module>, but this is not always possible, so we might need a reboot here.

4. Testing and running

To test thinkfan, use:

thinkfan -n

And to run it, use:

sudo service thinkfan start

And to retrieve the status, use:

service thinkfan status

5. Running on startup

To make it run at startup, we need to edit /etc/modules and add the lines below, to make the modules thinkpad_acpi and coretemp load at boot time. The thinkpad_acpi has to be loaded before coretemp.

thinkpad_acpi
coretemp

Note that this may change the /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon3/temp*_input paths (hwmon3 can become hwmon2 or vice versa), probably because of the order in which the modules are loaded or something. So, in the /etc/thinkfan.conf config, you might need to update these lines.

Furthermore, we need to enable the thinkfan service via systemctl.

sudo systemctl enable thinkfan.service

thinkfan.conf

######################################################################
# thinkfan 0.7 example config file
# ================================
#
# ATTENTION: There is only very basic sanity checking on the configuration.
# That means you can set your temperature limits as insane as you like. You
# can do anything stupid, e.g. turn off your fan when your CPU reaches 70°C.
#
# That's why this program is called THINKfan: You gotta think for yourself.
#
######################################################################
#
# IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads (thinkpad_acpi, /proc/acpi/ibm)
# ====================================================
#
# IMPORTANT:
#
# To keep your HD from overheating, you have to specify a correction value for
# the sensor that has the HD's temperature. You need to do this because
# thinkfan uses only the highest temperature it can find in the system, and
# that'll most likely never be your HD, as most HDs are already out of spec
# when they reach 55 °C.
# Correction values are applied from left to right in the same order as the
# temperatures are read from the file.
#
# For example:
# tp_thermal /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal (0, 0, 10)
# will add a fixed value of 10 °C the 3rd value read from that file. Check out
# http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Thermal_Sensors to find out how much you may
# want to add to certain temperatures.

#  Syntax:
#  (LEVEL, LOW, HIGH)
#  LEVEL is the fan level to use (0-7 with thinkpad_acpi)
#  LOW is the temperature at which to step down to the previous level
#  HIGH is the temperature at which to step up to the next level
#  All numbers are integers.
#

# I use this on my T61p:
#tp_fan /proc/acpi/ibm/fan
#hwmon /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal (0, 10, 15, 2, 10, 5, 0, 3, 0, 3)
#hwmon /sys/devices/virtual/hwmon/hwmon0/temp1_input

hwmon /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon3/temp3_input
hwmon /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon3/temp4_input
hwmon /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon3/temp5_input
hwmon /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon3/temp1_input
hwmon /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon3/temp2_input

(0,	0,	60)
(1,	60,	65)
(2,	65,	70)
(3,	70,	75)
(4,	75,	80)
(5,	80,	85)
(7,	85,	32767)