# noisy fan [SOLVED]

## enhorabuena

Hi all

I have a problem always when using in the graphical server (startx): the fan starts and makes an annoiyng noise. When I quit the graphical server the noise dissapear. My computer is an ASUS A4759GUH and the video card is ATI Mobility Radeon 9700. According to the manual is the system fan, not the CPU fan. Should this be related with some kernel configuration? When using Windows there is no noise. I have ACPI enabled in the kernel and I've just installed Gentoo, so I have only tvwm when starting the graphical server.

ThanksLast edited by enhorabuena on Sat Oct 21, 2006 7:21 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## enhorabuena

almost 300 views and still no answer  :Sad: 

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## motosauro

Since we're talking about a laptop I tend to think it's a frequency scaling related issue.

Does your cpu support any? (I don't know much about Intel CPUs)

You could also post working frequencies of both GPU and video ram (if not shared), both with and without X working

Another solution (though a little bit brutal) would be to emerge lm_sensors, have it detecting your sensor chips and forcing fan speeds with its fancontrol script.

Keep us posted  :Smile: 

P.S.

Di dove sei?

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## motosauro

After a little searching through the forum I stumbled in this

If you can overclock, you should be able to underclock  :Wink: 

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## enhorabuena

 *motosauro wrote:*   

> After a little searching through the forum I stumbled in this
> 
> If you can overclock, you should be able to underclock 

 

Thanks for replying motosauro. Unfortunatelly I am a beginner and I don`t know how to get the frequencies you asked for. I have installed lm_sensors but there is no manual for it! 

Dmesg give the next outbut. Maybe it helps.

```
ACPI: AC Adapter [AC0] (on-line)

ACPI: Battery Slot [BAT0] (battery present)

ACPI: Power Button (FF) [PWRF]

ACPI: Sleep Button (CM) [SLPB]

ACPI: Lid Switch [LID]

ACPI: Power Button (CM) [PWRB]

ACPI: Fan [FN00] (off)

ACPI: Video Device [VGA] (multi-head: yes  rom: no  post: no)

Using specific hotkey driver

ACPI: CPU0 (power states: C1[C1] C2[C2])

ACPI: Processor [CPU1] (supports 8 throttling states)

ACPI: Thermal Zone [THRM] (54 C)

Asus Laptop ACPI Extras version 0.29

  A4G model detected, unsupported, trying default values, supply the developers with your DSDT

```

Why the fan is off even it is compiled in kernel (ACPI section)?

I have also tried to undercloak the videocard, but the noise is still present.

P.S. Sono di Potenza

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## motosauro

First of all I am a noob too  :Very Happy: 

I suggested you to underclock the vdeo chipset because I thought maybe the fan went on due to the VGA enabling 3D.

My next suggestion would be to search the forum for ACPI and your laptop's model.

DMESG says specific ACPI features of your laptop are not supported.

BTW, I found this page that talks about a patch that adds support for your laptop: investigate  :Very Happy: 

As for lm_sensors, I'm pretty sure its installation gives you also the script fancontrol (places it in /usr/sbin/fancontrol) which lets you change fan speeds for a large number of mainboards (those with supported chips)

Since it does not hurt to try, emerge it

here you'll find a post that will tell you all you'll need to know (about fancontrol at least  :Laughing:  ).

One final thing: if you have Qfan enabled (I don't know whether your laptop has it) disable it or fancontrol will not work.

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## widan

 *enhorabuena wrote:*   

> 
> 
> ```
> ACPI: Fan [FN00] (off)
> ```
> ...

 

It means the fan was not running when the kernel was booting.

 *enhorabuena wrote:*   

> I have also tried to underclock the videocard, but the noise is still present.

 

If it's the driver enabling the VGA fan, and it does so unconditionnally (independently of thermal load), then underclocking won't help much.

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## motosauro

 *widan wrote:*   

>  *enhorabuena wrote:*   
> 
> ```
> ACPI: Fan [FN00] (off)
> ```
> ...

 

I concurr, but maybe it's the bios that starts the fan.

Maybe the driver puts the clock all the way up even if there's no need to. Is there an easy way to check the VGA clock (it could prove useful for pinpointing the issue at hand)? I tried to look in /proc a little but did not find anything; the only way I found so far is that overclocking topic I linked earlier.

Either way (underclocking or speeding down the fan via fancontrol) it would be just a workaround, not a real solution. Nevertheless it would cure the simptoms: worth a try  :Smile: 

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## enhorabuena

Thank motosauro and widan for trying to help me. So far no progress. I found in portage acpi4asus package which is the version 0.30, emerged it and, at least something good - there is no more that error from dmesg

```
ACPI: AC Adapter [AC0] (on-line)

ACPI: Battery Slot [BAT0] (battery present)

ACPI: Power Button (FF) [PWRF]

ACPI: Sleep Button (CM) [SLPB]

ACPI: Lid Switch [LID]

ACPI: Power Button (CM) [PWRB]

ACPI: Fan [FN00] (off)

ACPI: Video Device [VGA] (multi-head: yes  rom: no  post: no)

Using specific hotkey driver

ACPI: CPU0 (power states: C1[C1] C2[C2])

ACPI: Processor [CPU1] (supports 8 throttling states)

ACPI: Thermal Zone [THRM] (53 C)

Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 4 ports, IRQ sharing disabled

serial8250: ttyS1 at I/O 0x2f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] enabled at IRQ 10

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:02.6[C] -> Link [LNKC] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ 10
```

Widan was right, that fan is off when booting. It begins to spin only when issuing startx. Could this be the video fan? The manual says it is "system fan". There is also another fan, which is the CPU fan and this acts normally, i.e. when emerging something it spins faster.

Regarding fancontrol script, I noticed that the fan can be controled depending on temperature. As this fan starts immediately when entering in graphical mode, I think has nothing to do with the tenperature. Seems that it is controled by the graphical server. 

What else should I do?

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## motosauro

 *enhorabuena wrote:*   

> cut...
> 
> Regarding fancontrol script, I noticed that the fan can be controled depending on temperature. As this fan starts immediately when entering in graphical mode, I think has nothing to do with the tenperature. Seems that it is controled by the graphical server. 
> 
> What else should I do?

 

I agree on the fact that the noisy fan starting to spin might have nothing to do with temperature, but since you know temperature is not an issue, I thought you might try to see if fancontrol is able to stop it and then configure it in order to make it start at higher temperatures, i.e. taking control of the fan.

The real problem is (I think) a wrong message that X sends to the mainboard, making it think that the vga chip is on full load therefore revving up the fan.

Manually tweaking it to run slower should give you both silence and cooling.

It's only a workaround though.

Btw, how many pwm did fancontrol find?

Is it able to control also the vga fan?

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## ssmaxss

I have Mobility Radeon 9200 on asus laptop and same problem. But this problem appears only when I use opensource radeon driver from x.org. When I used fglrx fan was quite. But new fglrx do not support 9200 so problem appears again. With vesa driver however fan is quite but there is no dri and even 2d acceleration with vesa driver.

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## motosauro

 *ssmaxss wrote:*   

> I have Mobility Radeon 9200 on asus laptop and same problem. But this problem appears only when I use opensource radeon driver from x.org. When I used fglrx fan was quite. But new fglrx do not support 9200 so problem appears again. With vesa driver however fan is quite but there is no dri and even 2d acceleration with vesa driver.

 

The solution appears to be: use an old fglrx.

Doesn't this work for you?

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## ssmaxss

I think it is temporary solution as old fglrx will be soon incompitable with new kernel and/or xorg.

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## motosauro

 *ssmaxss wrote:*   

> I think it is temporary solution as old fglrx will be soon incompitable with new kernel and/or xorg.

 

Geez....

And ATI doesn't give you any support for your card I assume   :Rolling Eyes: 

They could open their drivers at least for old cards (NVIDIA too).

Apart from trying the brute solution of slowing down the fan via PWM (if it works) I have no suggestions for you, I sympathize    :Crying or Very sad: 

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## enhorabuena

Hi guys. I've been out for a couple of days. I'll try both fglrx drivers and fan control and I'll let you know. Keep in touch

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## enhorabuena

Finally I had some time to spend resolving the problem of noisy fan. I switched to fglrx, emerged ati-drivers and there is no more noise. Sincerely I was afraid to control the fan speed   :Embarassed: 

Thank you all!

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## motosauro

Actually this is the best solution imho.

You could nevertheless have tried to force the fans off, at least to know if you can  :Very Happy: 

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