# Dell Studio 15" fan not slowing down. [solved]

## Sedrik

Hi all

I got myself a new Dell Studio 15" computer and have been able to get acpi working on i now. Altough not perfectly since the fan won't slow down even though I am just idling or coding.

Any help would be lovley.

Here are some of the configuration files, please tell me if you need to look at anything else.

localhost sedrik # wgetpaste /usr/src/linux/.config

Your paste can be seen here: http://paste.pocoo.org/show/273936/

localhost sedrik # lspci | wgetpaste 

Your paste can be seen here: http://paste.pocoo.org/show/273937/

localhost sedrik # cat /proc/cpuinfo | wgetpaste 

Your paste can be seen here: http://paste.pocoo.org/show/273938/

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## audiodef

This might actually be a good thing not to worry about. You always want to keep your machine's interior - especially the CPU - as cool as possible. Laptops are confined pieces of machinery and are a bit more susceptible to overheating than roomy desktops. 

I say let it be, in the interest of prolonging the machine's (or at least the CPUs) overall life.

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## Sedrik

This is annoying an there is no good reason for the fan to spin at max speed when the cpu is cool enough. It will only decrease it's lifespan and bring further problems down the road, maybe you like a noisy laptop but I sure do not.

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## chithanh

See if it makes a difference if you enable the driver for CPU frequency scaling:

```
# CONFIG_X86_ACPI_CPUFREQ is not set
```

Also you may want to enable DELL_LAPTOP and DELL_WMI in menuconfig.

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## audiodef

Expanding on what chithanh said, there are also other sensor and CPU freq utils. Search Portage for these and try them until you find what works. 

Also check your machine's BIOS. It may have something to say about fan speed settings.

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## Sedrik

It's much better now thanks guys =)

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## anthonyw

Hi, 

Just wondering what exactly u did to solve this. I have a new dell studio 1558 and the fan is constantly going nuts too.

I already have the CPUFREQ flag set and don't seem to have the other two DELL flags mentioned above, in menuconfig....

```

antolaptop linux # grep CPUFREQ .config

# CONFIG_X86_PCC_CPUFREQ is not set

CONFIG_X86_ACPI_CPUFREQ=y

antolaptop linux # grep DELL .config

# CONFIG_DELL_RBU is not set

```

This is a brand new gentoo install, (installed 2 days ago) using linux-2.6.34-gentoo-r11

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## Sedrik

hi anthonyw, you have to fullfill som dependencies before the options becomes available, I am not on my laptop right now but if you search for the options inside o menuconfig (use / for search) it will tell you what theese options are. Tell me again if you can't find it and I will post my new kernel configuration.

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## anthonyw

I was using the open source ati drivers and as soon as I switched to the proprietary drivers, the fan noise ceased, maybe there's a second fan for the GPU and thats the one i was hearing?

Oh yeah Sedrik, I managed to find and enable DELL_LAPTOP and DELL_WMI with the / search facility in menuconfig. Thanks for the advice  :Smile: 

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## Sedrik

anthony, which version of xorg are you running? =)

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## anthonyw

Hi,

xorg-drivers 1.7

xorg-server 1.7.7-r1

i'm running amd64 stable.

Anthony

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## Spinmc

Hi

I use gentoo stable amd64 on a dell studio 1555 with ati mobility radeon 4570 with ATI proprietary drivers.

The problem is that the open source graphic driver, at the moment, does not support dynamic power management for the newest ati cards. You can only select to force a low power mode (at a big cost for performance) or a performance profile but never slowing your fan! Your choose cannot be dynamical. Some more info here: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ATI#Powersaving

Otherwise you can use the ATI proprietary drivers that include the ATI powerplay support.

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