# no fan -> no speed IBM R51 [solved]

## riczan

Dear gurus and developers:

Just when I thought I had everythink working in my IBM R51, I've realized that the fan is not working. I have cpufreqd working and frequencies change just fine. However when compiling at 1700 freq, temperature reads 73 C !!!

So I'm using the laptop only at 600 freq. Temperature is now 42 C.  (In windows, the temperature reads 31 deg and at a freq of 1700, so 43 deg might already be dangerous)

my /proc/acpi/fan directory is empty. I've checked my dsdt and it has no error no warnings.

What else can I do? This system can be sometimes really slow when running only at 600. 

I'm running vanilla 2.6.11-rc2

Please point me in the right direction. What else can I do?

I'm not sure how many fans this laptop has... I can hear a little noise but when the freq increases the noise remains the same and temperature raises. However, when I turn on glxgears, after 43 degrees I hear another fan turning on and that will stop at 42 deg... However this other fan does nothing to the temperature... I suppose this fan is on top of the graphics card.

Please help.

I have the most reacent bios and I know that somepeople complaing about the noise of the laptop. I wish I had that noise, I wish I had a fan.

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## ansient

assuming you are using the ibm-acpi driver:

```
echo "options ibm_acpi experimental=1" >> /etc/modules.d/ibm_acpi
```

then look at /proc/acpi/ibm/fan

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## riczan

Thank you but I'm not sure it worked. I enabled the experimental mode and now I see /proc/acpi/ibm/fan.

It is enabled and it reports a fan speed of 3050 when temperature is 45 deg.

Now I change freq from 600 to 1700 and start running applications like crazy, kdestars, audigy, gimp, etc... and the temperature increases to 62 deg!!!

The speed fan seems to increase a little to 3150 but the temperatures keeps increasing. 

SO!!!! is this normal??? its really frightening!

Any other suggestions, comments?

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## riczan

since my post is already in the second page I thought I'd give it a boost.

so... developers and gurus of the world, any suggestions?

is the fan revolution normal, around 3000?

Am I ok?

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## El Tazar

Since you got Windows on that box, I would try to see what temperatures and fan speeds you would get under full load using Windows. - Also, if the fan noise seems about the same, I wouldn't be too worried.

It's quite normal for laptop CPU's to reach these temperatures, as an example my laptop (With a Pentium 3 Mobile 800MHz) will kick the fan in when the cpu temperature reaches 71 degrees celcious, and stop it again when the temperature goes below 55 degrees. If it's compiling continously, the fan will stay on and keep the CPU at about 61 degrees.

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## riczan

Thanks for the suggestion but here are the "facts"

In windows XP and using speedfan I get to read temperatures but no fan is detected

The temperature is 37 deg always!!! no matter what I do (photoshoping etc)... The system is running at a feq of 1700

I also hear that the fan noise is the same than in linux but at times a hear it speeding up and a lot of heat (hot air) coming out the ventilation window. I think the fan is louder than in linux always... but that could be subjective (since I don't know how to read rpm in WInXP that's all I have).

SO... here I'm open to more suggestions.

Please don't let me like XP more that linux...

thanks!

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## ansient

photoshoping etc?  what kind of test is that?

run cpuburn

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## dgaffuri

Are you sure that temperature is 37 degrees under Windows? I've a Toshiba Tecra M2 with a Centrino at 2.00 GHz, and the temperature under load is always beetween 60 and 70 degrees. I hear fan slowing down when reaching 62 and stopping at 55. Even if I force the fan temperature never goes down 55.

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## riczan

Well, sorry about the photoshoping... I ran cpuburn under WinXP and I let it run for 5 minutes... Temperature remained constant at 37 deg. I couldn't also hear any significant fan speeding... but then again... I don't have the rpm so that is subjective.

Could it be that linux is reading temperature wrong? or windows?

is there an alternative to speedfan which might be reading wrong???

thanks

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## dgaffuri

If i remember well this doesn't show fan or temperature, but keeps history of CPU frequqncy under Windows. Maybe can be useful

http://cpu.rightmark.org/products/rmclock.shtml

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## mijenix

Hi

I don't know but maybe linux shows the wrong temperatur of your CPU. 

Maybe u can run Linux and do some benchmarking until the CPU is on ~70 degrees.

Then u can boot up Windows and then u can read the CPU temperatur. 

I think the CPU does not cool down so fast.

Hope it helps?

--Mathias

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## ansient

 *mijenix wrote:*   

> Hi
> 
> I don't know but maybe linux shows the wrong temperatur of your CPU. 
> 
> Maybe u can run Linux and do some benchmarking until the CPU is on ~70 degrees.
> ...

 

Or the finger test.  See if by touching the base of your laptop with your fingers you can detect a noticeable difference between the temperatures in Linux and Windows.

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## riczan

Time passed and now I've become and authority in the fan knowledge of my laptop :)

The problem was that the first software I was using for reading temperatures (speed fan) was giving wrong readings. Then I used something else (forgot the name but I can get it if anybody is interested) and now I was getting the same readings as in linux acpi. So I decided that my laptop was "normal". So more experimenting made me realize that what controls the fan speed is the GPU temperature and not the CPU's.

So here are some numbers for some IBM R51 interested users.

I like my laptop to be cool so I normally run at 600MHz and only increase to 1400 when required (never 1700 since I feel that's pushing to much and 73 deg is HOT)

CPU is around 40 deg and GPU is around 53. at 600MHz idle and

CPU is around 59 deg and GPU is around 53 at 1400 MHz idle

while running glxgears GPU rises all the way to ~ 73 deg (and looks like it could keep going but I chicken out and stop the experiment) 

The fan behaves like this while running glxgears:

starts at 51  fan is ~3100 rpm

            at 61  fan is ~3500 rpm

            at 66 fan is  ~3900 rpm

and thats besacally it. CPU and GPU temperatures are quite independent althougn the fan does cool the CPU eventough it is not controlled by it.

Weird enough after hibernate (and only then) the fan can go into some hysteresis behavior i.e. it will completely stop if GPU is around 51 deg and turnts itself on when both CPU and GPU temps rise about and so on... which makes a nice quite laptop and some fun to look sinusoidal temperature graphs :)

so that's it... hope it is useful for other scared happy thinkpad users

awsome laptop!!!

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