Fan control in Linux

[skip10]

Hi, I have recently purchased a MINISFORUM GN34 and have installed Ubuntu 18.04 Server on it which is working well. However, the cooling fan does not appear to correctly turn on/off under Linux.

If I power on the system when the processor is cold, the BIOS will not switch on the fan, and the fan will be off when Linux boots. The fan will then never turn on, even when the processor warms up during usage.

If I then reboot the system (processor is warm), the BIOS will switch on the fan, and the fan will stay on when Linux boots. The fan then stays on, even when the processor reaches a cooler temperature.

So, it seems that the fan will not change state while Linux is booted. Is there any way to enable the fan to turn on and off automatically in Ubuntu?

I have tried both the 4.13 and 5.3 HWE kernels.

Thanks

 

[Wen]

When the CPU temperature reaches 50 degrees, the fan will start to rotate,
Restart the system, the BIOS will initialize, and the fan will rotate for a short time. thanks

 

[skip10]

Thanks Wen - but the fan never comes on when booted into Ubuntu, even when CPU temp (as shown by "sensors") exceeds 50 deg.

 

[Wen]

Can you provide me a picture of the CPU temperature exceeding 50 degrees? Maybe our method of detecting the temperature is different ，thanks.

 

[skip10]

Hi Wen, this is taken after running a load for a while. The fan is not on. Thanks

 

[Wen]

OKay ,thanks
Because the cpu fan noise is low, you can take out the unit and remove the motherboard for inspection.
I want to know more infomation , maybe you just want to solve the problem from the BIOS .

 

[skip10]

The fan works if I reboot when the CPU is hot - but then it will stay on even after the processor cools down. So I don't think it is a hardware problem.

 

[skip10]

I've resolved the problem by setting thermald to exclusive control mode:

$ sudo systemctl edit --full thermald.service

Update the line:
    ExecStart=/usr/sbin/thermald --no-daemon --dbus-enable

To:
    ExecStart=/usr/sbin/thermald --no-daemon --dbus-enable --exclusive-control

Now the fan starts whenever the system is under load.

Thanks

 

[spikerguy]

Good to hear from smother happy linux user

 

[mm2]

I have same issue but exclusive control didn't solve it. The fan works one second on startup but then is never launched. I'm using Debian 10.

 

[Tankbuster]

I have same issue but exclusive control didn't solve it. The fan works one second on startup but then is never launched. I'm using Debian 10.

Using Debian as well, I can't get the fans spinning. It's even a problem on Windows 10 that was preinstalled. Did you find a way to solve this?
I have 8 machines I run at 1.5GHz to not damage the eMMC due to high temperatures. CPU temp is 70°C @ 2.2GHz and 60°C @ 1.5GHz fans are not spinning.

I cannot imagine that all those 8 boards have passed quality check without their fans spinning. This is a picture of my setup:

8x J3455 @ 1.50GHz
Edit: if there is no solution to getting the fans to spin I will just build my own fan controller. But it's a really weird thing that it's impossible to get those CPU fans to spin by any means. lm-sensors can't even detect that thingy so it probably uses some weird bus