i8kutils

Dell 5520 , no more smm, how to disable bios fan control ?

Asked by AndreK

I can install i8kutils right from Ubuntu repository, installing itcauses the most annoying sound ever, BIOS and the service is apparently fighting for control, switching the fan on and off all the time.

So I've read that something called smm can disable bios control - (it should really be a part of i8kutils) - but can't find it.

The reason I wish to use i8kutils is that BIOS thend to be a bit "digital" in it's way to control fan, and sometimes just let it run at full speed way too long (blowing close to cold air) - I assume i8kutils will do that better.

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Launchpad Janitor (janitor) said : 		#1

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.

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AndreK (andre-k) said : 		#2

is i8kutils still being maintained ? - any hope for an solution here ?

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vitorafsr (vitorafsr) said : 		#3

smm (smm.c source code) was removed from i8kutils as its source code did not compiled anymore with recent kernel. Kernel has upgraded its inner workings, and smm.c stopped working.

Up to now, smm functionality is able to exist in a different way the before, calling the module to do the job. smm can not do directly what it did before.

Then, I have done such different way implemented as is explained at https://github.com/vitorafsr/i8kutils/issues/6

For a better solution (to be shipped inside i8kutils package) one thing must be done. Kernel module must be patched basically. But this is not trivial as pull request submited to kernel team is not easily pulled. Then I have proposed that people patch kernel. Try it that it works.

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vitorafsr (vitorafsr) said : 		#4

I have submitted the patch[1] to the linux kernel main tree. Let's see what happens.

[1] patch as explained at https://github.com/vitorafsr/i8kutils/issues/6

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berglh (berglh) said : 		#5

@vitorafsr Can you link us to the kernel bug for tracking? I have the latest XPS 15 9570 and I'm basically having all these problems with SMBIOS overriding the OS fan control and constantly spinning up and spinning down even if I peg all CPUs to 800 MHz. In addition, lm-sensors is not able to read the system fan information (as everyone has mentioned before) due to this. I'm interested to see the progression of your patch. I'll hopefully get some time to test it soon. Thanks.

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