More fan speeds and states

[htrex]

Dear Vitor,
at first I want to say thank you for maintaining this package, it allowed me to turn the fans off on my Dell XPS 9560, it works beautifully and I'm really enjoying the silence! ;)

I wrote a post on Reddit to share how I configured it on my laptop, as it took sometime to understand what to put where, it's here https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/5y3rii/xps_9560_battery_life_optimization_and_fan/

One thing that I've noticed is that i8k supports 4 states and 3 fan speeds that on the XPS 9560 are about 0, 2400 and 4800 rpm. On Windows I've seen more states and 7 fan speeds at 0, 2400, 3100, 3700, 4100, 4800, 5100 rpm, probably a lot more recent Dell laptops support this improved scheme.

Would it be possible to enhance the fan control granularity supporting more states and fan speeds?

[vitorafsr]

Dear htrex, It is nice to maintain i8kutils for the community so that all that buy a Dell and decide to use Linux can have its fan working as expected. But unfortunately Dell does not contribute to this project. Never contributed. And enhancements in more speeds although known to exist is not achievable through code as developers do not know how to proceed. With that view, i8kutils remains with same feature since the beginning. Em 8 de mar de 2017 9:38 PM, "htrex" <notifications@github.com> escreveu: Dear Vitor, at first I want to say thank you for maintaining this package, it allowed me to turn the fans off on my Dell XPS 9560, it works beautifully and I'm really enjoying the silence! ;) I wrote a post on Reddit to share how I configured it on my laptop, as it took sometime to understand what to put where, it's here https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/5y3rii/xps_9560_ battery_life_optimization_and_fan/ One thing that I've noticed is that i8k supports 4 states and 3 fan speeds that on the XPS 9560 are about 0, 2400 and 4800 rpm. On Windows I've seen more states and 7 fan speeds at 0, 2400, 3100, 3700, 4100, 4800, 5100 rpm, probably a lot more recent Dell laptops support this improved scheme. Would it be possible to enhance the fan control granularity supporting more states and fans speed? — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#5>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AEhg52hjT7iMZStRMyK66zdPq5W4aILkks5rj0n0gaJpZM4MXf8P> .

[htrex]

It would be enough to know which new BIOS register addresses are available to set the fans to the new speeds or what?
Can you please detail what's needed by Dell?

I'd like to help and promote the issue looking for support from the community and to eventually put some pressure on Dell to release the specific documentation.

Thanks again.

[vitorafsr]

It is needed the docs on how to control the fans. Being said that way is understandable by every one, not only by the engineers. If you would like to say more details, ask for the register addresses, function calls, register values. Today i8kutils retrieve values from a SMM function call. SMM is a independent mode of operation of the processor. This may be sufficient to specify. I tried in some places in the past to find such information but was unsuccessful. So let's try again. Count on me! Em 10 de mar de 2017 1:08 PM, "htrex" <notifications@github.com> escreveu: It would be enough to know which new BIOS register addresses are available to set the fans to the new speeds or what? Can you please detail what's needed by Dell? I'd like to help and promote the issue looking for support from the community and to eventually put some pressure on Dell to release the specific documentation. Thanks again. — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#5 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AEhg52NnnWjMyi54Gjb96HcjTClZCfc8ks5rkXWEgaJpZM4MXf8P> .

[htrex]

To @vitorafsr and anyone interested.
I've posted a public request to release documentation on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/duplicates/5ypmqn/to_dell_project_sputnik_developers_about_managing/ and Dell Project Sputink Google+ community https://plus.google.com/u/0/117746869077591524195/posts/AygFVpctW9o.
There's definitely interest from the community around the issue.

To anyone interested: please, show your support there and let's see if we manage to convince Dell to release the needed information.
Thanks

[m1guelpf]

@htrex Maybe you could start a change.org campaign...

[htrex]

More than 10.000 people are already supporting the request, please have a look at https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/duplicates/5ypmqn/to_dell_project_sputnik_developers_about_managing/

The next step is to find the most appropriate channel to let Dell know, I'm looking for it.

update
@barton808 Barton George is the founder and lead of Project Sputnik, I'm trying to reach him hoping he is the right person to ask for this, or that he could kindly forward the request to the appropriate Dell officer.

[vitorafsr]

In 2014 I talked to Barton George! See the link below.

https://bartongeorge.io/about/#comment-28302

[htrex]

I guess you didn't receive the documentation at the time.
I'm confident that something changed since then and now it could be the right time for Dell to step up their support to the Linux community.

[aoyawale]

1+

[Skotar]

1+

[dusansusic]

+1

[mikeehun]

+1

[vemundl]

+1

[makedir]

And why do just the Linux community want a fan control for the XPS series? Windows user want one too obviously...

[ghostface]

+1

[pixmin]

Yes, I would love to be able to run fans at a speed lower then ~2500 RPM. I would much prefer to have the fans ON quieter for longer, than noisy fans for short periods... I wonder how quiet they could run to the slowest useful speed.

[pixmin]

I've just discovered that fan speed can be set:
http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/cosmic/man1/i8kmon.1.html

The following variables set fans speeds. If these variables are set at config file, i8kmon will not probe for them. The probe moment turns on fans at max speed.

   set status(leftspeed)   "0 1000 2000 3000"
          Speed values (rpm) of left fan at velocities 0, 1, 2, 3

   set status(rightspeed)   "0 1000 2000 3000"
          Speed values (rpm) of right fan at velocities 0, 1, 2, 3

However, when I set them at 1000 (as per description above) for velocity 1 they still turn at about 2500 RPM :(

Anyone has it working?

[CeruleanSky]

From what I understand the original values came from i8kfan which has a link to a 2001 source code zip file with FANCTRL.asm inside.

Its header reads:

; FANCTRL.ASM
; The fan control functions; extracted from NBFAN.MDM and NBSVC.MDM from
; the Dell Diagnostics 1052

Unfortunately, that implies without Dell's help, as has been realized, the only way forward would be to do the same, with reverse engineering of the bios, utilities, or diagnostics, just like they were found the first time.

[cgoudie]

This tbh