I've been running thinkfan on my T420 Debian 8 setup for about 2 months now, and it's been running great. Although this package is not required, I would highly recommend installing it because by default, the fan will be stuck at a fixed rate (3300 RPM) without setup. This means that your laptop might be improperly cooled, leading to either overheating or overcooling, wasting precious battery power.
I would like to remind everyone that although I've tested and done the research to make sure these settings are safe to use, I am NOT responsible for what happens to your computer should something go wrong. Improper configuration can definitely harm the hardware of your computer so please do take your time to understand what each step does and double check your inputs.
Let's get started!
0. Make sure you have root privileges by either typing $ sudo or log in as root:
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$ su
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$ sudo apt-get install thinkfan
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$ sudo sh -c 'echo coretemp >> /etc/modules'
3. Since your changes won't take place until you restart your computer, let's manually load 'coretemp' this one time to continue with our configuration
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$ sudo modprobe coretemp
Format:
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(fan_level_#, lower_bound_temp, upper_bound_temp)
(0, 0, 42)
(1, 40, 48)
(2, 46, 53)
...
The above example turns the fan on when the temperature reaches 43 Celsius. As level 1 fan cools your computer down, when it reaches below 40, say 39, it will switch to fan_level_0, turning the fan off completely. If you are doing lots of processing, the temperature will rise and if it goes above 48, fan_level_2 is activated and so forth!
5. Now that you understand how thinkfan works, let's make some edits. Open up your thinkfan.conf with your favorite editor. I will use gedit in this example:
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$ gedit /etc/thinkfan.conf
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hwmon /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp
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hwmon /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp
(0, 0, 42)
(1, 40, 47)
(2, 45, 52)
(3, 50, 57)
(4, 55, 62)
(5, 60, 67)
(6, 65, 72)
(7, 70, 77)
(127, 75, 32767)
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$ touch /etc/modprobe.d/thinkfan.conf
$ sudo sh -c 'echo "options thinkpad_acpi fan_control=1" >> /etc/modprobe.d/thinkfan.conf'
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$ sudo modprobe -r thinkpad_acpi
$ sudo modprobe thinkpad_acpi
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$ sudo gedit /etc/default/thinkfan
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$ sudo /etc/init.d/thinkfan start
To see the current fan speed, level, and status information, type:
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$ sudo cat /proc/acpi/ibm/fan
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$ sensors
Run the following command and keep pressing ENTER or type YES when the the choice offer is capitalized and NO when the choice is capitalized. I would just press ENTER because that will select the default options automatically.
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$ sensors-detect
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$ systemctl status thinkfan.service