Thinkpads Forum

I am a recent convert from Ubuntu now running OpenSUSE Tumbleweed/GNOME on a Thinkpad T400 with AMD graphics. I am pretty happy with it, and GNOME3 (my main reason for switching) is pretty slick. After much fiddling around I finally gave up on trying to install the proprietary AMD driver and stuck with the FOSS version, despite the serious flickering issues. My only problem is that after about 30 minutes of heavy usage (full screen flash video will do it 100% of the time) the temp will reach 100*c and then the laptop will automatically shutdown without the fan ever kicking on. Under Ubuntu I never had these issues. The fan would automatically kick on to high under load, and the temperature would always hover around 93*c. However, I was also able to use the proprietary AMD driver under Ubuntu, which I have read is somehow related.

I have tried installing tpfand and tpfan-admin, and while they run with no issues I can't seem to change the fan speed. Even running "echo level 7 > /proc/acpi/ibm/fan" does nothing. I have all the correct parameters set and it appears the ibm-acpi kernel module is loaded with experimental=1 fan_control=1.

Here is the relevant log snip:

Jan 5 17:47:13 linux-homh kernel: [88124.393532] thinkpad_acpi: THERMAL EMERGENCY: a sensor reports something is extremely hot!
Jan 5 17:47:13 linux-homh kernel: [88124.397468] thinkpad_acpi: temperatures (Celsius):thinkpad_acpi: 103thinkpad_acpi: 68thinkpad_acpi: 48thinkpad_acpi: 98thinkpad_acpi: 50thinkpad_acpi: N/Athinkpad_acpi: 47thinkpad_acpi: N/Athinkpad_acpi: 49thinkpad_acpi: 64thinkpad_acpi: 77thinkpad_acpi: N/Athinkpad_acpi: N/Athinkpad_acpi: N/Athinkpad_acpi: N/Athinkpad_acpi: N/Athinkpad_acpi:
Jan 5 17:47:13 linux-homh kernel: [88124.405810] Critical temperature reached (100 C), shutting down.
Jan 5 17:47:13 linux-homh kernel: Kernel logging (proc) stopped.

To be honest I don't even need it to automatically control the speed based on temp (although that would be nice). If I could just run a command to set the fan speed to high I would be perfectly happy.

I think I got it working. I added both experimental=1 and fan_control=1 to both /etc/modprobe.d/thinkpad-acpi.conf and 50-thinkpad_acpi.conf. Not exactly sure why both are required in my case, but some reason they are. I will have to do some reading on thinkpad-acpi and maybe update that if possible (I seem some boot time messages related to that).

I haven't messed with tpfand yet, but I can echo full-speed > /proc/acpi/ibm/fan and I can audibly hear the fan speed increase and the fan speed changes to > 5400rpm in hwmon. When I set it back to auto, the fan speed scales down as it should. Now I will try to do some load testing to see if the fan speed increases automatically like it should, or if I still need to mess with tpfand.