Thinkpads Forum

I'm having some issues with my thinkpad X21 and ubuntu. First of all, I can't get fan control to work right. I'm using powersaveD and thinkpad_acpi. I've enabled experimental and fan control but my fan can only run at one speed and will not go to auto mode. It either runs or it doesn't. I've tried the tp-fan control from the thinkwiki and it doesn't work. I've also tried using lm-sensors but they say that no fan device is found. Powersave -F does the same thing. What can I do to enable correct fan control.

I've also downloaded powertop and its very nice. However I don't know how to save the AC97 powersave setting it lets me turn on, nor the increase writeback time setting. Any other tips for better power savings?

There is a script the manually turns the fan off and on (I'm assuming you are able to control that) depending on temperature. It's floating around somewhere on thinkwiki. As for auto mode, that's the mode it should be in when you boot up and not change anything... I'm not sure why it would not be working properly (what is it doing that isn't right?).


I'm not sure how much of powertop would apply for a Pentium 3. The main feature is showing CPU sleep time, with the goal of maximizing C3 sleep by minimizing wakeups (does the P3 even have C3?). The other stuff it says are pretty minor, but anyways...

For AC97 powersave, install sysfsutils (sudo apt-get install sysfsutils), then edit /etc/sysfs.conf and add a line "module/snd_ac97_codec/parameters/power_save = 1". Then it will be set at startup automatically.

For writeback, there's /etc/sysctl.conf (different file), and you would put a "vm.dirty_writeback_centisecs=1500" or whatever number you want there. This is supposed to minimize hard drive accesses. It doesn't turn off the drive though, which is a bigger power savings (with caveats, such as lagginess and wear). I installed laptop-mode to manage the hard drive and get it to spin down totally, which has a significant effect on battery for me.

The fan is disabled on startup. Trying to set it to auto disables it. I can only put it on 1-7. The script does nothing. P3 seems to have C3 according to google and powertop. I'm also having a problem with GTK theming. It doesnt load the window colors by default. i use the darklooks theme but everything is blue and gray until I change the theme and then change it back. Laptop-mode is already on but i'm not sure if its spinning down the hard drive. I've enabled it so I'm hoping it does.

Ok, I've also noticed the fan speed sensor no longer works. It always stays at 0. It used to work before I installed lm-sensors and messed with powersave. The theme works, it was a bad tooltip color, go figure.