[gentoo-user] fan noise in recent kernels

[gentoo-user] fan noise in recent kernels

[Mark Knecht]

Hi,
   Maybe I'm imagining things but it seems that all of my machines
have gotten noticibly noisier with some of the most recent kernels,
ala 2.6.12-gentoo-r6 or -r9. Has anyone else noticed this? This
observation comes from both a couple of Pundit-R's running
mythfrontend as well as an Intel-based backend/general purpose
machine.

   What packages would I look at emerging to better monitor control
that sort of thing?

Thanks,
Mark

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RE: [gentoo-user] fan noise in recent kernels

[Dave Nebinger]

>    Maybe I'm imagining things but it seems that all of my machines
> have gotten noticibly noisier with some of the most recent kernels,
> ala 2.6.12-gentoo-r6 or -r9. Has anyone else noticed this? This
> observation comes from both a couple of Pundit-R's running
> mythfrontend as well as an Intel-based backend/general purpose
> machine.

My first guess would be that this is not related to the kernel version, but
is more related to the aging of the fan(s) themselves.  Fans do wear out
over time (just had a switch that had two fans start squealing this week
that needed changed).

I'd suggest replacing the fans with some newer ones.  Go the expensive route
and get those quiet fans, especially for the myth box (last thing you want
to hear is a fan when watching myth).

Of course you can verify all of this by installing an old kernel and
determine if the noise level drops, but I'd be very surprised if that is the
case.



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Re: [gentoo-user] fan noise in recent kernels

[krzaq]

On 8/25/05, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>    Maybe I'm imagining things but it seems that all of my machines
> have gotten noticibly noisier with some of the most recent kernels,
> ala 2.6.12-gentoo-r6 or -r9. Has anyone else noticed this? This
> observation comes from both a couple of Pundit-R's running
> mythfrontend as well as an Intel-based backend/general purpose
> machine.
> 
>    What packages would I look at emerging to better monitor control
> that sort of thing?
Have you got an i2c chip on your board?
You can control fan speed from /sys/bus/i2c interface.


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Re: [gentoo-user] fan noise in recent kernels

[Mark Knecht]

On 8/25/05, Dave Nebinger <dnebinger@joat.com> wrote:
> >    Maybe I'm imagining things but it seems that all of my machines
> > have gotten noticibly noisier with some of the most recent kernels,
> > ala 2.6.12-gentoo-r6 or -r9. Has anyone else noticed this? This
> > observation comes from both a couple of Pundit-R's running
> > mythfrontend as well as an Intel-based backend/general purpose
> > machine.
> 
> My first guess would be that this is not related to the kernel version, but
> is more related to the aging of the fan(s) themselves.  Fans do wear out
> over time (just had a switch that had two fans start squealing this week
> that needed changed).
> 
> I'd suggest replacing the fans with some newer ones.  Go the expensive route
> and get those quiet fans, especially for the myth box (last thing you want
> to hear is a fan when watching myth).
> 
> Of course you can verify all of this by installing an old kernel and
> determine if the noise level drops, but I'd be very surprised if that is the
> case.

Hi Dave,
   Possible, but it seems to be a marked increase in noise, as well as
two of the machines (the Pundit-R's) being quite new.

   Installing an old kernel is a possibility but I hoped to determine
what sort of control Linux gives me over this part of the hardware
before I went that direction. I Was at Fry's looking at new
motherboards today and saw in the gamer's motherboards applciations
for changing overclocking, CPU voltages, fan RPM, and lots of other
stuff from within Windows, along with the ability to write it back to
BIOS so that it's there for the next boot. I've not looked into this
sort of stuff under Linux before.

Thanks,
Mark

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Re: [gentoo-user] fan noise in recent kernels

[Mark Knecht]

On 8/25/05, krzaq <krzakers@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/25/05, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >    Maybe I'm imagining things but it seems that all of my machines
> > have gotten noticibly noisier with some of the most recent kernels,
> > ala 2.6.12-gentoo-r6 or -r9. Has anyone else noticed this? This
> > observation comes from both a couple of Pundit-R's running
> > mythfrontend as well as an Intel-based backend/general purpose
> > machine.
> >
> >    What packages would I look at emerging to better monitor control
> > that sort of thing?
> Have you got an i2c chip on your board?
> You can control fan speed from /sys/bus/i2c interface.

All the machines have i2c chips, but I don't find anything readable
when I look at /sys/bus/i2c. For instance, on my oldest machine:

mark@godzilla ~ $ ls -al /sys/bus/i2c/devices/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 0 Aug 25 11:15 .
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 0 Aug 25 08:12 ..
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 0 Aug 25 11:15 1-002d ->
../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:11.0/i2c-1/1-002d
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 0 Aug 25 11:15 1-0048 ->
../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:11.0/i2c-1/1-0048
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 0 Aug 25 11:15 1-0049 ->
../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:11.0/i2c-1/1-0049
mark@godzilla ~ $


mark@godzilla ~ $ ls -al /sys/bus/i2c/drivers/
dev_driver/  i2c_adapter/ w83781d/     w83l785ts/
mark@godzilla ~ $ ls -al /sys/bus/i2c/drivers/

Control of this stuff must be application based. Is there an app for
monitoring temperature and fan speed and then setting it higher or
lower, either by hand or automatically?

Thanks,
Mark

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Re: [gentoo-user] fan noise in recent kernels

[Glenn Enright]

On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 06:24, Mark Knecht wrote:
>
> mark@godzilla ~ $ ls -al /sys/bus/i2c/drivers/
> dev_driver/  i2c_adapter/ w83781d/     w83l785ts/
                            ^^^^^^^       ^^^^^^^  

looks like you have modules compiled in for your motherboard sensors. You can 
at least look at the output in a neat and tidy manner with gkrellm. It can 
give you a running summary of fan speeds, temps and such. 

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Re: [gentoo-user] fan noise in recent kernels

[krzaq]

I couldnt find a good program to do this.
I've rewriten an old piece of code to work with i2c.
It's configurable and works quite well.
If you like I can email the source to you.

On 8/25/05, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/25/05, krzaq <krzakers@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 8/25/05, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >    Maybe I'm imagining things but it seems that all of my machines
> > > have gotten noticibly noisier with some of the most recent kernels,
> > > ala 2.6.12-gentoo-r6 or -r9. Has anyone else noticed this? This
> > > observation comes from both a couple of Pundit-R's running
> > > mythfrontend as well as an Intel-based backend/general purpose
> > > machine.
> > >
> > >    What packages would I look at emerging to better monitor control
> > > that sort of thing?
> > Have you got an i2c chip on your board?
> > You can control fan speed from /sys/bus/i2c interface.
> 
> All the machines have i2c chips, but I don't find anything readable
> when I look at /sys/bus/i2c. For instance, on my oldest machine:
> 
> mark@godzilla ~ $ ls -al /sys/bus/i2c/devices/
> total 0
> drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 0 Aug 25 11:15 .
> drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 0 Aug 25 08:12 ..
> lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 0 Aug 25 11:15 1-002d ->
> ../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:11.0/i2c-1/1-002d
> lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 0 Aug 25 11:15 1-0048 ->
> ../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:11.0/i2c-1/1-0048
> lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 0 Aug 25 11:15 1-0049 ->
> ../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:11.0/i2c-1/1-0049
> mark@godzilla ~ $
> 
> 
> mark@godzilla ~ $ ls -al /sys/bus/i2c/drivers/
> dev_driver/  i2c_adapter/ w83781d/     w83l785ts/
> mark@godzilla ~ $ ls -al /sys/bus/i2c/drivers/
> 
> Control of this stuff must be application based. Is there an app for
> monitoring temperature and fan speed and then setting it higher or
> lower, either by hand or automatically?
> 
> Thanks,
> Mark
> 
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> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> 
> 


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Karol Krzak

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Re: [gentoo-user] fan noise in recent kernels

[Mark Knecht]

On 8/25/05, Glenn Enright <elinar@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 06:24, Mark Knecht wrote:
> >
> > mark@godzilla ~ $ ls -al /sys/bus/i2c/drivers/
> > dev_driver/  i2c_adapter/ w83781d/     w83l785ts/
>                             ^^^^^^^       ^^^^^^^
> 
> looks like you have modules compiled in for your motherboard sensors. You can
> at least look at the output in a neat and tidy manner with gkrellm. It can
> give you a running summary of fan speeds, temps and such.
> 
Humm... I tried gkrellm2 on one machine. It runs but I haven't figured
out how to make it show me fans and temps. I wonder if this older Asus
A7V266-E machine can do that?

I also emerge gkrellm-sensors but I'll have to find some info on how
to use that. Possibly it's part of the solution.

Thanks,
Mark

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Re: [gentoo-user] fan noise in recent kernels

[Mark Knecht]

On 8/25/05, krzaq <krzakers@gmail.com> wrote:
> I couldnt find a good program to do this.
> I've rewriten an old piece of code to work with i2c.
> It's configurable and works quite well.
> If you like I can email the source to you.
> 

That would be great, but why not make it an ebuild and put it in portage?

Send along a copy off list if you have time. I'd be interested in trying it out.

Thanks,
Mark

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Re: [gentoo-user] fan noise in recent kernels

[Glenn Enright]

On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 09:44, Mark Knecht wrote:
> Humm... I tried gkrellm2 on one machine. It runs but I haven't figured
> out how to make it show me fans and temps. I wonder if this older Asus
> A7V266-E machine can do that?
>
> I also emerge gkrellm-sensors but I'll have to find some info on how
> to use that. Possibly it's part of the solution.
>
> Thanks,
> Mark
Ok fair nough. I belive that gkrellm2 has most of the plugins as part of its 
emerge, sorta like a monlithic ebuild, wheras gkrellm-sensors is part of 
gkrelm version1. 

to configure right click on gkrelm and look for sensors under plugins. If 
everything is working, there should be a big list of checkboxes there you may 
enable. if you modprobe these modules *after* starting gkrellm it wont pick 
them up tho.

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Re: [gentoo-user] fan noise in recent kernels

[Mark Knecht]

On 8/25/05, Glenn Enright <elinar@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 09:44, Mark Knecht wrote:
> > Humm... I tried gkrellm2 on one machine. It runs but I haven't figured
> > out how to make it show me fans and temps. I wonder if this older Asus
> > A7V266-E machine can do that?
> >
> > I also emerge gkrellm-sensors but I'll have to find some info on how
> > to use that. Possibly it's part of the solution.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Mark
> Ok fair nough. I belive that gkrellm2 has most of the plugins as part of its
> emerge, sorta like a monlithic ebuild, wheras gkrellm-sensors is part of
> gkrelm version1.
> 
> to configure right click on gkrelm and look for sensors under plugins. If
> everything is working, there should be a big list of checkboxes there you may
> enable. if you modprobe these modules *after* starting gkrellm it wont pick
> them up tho.
> 

OK, my bad for not seeing sensors in the list of things I could
configure in gkrellm. I'm now getting 1 fan speed and 2 temp readings.
One temp said 32C while the other said 68C. I ran glxgears for 5
minutes and watched those move to 33C & 70.5C. There's a bit of a
thermal lag. After I turned off glxgears the temp continued to go up
for about 1 more minute and has now started down slowly.

I suppose now the thing to do would be to run this on all the systems
with 2.6.12-gentoo-r6/r9 and then see about building one of the
earlier kernels and look for differences.

Thanks for the clues.

Cheers,
Mark

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