Fan speed constantly above 3000 RPMs

[Prisoner627]

Hello everyone,

earlier today I've installed ZorinOS Core on my VivoBook notebook. Previosly I had Debian 11, openSUSE Leap, Fedora and Windows 11 as well.

On all Linux distributions I had the same problem, CPU fans are running constatly on very high speed, above 3000 RPMs. Just after the system boot, the fans are still running at OK speed, around 2000 RPMs, but once I start using the OS the speed goes sometimes even above 4500 and I am not doing lost of stuff, e.g. browsing the web, discord opened, terminal with vim/nvim, spotify...just normal activities.
Just right now I have Brave with 5 tabs, Terminal, File Manager and VSCode, the CPU is around 5-10% load and ~33% of the memory is occupied. I am constantly checking the sensorsin terminal, the average CPU temp is ~50°C and still the fan speed is 3400RPM

asus-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
cpu_fan: 3400 RPM

ucsi_source_psy_USBC000:001-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
in0: 0.00 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +0.00 V)
curr1: 0.00 A (max = +0.00 A)

BAT0-acpi-0
Adapter: ACPI interface
in0: 11.98 V

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Package id 0: +49.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 0: +43.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1: +46.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 2: +42.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 3: +45.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

nvme-pci-e100
Adapter: PCI adapter
Composite: +27.9°C (low = -0.1°C, high = +76.8°C)
(crit = +79.8°C)

acpitz-acpi-0
Adapter: ACPI interface
temp1: +50.0°C (crit = +103.0°C)

For me this is a software issue, previosly when I was using W11 I didn't had these issues, once I switched to Linux, every distro is having this problem and I can't figure out what causes it. Any ideas?

I have already tried:

• switching the distro
• install the Nvidia drivers
• changing the kernel

Nothing seems to be working

The specs are:

11th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-11300H
16GB RAM
Nvidia RTX 3050

[nfratom]

check for the bios updates

[anongo]

Hello,

Can you post the result of the cmd when you are experiencing high fan usage:
free -h

Thanks!

[anongo]

@Prisoner627 Also a screen shot of the output of atop would be helpful.

[Ocka]

Check to see you have the CPU fan in CPU fan socket & not in Chassis Socket.
Or your machine may need a service ( cleaned)
Hope this may help.

[Mr_Magoo]

It all comes down to troubleshooting by process of elimination for problems like this, so here's some suggestions.

---

This may have to do with which CPU governor or power profile the OS has selected to use:

Change your CPU governor

There's a GUI application that allows you to set minimum and maximum CPU speeds, and change the CPU governor. It works for both Intel and AMD CPUs: sudo apt install cpupower-gui The types of CPU governors: performance: Run the CPU at maximum frequency, obtained from /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuX/cpufreq/scaling_max. powersave: Run the CPU at the minimum frequency, obtained from /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuX/cpufreq/scaling_min_freq. userspace: Run the CPU at user specified frequencies, config…

You can change the power profile used if you install:
sudo apt install cpupower-gui

You'll see a small icon on the taskbar, click that icon and select which profile to use. I've set up one profile that pegs the CPU cores to 400 MHz (minimum frequency) with TurboBoost disabled, one profile that allows the CPU core speed to range from 400 MHz up to the TurboBoost frequency, and one profile that pegs the CPU cores to maximum frequency.

---

It may be that the sensor used to report to the OS and the sensor to control the fan are different, and the one used to report to the OS is miscalibrated (or the OS isn't reading it correctly), reporting a lower-than-actual temperature. You'd have to check your sensors to be sure.

Get your sensors working

sensors --help will show the commands available. For example, if you type sensors -f, it'll show the available sensors in Fahrenheit rather than Celsius. But what if some of your sensors don't show up when you do that? sudo sensors-detect will walk you through detecting all of the sensors available. Don't be surprised, if you're on a laptop, if it finds nothing because the sensors are controlled by ACPI rather than the OS. If that's the case: sudo apt install acpi acpi -Vf

---

Ocka also provided you an excellent suggestion... use a vacuum cleaner to ensure your heatsink fins are free of dust, use a pipe-cleaner to get any stuck dust out, also make sure your fan blades are dust-free (especially the leading edges). Don't over-rev your CPU fan with the vacuum cleaner, it can ruin the bearings.

---

Some BIOS / UEFI setups have the ability to change the 'ramp-rate' for the fans. If yours does, check that you've not set the fan to ramp up quickly at a lower temperature.

---

One thing I've done for my laptop is to get two Mountain Dew bottle caps and place them under the rear of the laptop to lift it off the desk a bit. The extra clearance gives better airflow to the fan, so the fan runs slower. At idle, the fan shuts down completely. On my old laptop, the surface was so slick that it'd slide across my desktop and slip off the bottle caps, so I epoxied them to the bottom of the laptop... the new laptop has a little silicone grippy strip across its width at front and back so it doesn't slip, and the back grippy strip traps the bottle caps so they can't move.

No... that's not just an excuse to drink Mountain Dew. If your SO protests, tell them it's a legitimate need... and you'll need spares just in case.

[Ocka]

@Prisoner627

install the Nvidia drivers

You may also check into your graphics card, some Nvidia cards need the Secure boot Disabled, to permanently install their drivers.

May i ask, why have you set the, Max CPU temp to 100deg , this provides protection against your CPU melting. Normally set to 80deg Celsius.

setting the Max temp at 100c, may act like ( Disabling fan control)

Can you please show the output for:

sensors -u

this may just sort it slightly different, as i maybe viewing it incorrectly,

My system temp setting:

Summary

al@Al:~$ sensors -u
iwlwifi_1-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:
ERROR: Can't get value of subfeature temp1_input: Can't read

acpitz-acpi-0
Adapter: ACPI interface
temp1:
temp1_input: 27.800
temp1_crit: 105.000
temp2:
temp2_input: 29.800
temp2_crit: 105.000

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Package id 0:
temp1_input: 28.000
temp1_max: 80.000
temp1_crit: 100.000
temp1_crit_alarm: 0.000
Core 0:
temp2_input: 26.000
temp2_max: 80.000
temp2_crit: 100.000
temp2_crit_alarm: 0.000
Core 1:
temp3_input: 28.000
temp3_max: 80.000
temp3_crit: 100.000
temp3_crit_alarm: 0.000
Core 2:
temp4_input: 23.000
temp4_max: 80.000
temp4_crit: 100.000
temp4_crit_alarm: 0.000
Core 3:
temp5_input: 25.000
temp5_max: 80.000
temp5_crit: 100.000
temp5_crit_alarm: 0.000

al@Al:~$