Fan on Acer Aspire 5315 not working

Question

I have recently installed Ubuntu 12.04 on my old laptop (Acer Aspire 5315 ) and observed that fan is not working properly on Ubuntu. How could I solve this problem?

Solution 1

Issue:

What the problem is that its a problem with the version of Bios your using,its a bug which prevents your CPU fan from working and causes your PC to overheat so then your Motherboard shuts the PC down to prevent damage.

Solution:

The solution is to download the latest Bios Version for your Acer Aspire 5315, theirs only a windows installer for this on the Acer website,Link for Windows Bios

• Update:http://support.acer.com/us/en/product/default.aspx?tab=1&modelId=50.

Solution 2

This is a well known design problem with the Acer Aspire 5315 preventing the fan to work properly and eventually shutting down the computer to protect from overheating.

Solution comes from here and here. You will have to register an account in order to download the fix.

You'll have to install mempat binary and acer_fancontrol script into /usr/bin.

You have to find out the correct memory address for mmap().

For the 5315 wit 1.5G RAM PATCH_ADDRESS=x5F6BCEAF.

Add acer_fancontrol to /etc/rc.local and restart.

Source: http://www.fugaz.net/2010/01/23/acer-aspire-fan-issue-solved/

In other cases, a simple bios upgrade worked: http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_5315.html