How can I control fan speed on Acer Nitro 5?

Question

I have an Acer Nitro-AN515-53 running Ubuntu. Is there a way I can control fan speed? Is there any type of software for this?

Solution 1

It's possible that fancontrol will work with your system. It's available in the Universe repository for all currently supported versions of Ubuntu. To install it, you must first enable the Universe repository.

Then install it with the command sudo apt install fancontrol

Warning

Please be careful when using the fan control features of your mainboard, in addition to the risk of burning your CPU, at higher temperatures there will be a higher wear on your other hardware components, too. So if you plan to use these components in 50 years, maybe you shouldn't use fancontrol at all. Also please keep in mind many fans aren't designed to be powered by a PWMed voltage.

In practice it doesn't seem to be a major issue, the fans will get slightly warmer, just be sure to have a temperature alarm and/or shutdown call, in case some fan fails, because you probably won't hear it anymore ;)

Configuration

For easy configuration, there's a script named pwmconfig(8) which lets you interactively write your configuration file for fancontrol. Alternatively you can write this file yourself using the information from this manpage.

Note Many motherboards don't have pwm circuitry installed even if your sensor chip supports it. Without this circuitry this software will not function for you.

Another possibility would be to use fancon which is a Linux fan control daemon and fan testing tool, allowing custom speed-temperature curves for fans, controllable by either PWM or RPM, or percentage. Installation instructions are on the project page and there is a snap available in Ubuntu Software.

Note2 I do not have your hardware so I cannot test to determine if either of these solutions will work for you.

Solution 2

You can ask the packaging system:

walt@bat:~(0)$ apt-cache search fan
# too many lines of output (172) look if you like
walt@bat:~(0)$ apt-cache search fan|grep -w fan
libsensors4 - library to read temperature/voltage/fan sensors
ubuntu-fan - Ubuntu FAN network support enablement
fancontrol - utility to control the fan speed
lm-sensors - utilities to read temperature/voltage/fan sensors
thinkfan - simple and lightweight fan control program
macfanctld - fan control daemon for Apple MacBook / MacBook Pro computers
walt@bat:~(0)$ 

Comments

[rtaft]

start with running sensors-detect to see what it finds, may need to install lm-sensors first. If that detects more than coretemp, you may have luck with fancontrol. Otherwise you can try thinkfan.

[Elder Geek]

I don't believe this is a duplicate as the question here is regarding controlling fan speed, not simply detecting it.

[Charles Green]

Although fancon is listed in the snaps, it has not been updated for almost two years

[Elder Geek]

@CharlesGreen True. ATM Latest commit 8657a48 on Jul 6, 2017