ThinkPad T440s fan speed

Question

I've just installed Ubuntu 14.04 on my new T440s, and it seems the fan starts working at full speed from time to time, I've read in several places that this causes the fan to be noisy and generally not good for the computer/fan.

I've read many post and couldn't decide the next action, should i control the fan speed, do i need to configure something related to computer's temperature, or should i return to windows, and download Lenovo power-management tool?

Solution 1

I am not sure it will work for all.

I have an t540 with the same problem.

My problem was solved by editing the Bios Power Management seetings. On the menu item :Power > Adaptive Thermal Management

Scheme for AC: Balanced Scheme for Batery: Balanced

I choosed balanced instead of Maximum performance for both AC adapter and Batery.

After this, re-start the system and no more fan noise from time to time. To enter the bios, just type enter during startup.

Now the Fan stays around 2000 with normal usage. I am not sure this is high or low. But it is not noisy. If you stop using many programs the fan can just go down to 0 rpm. When you activate any program again the Fan goes up to 2000 rpm or more (depending on the CPU usage of the application) and then stays at this level.

One tip is to install the lm-sensor and psensor to monitor your fan and CPU temperatures.

I will monitor my fan from now and if any thing change I will post aother reply.

All the best, Gustavo

Solution 2

The fan should work at full speed from time to time. When your machine gets hot, the fan will run at top speed to cool it down again. This is a Good Thing® and you should not try to change it.

If you feel that it is happening too often, that it occurs even when the machine is not hot, you might need to tweak the default temperature thresholds. There is a nice little program, ThinkPad Fan Control that lets you do that for ThinkPads.

You should also read the How to control fan speed page on http://thinkwiki.org which is the site for Linux on ThinkPads.

Comments

[Rakesh133]

Please also take a look into the BIOS/UEFI Setup Menu. Maybe there are settings which can influence the fan control.

[user271946]

yes, but I have read on Lenovo site ,that running on other OS than windows, without fan control can cause noises on the fan that I have...

[terdon]

@user271946 did you try the program I suggested or read the link I gave?

[user271946]

I've downloaded it but i couldn't download the contributed profiles from the site, and i'm afraid editing the config file.

[Csabi Vidó]

It's a good idea to look if there are firmware updates available that address thermal issues, but your example for a T410 is 3 generations apart from the T440s of the OP. This is not a good answer.