I'm running Debian Testing on a Dell Latitude 7480.
I've been having a lot of freezing issues, and I have finally narrowed it down to an overheating problem. On battery, I can work for 1hr+ with no problem, and sometimes the system will freeze: mouse stops moving, the backlight of the keyboard doesn't power off, I cannot SSH into this machine. On AC power the same occurs after 15-20 minutes after plugging in to power; the bottom of the laptop is quite warm when this happens (not scalding hot, just warmer than it should be). I am currently at this machine on AC and it hasn't frozen after 21 minutes, but I have a USB fan connected to it.
The problem is that the fan never starts. I ran watch sensors during the whole session yesterday and the temperature does vary; however, the fan speed always changes to a positive number during a watch cycle (2 seconds) and goes back to zero after one or two; so the system reads a spinning fan for about 2-4 seconds, then it stops, but I never hear it. I know the fan works because I ran the onboard diagnostic tool and the fan not only started but I could hear it at full speed at some point during the memory test.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that at some point I ran sensors-detect, which suggested I added the modules fan and coretemp to /etc/modules, which I did. When I run lsmod, both modules always display 0 on the Used by column.
Yesterday the system froze at 20:15, so today I checked /var/log/syslog and I found this:
Mar 9 20:15:01 host CRON[1203]: (root) CMD (command -v debian-sa1 > /dev/null && debian-sa1 1 1) I searched for this and all I got was this post, but I cannot see it has any relation to my problem (I do have Apache installed but this is not a server, it's a laptop, and I don't run mysql here; also, the CPU meters don't go up, and reboot is not slower than it usually is). There are many other lines like this, but I cannot recall all of them having happened when the system froze; I'm sure not all of them did, because there are more log lines after some of them that indicate the machine was still running.
The only other information I can gather is the following, also from /var/log/syslog:
Mar 10 18:45:20 host sensors[600]: dell_smm-isa-0000 Mar 10 18:45:20 host sensors[600]: Adapter: ISA adapter Mar 10 18:45:20 host sensors[600]: Processor Fan: 0 RPM (min = 0 RPM, max = 6600 RPM) Mar 10 18:45:20 host sensors[600]: CPU: +39.0°C Mar 10 18:45:20 host sensors[600]: Ambient: +24.0°C Mar 10 18:45:20 host sensors[600]: SODIMM: +23.0°C Mar 10 18:45:20 host sensors[600]: Other: +24.0°C Mar 10 18:45:20 host sensors[600]: nvme-pci-3c00 Mar 10 18:45:20 host sensors[600]: Adapter: PCI adapter Mar 10 18:45:20 host sensors[600]: Composite: +23.9°C (low = -273.1°C, high = +84.8°C) Mar 10 18:45:20 host sensors[600]: (crit = +89.8°C) Mar 10 18:45:20 host sensors[600]: acpitz-acpi-0 Mar 10 18:45:20 host sensors[600]: Adapter: ACPI interface Mar 10 18:45:20 host sensors[600]: temp1: +25.0°C (crit = +107.0°C) Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[608]: Settings for hwmon6/pwm1: Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[608]: Depends on hwmon6/temp1_input Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[608]: Controls hwmon6/fan1_input Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[608]: MINTEMP=20 Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[608]: MAXTEMP=60 Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[608]: MINSTART=150 Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[608]: MINSTOP=100 Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[608]: MINPWM=0 Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[608]: MAXPWM=255 Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[608]: AVERAGE=1 Mar 10 18:45:20 host systemd[1]: Started fan speed regulator. Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[787]: Common settings: Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[787]: INTERVAL=10 Mar 10 18:45:20 host ModemManager[795]: <info> ModemManager (version 1.18.6) starting in system bus... Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[787]: Settings for hwmon6/pwm1: Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[787]: Depends on hwmon6/temp1_input Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[787]: Controls hwmon6/fan1_input Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[787]: MINTEMP=20 Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[787]: MAXTEMP=60 Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[787]: MINSTART=150 Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[787]: MINSTOP=100 Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[787]: MINPWM=0 Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[787]: MAXPWM=255 Mar 10 18:45:20 host fancontrol[787]: AVERAGE=1 The two blocks above are not consecutive, but it is the relevant information. Here are the contents of some files I deemed relevant:
cat /sys/devices/platform/dell_smm_hwmon/driver_override (null) cat /sys/devices/platform/dell_smm_hwmon/uevent DRIVER=dell_smm_hwmon MODALIAS=platform:dell_smm_hwmon cat fancontrol # Configuration file generated by pwmconfig, changes will be lost INTERVAL=10 DEVPATH=hwmon6=devices/platform/dell_smm_hwmon DEVNAME=hwmon6=dell_smm FCTEMPS=hwmon6/pwm1=hwmon6/temp1_input FCFANS= hwmon6/pwm1=hwmon6/fan1_input MINTEMP=hwmon6/pwm1=20 MAXTEMP=hwmon6/pwm1=60 MINSTART=hwmon6/pwm1=150 MINSTOP=hwmon6/pwm1=100 The last one is already on the syslog block above, but I reproduce it here nonetheless.
All solutions I've encountered to no fan on Linux suggest I install fancontrol and then run pwmconfig. The first time I tried I got an error telling me there was no /etc/fancontrol.conf file; I tried running this command while a USB fan was plugged and it worked. To be on the safe side, I just pressed Enter to generate the config file with the default parameters, but I still cannot hear the fans kicking in. As I said above, the sensors program tells me the speed changes every 2-4 seconds, but the fan is never audible and it doesn't stay on. The fan works on Windows (this laptop used to have it but I replaced the SSD with a new one, but kept and didn't format the old one), and as I said above, also in the onboard diagnostic tool. I've also run a Puppy Linux on a USB stick and it doesn't have this problem, although I didn't hear the fan working either.
Is there a way to properly configure fancontrol to solve this? Are there any other options? I can very well use the laptop with a fan plugged in, but that's not the sort of solution I'm looking for. Thanks!
