[Guide] How to control fans on Dell Laptops under Windows

Using separate cmd window to launch it (the DellFanCmd.exe), correct?

 

Yes. If you want a GUI app instead you can use the one from the first post in this thread. Replacing bzh_dell_smm_io_x64.sys with the one from my package will allow it to run without the testsigning mode stuff. (The registry change mentioned a few posts up will still be needed.)

 

Blah, I'm a total liar. Secure boot was off. When I turned it on, it behaved like everyone else's (refusing to load the driver), fixed by the registry change mentioned by @maffle a few posts up.

 

@ Aaron44126 I updated the bios to 1.7.0 on the 9570 and now it doesnt work anymore... (kinda). dGPU activity would still trigger the fans with bios 1.7.0 regardless of the register overwrite. Wonder if there is now maybe a new one, or they just forget to program it the same way, and the old register is now ignored. I just hate Dell. Went back to 1.6.0 and it is working again. So bios 1.6.0 will be the last one for me I guess. Sigh...

 

So far it works on the E6540, kudos to you mate!

 

@maffle . . . congrats on getting this working. You guys did nice work there. And I know what you mean about cat and mouse with Dell. My next and final project on the 9360 is probably going to be to roll back the bios far enough that you still had the option to "force S3 sleep." I really don't like "modern" anything, and I want that back. And apparently when I get it back, according to discussion on Dell's forums, I'll then have to work around a USB bug that causes S3 to leach power -- though it seems manageable.

The gripe seems to be that Dell, which posted that it took away S3 as part of a campaign to eliminate "certain redundancies," doesn't want to fix the bug. Or that it's all Microsoft's fault. Depends on your point of view, I suppose.

At some point, I may try to have a conversation with somebody at Dell about this . . . there's really no need to make some of this so hard. But I'm not holding my breath -- this is stuff you're not supposed to try at home.

Still, I must say, the 9360 quad core is really nice once you mod it to deal with the thermals and put in a bigger, faster SSD. Snappy, quiet, and thanks to you guys, under control . . . mostly.

Congrats on your bug hunt. I didn't understand all of it, but it really was fun watching you and Aaron track down the problem.

Mike

 

Alienware Command Center is available to download for new G5 and G7. I tested it on my 7577. It installs, but does not find any compaitible hardware so no fan control is available. Maybe someone skilled could hack this software and make use of it...

 

So I went with the solution of using the old cmd file and "disable driver signature enforcement" for a whole while now and it was "ok" but I got a lot of bluescreens saying "irql not less or equal", so I disabled it. Yesterday I had some time at work and thought why not have a look in the forum again, maybe someone has a solution....
And wow I got to say @maffle and @Aaron44126 you guys took me on quite the journey
Great job @maffle for getting the driver on HWinfo and awesome work with the CMD-tool @Aaron44126, thank you guys so much.
I love HWinfo but I can't use it as daily driver for fan control as it doesn't have hysteresis....
So far the CMD-tool and SpeedFan solution works great, no bluescreens
@Aaron44126 maybe you can upload the script files also, as I'm not that advanced in working with those. One seems to be a batch file and the other some xml....
Also I have an idea:
Maybe we can get the developer of SpeedFan to implement the driver the same way as with HWinfo.
Wouldn't that solve all the issues?

 

Indeed, I haven't tried to reach out to the SpeedFan author (and AFAIK no one else has either). I'm not sure how active SpeedFan development is since the last version was posted in 2016. But if he did implement the EC control commands then the command-line tool and related scheduled tasks to get it to turn fan control on and off would be unnecessary.

 

Attached: The XML files are Windows Task Scheduler jobs (you can import them) and the BAT files are simple command-line scripts. These were taken "raw" from my current setup. You'll have to adjust file paths and your user account SID if you want to have yours working the same way.

 

It kinda now has in the latest beta, because I asked to implement it. It now has a spin-down time in seconds you can set. So if for example the first temp value was triggered, and then you set a spin-down timer of 30 seconds, it will spin for 30 seconds, even the temps were now below the lowest toggle point.

 

Yes I tried that but still it's no solution for me.

@Aaron44126 thx for the scripts. Unfortunately I didn't really get the logoff one to work, so I tried to do it with gpedit but how do you run those with admin rights?

 

The "logoff script" does not run with admin rights but the "shutdown script" does. (Go figure.)

 

Aaron44126 and maffle, congrats for the hard work!!!
I installed the beta hwinfo in my G7 7588, and it's fan control function is working flawlessly.
It automatically starts at windows boot, and it continues to work even after suspension and restart.
I even force closed hwinfo to see if the system fan management regain control, and all worked fine.
Now I´m satisfied with my G7.
Thanks.

 

Thanks. I have heard that bios 1.9 has sorted out the fan problem with the g series laptops. This could mean that I don't have to control the fans manually anymore. How do I enable the system ec control?

 

Disabling EC fan control using methods described here does not survive a power cycle. Shut the laptop off and turn it on again.

 

I've done that. I don't think it's worked. Am I supposed to force shutdown the computer?

 

No. If you have fully powered off the system, and you haven't set up some automatic process to disable EC fan control at startup, then the EC is controlling the fans again. Check if you like, try to control the fans using SpeedFan and any adjustment that you make will either not work or be quickly reverted.

 

hi m4600 user here. am a bit confused.
the m4600.zip the 3 files in here i replace them in speedfan folder in C rogram files/speedfan.?
windows 10 here after the command bcdedit.exe -set TESTSIGNING ON now theres a message on the lower righthand side of screen.. thats should be like that always.?

so every power on of laptop i need to disable EC in fan utility.. then close app then open speed fan. ? its that all.? how do i know that you profile is the one working.?
thanks

 

I've got a Dell Latitude 5490, I've already set TESTSIGNING to on and have Windows 10 running in Test Mode.

The issue I've having is that whether I use Speedfan or HWInfo64 to control the fan, when the laptop goes into hibernate mode and comes back from it, the Dell Fan Utility referred to in the OP still has the "EC Control Disabled" button greyed out as if it's working, but it's not.

I have to exit and re-run the Dell Fan Utility and re-disable EC Control in order to be able to manually set the fan speed in Speedfan or HWInfo64 again. In other words, coming back from Hibernate sets the EC back on, but the Dell Fan Utility is not aware of it.

Looks like in the existing code on Github, dell_smm_io() and dell_smm_io_set_fan_lv() need to be re-run on coming back from Hibernate, or at least ui->pb_disable_ec_ctrl->setEnabled(true).

Code:

void MainWindow::on_pb_disable_ec_ctrl_clicked()
{
    if(msgbox->exec() == QMessageBox::Yes)
    {
        ui->gb_override_protect->setEnabled(false);
        ui->pb_disable_ec_ctrl->setEnabled(false);
        ui->pb_disable_ec_ctrl->setText("EC control disabled");

        //shutdonw ec control code here

        dell_smm_io(DELL_SMM_IO_DISABLE_FAN_CTL1,DELL_SMM_IO_NO_ARG);
        dell_smm_io_set_fan_lv(DELL_SMM_IO_FAN1,DELL_SMM_IO_FAN_LV1);

    }
}

Any workarounds without recompiling? I don't have a Qt environment set up on here yet, just VS2019 Community and Cygwin.

 

See my thread on DellFanCmd; I have instructions for a Task Scheduler job to disable the EC after resume from hibernate.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ual-custom-control-of-the-laptop-fans.827106/

 

I have a Dell G3 3590
This actually worked but i could never reach the aximum speed of the fans. Only 85% of it. So i got better thermals without this.

 

Why is there such option to disable EC control as that the program is supposed to automatically override/disable integrated EC in order to take control of fan stuff? Am I missing something Aaron?

Also, is current thread mentioning the same program as linked below?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...anaging-the-fan-speed-in-dell-laptops.833340/

I thought that the threads are duplicated if I am not wrong, and Dell fan control program is written only by Aaron. Later I found that the program of author ( 424778940z from GitHub) was mentioned in first (original) post, which appears to be another/different Dell fan control program? Right? There is some mess about it

Best regards.

 

The GUI program named "Dell Fan Control" is not created by me, it is by 424778940z. I created the command-line tool "DellFanCmd" and later another GUI program called "Dell Fan Management" (currently in beta), these (and others) are described in the thread that you linked. These both use the SMM IO driver which was also created by 424778940z, but it was also based on previous work.

There are many reasons for a program to disable EC fan control without taking control of the fans. One might be to allow another program to take control of the fans, like SpeedFan, which can manage Dell fans but doesn't have a mechanism to shut off EC fan control built in. Since granular fan control is not possible when the EC disabled, another reason might be to wait until the fan speed is at the level that you want and then disable EC fan control to "lock" it at that speed.