HP Notebook Fan Control in HWiNFO32 (ROUND 2 - AUTO FAN CONTROL CONFIG) !

Since I have received a lot of feedback on the Manual Fan Control I implemented on certain EliteBook series (as discussed here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-.../519840-hp-notebook-fan-control-hwinfo32.html) and a lot of requests to enahnce the features to be able to modify the Automatic fan control tables as well, I have decided to implement this too.
The original Fan Control allowed to change the controller to Manual Control state and set the fan speed to any value.
This is the 2nd round of fan control which allows to modify the LUT (Look Up Table) which is activated when the controller is in automatic mode.
Supported notebook models remain the same as previously (those which contain the SMSC EMC2103 or SMSC EMC2113 controllers).
To activate this feature use the same method as disclosed in the previous thread. Now an additional Lookup Table is displayed. To access this table, the controller needs to be switched to manual mode.
The LUT consists of 8 different levels of fan control and each level is activated based on the value of any of the 4 displayed temperature thresholds (if any of these temperatures reaches the threshold value defined, the specified fan RPM value is activated). On some models (like the 8740w), only Temp3 is monitored and available to be changed. On some others, the External temperatures are included in the table as well.
Note, that on several models, the Temp3 doesn't contain a real temperature value (in degrees Celsius), but a PWM duty cycle instead which is a value supplied to the fan controller circuit. For example on 8740w it's the value sampled on the PWM_IN pin, on 8730 it's the value of Pushed Temperature 1. This value doesn't have a real correspondence to a fixed temperature value. Anyway, it's possible to modify this value (probably best would be some kind of guessing based on system observation). You can convert the PWM duty cycle into % by: ( value/128 ) * 100 [%]
If you make any changes to the LUT, pressing the "Apply and Save" button stores the values into the fan controller circuitry and switches to Automatic mode to activate them (the controller needs to be in the Automatic mode in order to use the LUT values). These settings are then remembered in the registry as well, so when you run HWiNFO32 again and open Sensors, the values set will be loaded into the chip. This means, that to have your custom settings always active (after a reboot), you should autorun HWiNFO32 with Sensors (because the fan controller is configured by BIOS). This has the advantage that the original settings are always restored during boot in case the user makes a mistake. If you wish to clear the custom LUT settings, press the "Clear Preferences" button in HWiNFO32 / Configure.

Sample screenshot (HP 8740w):

Sample explanation:
Rule 4: If the PWM_IN Duty cycle reaches 48 (37.5%), then fan speed is set to 3233 RPM.
Rule 5: If the PWM_IN Duty cycle reaches 64 (50%), then fan speed is set to 3510 RPM.

BE CAREFUL WHEN CHANGING ANY SETTINGS AND BE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING ! YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY POTENTIAL DAMAGE !

Download the latest HWiNFO32 release which supports this feature:
LINK REMOVED DUE TO NBR FORUM RULES

Please submit your feedback if/how this feature works !

Update: HWiNFO32 v3.69-1149 allows to modify the Fan Minimum Drive setting (the minimum fan speed in %, a value below this threshold is considered by the fan controller as invalid and can't be used).

 

Wow, great job, Martin!
I tested it and it works perfectly! Here's what was changed:

1. Fan 1649 - no changes
2. Fan 2318 - changed to 2700 ( kicks in when temps reach 70C)
3. Fan 2700 - changed to 3510 ( kicks in when temps reach 75-77c)
4. Fan 3233 - changed to 3510
5 and beyond - no changes

With the above changes the fan will kick in to 2700rpm @70C, and max@75-77C. Cooldown to 65C will reduce the speed from max to 2700rpm, and 55C will bring it to the default 1649rpm.

Thank you!

 

I made some small improvements to the Fan Control and posted a new Build (1128).

 

I'm testing it now...

 

Posted a new public Beta (build 1130)

 

Great! I gotta tell you, this new feature is so handy! I can finally stop thinking about the fan and temps, lol

 

No one else interested in this? Previously many asked me for such feature...

 

it works on my 2800M 8740w machine, perfectly.

Thanks for this mate

 

Say, how are you even accessing the i2c (smbus), when the smbus controller doesn't appear even though its bit is cleared in the "function disable register"?

If you can open-source that piece, then Linux will be able to use its own EMC driver.

Also, on my 8530w, there are 4 editable columns; how do I know which things to set to what? The headers are: Temp1 (ext1), Temp2 (ext2), Temp3 (push1), Temp4 (int). Not all of those temperatures appear in the actual readings pane.

 

So you say that when you clear RCBA+0x3418 bit3, the SMBus PCI device is still not decoded on bus? That shouldn't happen and I don't do anything more to enable that device.
As for the 4 temperatures, if either of them crosses the threshold then it's activated. On these models it seems that Temp3 is the most important one..
In this case Temp1 is the External sensor diode 1, dunno where the diode is really located (could be under CPU), Temp2 is External sensor 2, Temp3 is pushed into the chip from some source (dunno which) and Temp4 is the Internal temperature of the EMC (mostly used as the motherboard temperature). You should see the values of these temperatures in HWiNFO32 sensors.

 

Mumak thanks for doing this. Works great on my 8530p.

 

Hi, thanks for the excellent software!
The fan control and LUT editor work great on my 8530p.

This model has a painful problem: after playing a game or anything that stresses the GPU, the main fan blows at 3276 rpm and never stops even when the notebook is dead cold.
Thanks to your LUT editor I can lower the temp3 threshold and my ears are happy again.
It looks like the system thinks temp3 is between 50 and 60°C, but no sensor is that high on the main sensor dialog (only in the max column).

Here is what it looks like:

 

Hi Mumak,

on my 8440p the tool does not work complete.
I am able to do changes in the Fan control window in column "Temp 3" anf "Fan RPM". But when I choose a value in "Fan RPM" that is lower than ca. 2200 then fan does not slow down. So when the notebook is cold the fan runs with 960 rpm (thats what the software says) and after a while it speeds up to 2200.
Is there the same problem with the 85xx and 87xx?

 

Depending on particular notebook model/design the fan seems to have its limits to min and max and this is why it behaves so. Unfortunately I don't know if it's smart and safe to change those limits. Maybe they are there for some reason... If you send me a HWiNFO32 Debug File, I can check if there's a fan minimum setting used.
Also please try one thing: Enter a Fan RPM value of 963 into the table and see how the fans will spin then.

 

Hi Mumak,

thank you for the answer!
When I tip in 963 for fan speed the fan goes down to 963 rpm (and I can not hear him anymore).

What is the debugfile? Can I generate it with Reports -> create ?
Or is there an other way to create it?

 

963 is in this case a special value that in fact means Fan OFF. You cannot use a lower setting. I'll fix HWiNFO32 to properly handle and display this case.
Values between ~2200 and ~960 for your model seem to be limited by Fan Minimum drive setting in the controller and thus considered as invalid. There might be a reason for this. Do you need to have that range enabled? I'm not sure if I should allow the user to change this setting too..

 

Hi Mumak,

as you already said, maybe there is a reason why it is not easy to set this value below 2200 rpm
I think, especially for surfing the notebook would not get too hot if the fan would turn slower. With the 2200 rpm value the fan turns on, stops for a while, then turns on again. Maybe with 1700 the fan would run all the time but is not as loud as on 2200.
If it is easy for you to activate these settings I would test it and give you feedback. If you think this is critical then it is also ok.

 

Okay, I'll do that.. I have also noticed that currently HWiNFO32 crashes when using a fan value of 0 (off) or doesn't properly handle values < 963, so I'll fix these issues too. It will accept 0 or > 960..

 

Please try this build:
LINK REMOVED DUE TO NBR FORUM RULES
It should fix the above issues and allow to change the Minimum Fan Drive setting.
Let me know how it works !

 

Thank you so much for all your efforts Mumak. I am running this perfectly on my fleet of 8530w's.

Now that the 8530 is getting a bit long in the tooth, I'm looking into overclock options a lot more seriously now. I'm making use of uncleWebs C2D extreme multiplier unlock in ThrottleStop. I'm running 2 of my 8530w's with Core2Quads overclocked to 2.8GHz and beyond, and your program is the much needed icing on the cake, believe me.

The quads get too hot in this chassis and you get thermal throttling because the fan doesn't go fast enough. But not anymore, thanks to your work, I can run the fan at full speed, and kick it in much earlier, to keep the dreaded throttle at bay for longer.

Keep up the great work.

 

+1. hwinfo32 fan control works great on my 2530P.

If you have core2duo 8530w's then consider using the dualIDA bios to gain an extra 0.5 multipler. If want more serious overclocking then consider tme-unlocking it, an example as performed on a 2530P here. Likely your 8530W uses the same ics9lprs397aklf PLL like the 2530P and 6730b.

 

Can anyone verify if the new "Minimum Fan Drive" setting change works ? I'm still missing any feedback on this..

 

I can confirm it is working here on 8530w.

 

Hello Mumak, and thanks for your work on HWinfo! The "Minimum Fan Drive" setting does not seem to do anything on my 8540p. The other fan control setting work great but the minimum speed of my fan seems to be 2180 rpm as indicated in the Sensors tab, a lower value than this and the fan stops. The value 960 rpm is displayed when the fan is stopped, I mean not spinning at all. I recently changed the cooling system on my laptop from the dual core version to the quad core one. This implied changing the fan as well. The previous fan had a minimum speed of 2400 rpm, again a lower value than this would stop the fan completely. I'm suspecting that the minimum value for the speed of the fan is dependent on fan model, as the first one was a Delta fan, I think, and the actual one is an ADDA. I was wondering if in the LUT the temp 3 tab could display a temperature and not a pwm value, is there a possibility to do a conversion automatically in the program or are the values specific to every laptop and need to be figured out individually? My sensor as displayed in hwinfo32 and aida64 is smsc emc2113.

 

I don't think that is what that setting is for. My understanding is that it clips the minimum fan speed to the value you specify. At least thats how it works for me...

So if you set it to 70%, then when something tries to set it to any value lower than that, it will only go to a minimum of 70% (or whatever you set that value to).

 

As first, I'll have to fix the 960 RPM reading to show "0" instead.
Could you please run the RW-Everything tool and make 2 dumps from SMBus address 5Ch:
1. When the fan is stopped and HWiNFO32 shows 960 RPM
2. When you lower the Min Drive and the fan should use this lower value, but stops instead
Anyway, I think that could be a limitation based on fan model (a protection to prevent low spin or stall). When you choose a higher Min Drive setting, I think the controller should try to restart the fan if the actual rate is below this threshold.

 

That's correct - the Min Drive setting is a protection in the SMSC fan controller to prevent a fan stall (or spinning at a speed lower than allowed). I allowed to change this setting for users which wanted to drive the fan at lower speeds for better acoustics.
But maybe as marckus said, some fans won't allow this (maybe they have their own protection logic?), because as reported the fan stops instead of being respin by the controller due to reaching a lower than Min Drive setting. That needs to be tested...

 

Never thought of it that way )...but now I understand what the minimum drive setting is for. Another thing is that I have the "fan always on" setting in the bios disabled and i think that may interfere with the minimum speed of the fan. I will get to doing some test a bit later if it's ok and I will make those dump files then.
A value grater than 37 in the "Minimum Fan Drive" does modify the fan speed, I mean it increases the minimum speed of the fan accordingly. Any value lower than 37 does not lower the fan speed under the 2180 value. For example if i set the min drive value to 20 the fan remains at 2180 if there is a constant load level on the video card for example(I'm running folding at home and it keeps the gpu at 60 degrees centigrade and the fan constantly spinning at 2180). If the fan has stopped no matter what value i set in the min drive the fan does not start up again until the threshold temperature rises or I force it on with the fan speed slider.

 

Please try this build:
LINK REMOVED DUE TO NBR FORUM RULES
and let me know if it works correctly and shows the stopped fan properly (0 RPM).

 

Yes it shows the correct speed now when the fan is stopped, 0 rpm in the Current column but the Min column reports 960 rpm as the minimum value.

 

Hi Mumak,

sorry for the late answer.
On my 8440p your tool works good - I can set the fan minimun drive to a lower value and then tha fan turns on 1800 rpm ... thats enough to keep the notebook cool and makes it almost quiet.
Until now your tool caused two times a strange thing: it caused the fan to start/ stop in a short interval. Then I set the speed manual to zero and after that it worked again.
For me thats ok

 

hiya mumak, i know people don't post about OS

but works fine on xp, Server 2003, and server 2008R2 on my 8740w

Just as an os update.

 

I have a standby/resume issue on my 8530w (winXP SP3)

It locks on resume very early on, still black screen. If I exit your program manually, then standby, resume works fine.

Also seems that the machine won't do a full shutdown now either with your program running ,again, seems to lock at the very last step. Shutdown is fine if I manually exit your program first.

So can you do an update where you exit your program on suspend/resume? or maybe remove your ACPI modifications on suspend/shutdown (assuming thats what your program does)?

 

Thanks for the feedback.

I don't make any modifications to ACPI or anything that's related to standby or shutdown, so I'm really wondering that such issue occurs. Do you have the Sensors open when the problem happens (or the Fan Control too), can you try to just close the Sensors window and leave the rest of HWiNFO32 running to see if that changes the situation?

 

Ok I've narrowed the problem down to just the "fancontrol" part. I can have sensors window open only if I clear preferences. Suspend/resume works fine then.

As soon as I change fancontrol parameters, suspend/resume fails, unless I manually close sensors first, but then I loose the fancontrol function until I start sensors again.

So at least I have a workaround for now. But it would be nice if it was automated.

 

Do you override the LUT settings and store them, or use manual fan control?
So the issue occurs also when you close Fan Control, but have Sensors open after you changed the Fan Control settings?

 

I override, I just changed the last fan speed bottom right then apply. I have hwinfo in my startup group and it starts Sensors itself (which then starts my fancontrol override in the background)

So basically any time my fancontrol is running in the background or foreground, ie. any time it is actually controlling the fan, then suspend/resume is broken.

If fancontrol is not controlling the fan (eg. manually exit Sensors, or don't configure fancontrol) then suspend/resume is fine.

 

This is very strange and I'd like to find the cause..
So you don't have the Fan Control window active, only the Sensors screen running which handles the override? If yes, this doesn't have to be necessary an issue with the Fan Control, but another sensor monitoring instead..
Please post a screenshot of your actual Sensor screen and also try the following: Disable monitoring of all sensors one by one (right click -> Disable...) and then check if Standby works. If yes, try to enable sensors one by one until you see the problem again. Then we should know which sensor causes this issue.

 

Yes that is correct.

I've attached a screenie of my Sensors, but I'm @work at the moment so can't really risk a hard reboot right now. Will try what you suggest in a few hours time. I also have another 8530w running Win7 x64 so will see if that has the same issue, later.

 

My guess is that the Battery monitoring might cause such issue. So my idea is to put the machine on external power, remove the battery and then try it (since disabling the sensor might not fully help).

 

Ok this is weird, but it looks like it is an issue on only one of my 8530w's. I tried removing the battery and it didn't make any difference. So then I put my HDD into a spare identical 8530w I have and suspend/resume works fine.

So it looks like your program has uncovered a strange hardware fault in one of my laptops. not to worry I have plenty of others here!

In other news. Now that I can resume from standby and hibernate. The fan control override doesn't work once resumed. It reverts back to the stock fan levels. So you have to close and restart Sensors to get the override fan speeds back again.

PS I'm going offline now until around the same time tomorrow if you want me to test anything out.

 

This is very strange indeed. However I'm not fully convinced that it's a hardware problem yet. So I have tried to implement a workaround which I hope might fix the standby issue if my assumptions are correct. Please try this build: LINK REMOVED DUE TO NBR FORUM RULES
and let me know if that helps. If not, then you'll have to try the method with disabling and enabled sensors one by one.

Regarding the issue where the LUT settings are lost after Resume, this can easily be explained because it seems the BIOS reconfigures the LUT during resume and HWiNFO32 doesn't notice this. The Beta I gave you now should fix this too (I hope).

 

Ok that last build seems to work ok. it recovers teh custom fancontrol after resume/hibernate just fine, thanks.

As for the suspend/resume lockup thing. I actually got it to work on that "faulty" laptop twice, and then it started locking up. So it does look like a hardware issue, maybe heat related.

I will try some more testing when I get a chance next week, but for now it is all working perfectly on my other laptop.

 

Hi,

Loaded up the software, worked well and have been upgrading as it advises. Now though, it doesn't work with the settings I have put it. I have multiple fan revs for temps but no matter what it defaults to 960rpm when you hit "apply and save". Can only manually override this. Have tried different versions of the software from beta to full, all now default to 960...even the older versions that worked fine.

Any ideas?

 

think you need to put the links in your siggy, mumak, one of the mods has gone and removed your links lol.

it is a service, but does it count as advertising, when the product is actively being built with feedback from the forums, and it's freeware?

hmm grey lines.

 

Sorry, but I don't understand exactly what's the problem. Maybe attaching a screenshot would clarify that better.
960 RPM is a kind of special value, since in fact it means Fan Off. Be sure to use the latest build of HWiNFO32.

 

I removed the links, because I have been asked to do so.
Yep, it's hardly to understand, but the rules don't allow any exceptions..
I'll better keep my personal opinion about this for myself

 

Yes, I would think the fan is off. I have the latest version of the programme and I have also tried the latest BETA version. Following the instructions to access "fan control" and setting the values for the different fan speed steps, when I click "apply and save" the fan reverts to 960 (pretty much stops). Only when I then manually set the fan does it spin at a fast enough speed to cool the system and if I put it back to AUTO the fan cuts out again. Only noticed because my laptop cut out due to CPU overheating.

Have reinstalled the latest HP BIOS but no difference. Is there any way to revert the system to before I used this programme and try from scratch? It worked very well initially, no idea why it's causing this problem now.

 

Have you modified the Look-Up Table (LUT)? If yes, please attach the screenshot. The "Apply and Save" is valid only for LUT modification (not manual fan speed setting), maybe you made invalid settings there. To clear them to default state, press the "Clear Preferences" button in HWiNFO32 / Configure dialog.

 

May someone give me some working sample configuration for a 8540w, focussing on lower fan noise when idle or just surfing net.