asus-fan

ASUS (Zenbook) fan(s) control and monitor kernel module.

• Compatibilty
• Installation with DKMS
  • ArchLinux
  • Ubuntu
• Quickstart
• Short Comparison To Other Similar Projects
• Tools/Configs/Misc
  • fancontrol script
  • build module in debug-mode
  • force loading of module
• ToDos
• ThanksTo

Compatibilty

The following Notebooks should be supported - be aware that it's still not in production state

Installation with DKMS

Dynamic Kernel Module Support (DKMS) is a program/framework that enables generating Linux kernel modules whose sources generally reside outside the kernel source tree. The concept is to have DKMS modules automatically rebuilt when a new kernel is installed. - Wikipedia

Installing the asus-fan kernel module with DKMS means that when you upgrade to a new kernel you do not need to repeat the process outlined below in the Quickstart section each time. The asus-fan kernel module will automatically be rebuilt when a new kernel is installed.

More information on DKMS: Ubuntu Help - DKMS

Ubuntu

Scripted Ubuntu DKMS Setup for Asus Fan Module

• Download the ubuntu_dkms_sudo_install.sh script from the misc folder of this repository. (ie. right-click over Raw > select Save link as...)
• Make sure the script is executable (ie. chmod +x ubuntu_dkms_sudo_install.sh)
• Run the script (ie. ./ubuntu_dkms_sudo_install.sh)
• The script will need super user powers and will ask you to enter your password to get sudo permissions
• Check that the module has been built and installed with lsmod | grep asus_fan. If you get something like asus_fan 14880 0 you are good. If you get nothing the module is not loaded.

Ubuntu - Symlink Creation on reboot

Symlinks will need to be created each time. The asus-fan-create-symlinks.sh is designed for this purpose, however it must be run after each reboot to create these links.

If you used the ubuntu_dkms_sudo_install.sh installation script above the asus-fan-ubuntu-create-symlinks.sh will have been installed at /usr/local/sbin/asus-fan-create-symlinks.sh.

Symlink creation using Upstart init system

For Ubuntu 14.04 using the Upstart init system add the following to the Thermald upstart configuration file, /etc/init/thermald.conf

pre-start script
if [ ! -d  /tmp/asus-fan-shm ]; then
/usr/local/sbin/asus-fan-create-symlinks.sh
echo " * creating symlinks ..."
fi
end script

My full /etc/init/thermald.conf looks like this:

# thermald - thermal daemon
# Upstart configuration file
# Manages platform thermals

description	"thermal daemon"

start on runlevel [2345] and started dbus
stop on stopping dbus

#
# don't respawn on error
#
normal exit 1

Symlink creation using systemd init system

For newer Ubuntu versions that use systemd init system the following line can be added to /etc/systemd/system/dbus-org.freedesktop.thermald.service in the [Service] section to create the links when thermald starts.

ExecStartPre=/usr/local/sbin/asus-fan-create-symlinks.sh

With this line added on Ubuntu 18.04 /etc/systemd/system/dbus-org.freedesktop.thermald.service looks like this:

[Unit]
Description=Thermal Daemon Service

[Service]
Type=dbus
SuccessExitStatus=1
BusName=org.freedesktop.thermald
ExecStartPre=/usr/local/sbin/asus-fan-create-symlinks.sh
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/thermald --no-daemon --dbus-enable

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Alias=dbus-org.freedesktop.thermald.service

Manual Ubuntu DKMS Setup for Asus Fan Module

cd /usr/src
sudo wget -o asus-fan-master.tar.gz  https://github.com/daringer/asus-fan/archive/master.tar.gz
sudo mkdir asus_fan-master
cd asus_fan-master
sudo tar xpvf ../asus_fan.tar.gz --strip-components=1
sudo  tar xpvf ../asus_fan.tar.gz --strip-component
sudo  mv dkms.conf dkms.conf.archlinu
sudo mv dkms-ubuntu.conf dkms.conf
cd ..
sudo dkms add -m asus_fan -v master
sudo dkms install -m asus_fan -v master
sudo echo asus_fan >>/etc/modules
sudo cp misc/asus-fan-create-symlinks.sh /usr/local/sbin/asus-fan-create-symlinks.sh

For Ubuntu 14.04 you will also need to add the lines mention above in the Ubuntu - Symlink Creation on reboot section to /etc/init/thermald.conf so that symlinks get created at each reboot by the Upstart init system. Newer versions of Ubuntu use the Systemd init system and not Upstart.

ArchLinux

Just get the PKGBUILD and the install script and run makepkg:

    cd /tmp
    mkdir asus-fan-build 
    cd asus-fan-build 
    wget wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/daringer/asus-fan/master/buildscripts/archlinux/PKGBUILD
    wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/daringer/asus-fan/master/buildscripts/archlinux/asus-fan-dkms-git/asus-fan-dkms-git.install 
    makepkg
    sudo pacman -U asus-fan-dkms-git-*.pkg.tar.xz

Or simply use the AUR package and your fav. AUR tooling...

Troubleshooting Symlinks

Runing ls -l /tmp/asus-fan-shm/ will list the sysmlinks created. If it looks like you are missing some (this depends on the Asus laptop you have as to how many and which ones you will have) you can run sudo asus-fan-create-symlinks.sh. This will delete the links in the folder and recreate them. A number of them are only created if they are readable.

Quickstart - Manual installation

• Build - just run make inside the directory
• Install - run sudo make install inside the directory
• Load - simply as usual:

modprobe asus_fan

• Interface - the fan(s) is/are exposed as hwmon, thus available in:

fpath="/sys/class/hwmon/hwmonX"

• Monitor Fan speed - simply use xsensors or psensors for graphical, or sensors for console monitoring. My personal preference is conky---there are alot linux system monitors.

• Set Fan Speed - write anything from 0 to 255 to pwmX, like:

echo 123 > ${fpath}/pwmX   # set to 123
echo 0 > ${fpath}/pwmX     # switch fan off (DANGEROUS!)
echo 255 > ${fpath}/pwmX   # set to max speed

• ATTENTION - the fan is now in manual mode - do not burn your machine!
• Set Auto-Fan(s): to reactivate the automatic fan control write "0" to pwmX_enable:

echo 0 > ${fpath}/pwmX_enable   # reset to auto-mode (always for all fans)

• Max fan speed There is an additional file for controling the maximum fan speed. It's r/w and controls both, automatic mode and manual mode maximum speed. Value range: 0-255 reset value:256

Short Comparison To Other Similar Projects

• asus-fancontrol userland application, acpi_call based, limited number of (offical/tested) compatible zenbook models, no (standard) interface exposed, no support for second fan
• zenbook userland appliaction, acpi_call based, only UX32VD supported, no (standard) interface exposed, no support for second fan
• asusfan kernelspace driver, model support: A8J, A8JS, N50V[cn], no (standard) interface exposed, interface based on module parameters, replaces automatic control with own realization, no support for second fan
• asusfan (original) kernelspace driver, Model support A8J and A8JS, no (standard) interface, automatic fan speed adjustment, no support for second fan
• asusfanctrld userland (bash) application, acpi_call based, only UX32VD, second fan support?, no (standard) interface exposed
• asus_ux32v_fan_control is actually a fork of this project undergone a renaming (hmm), very old state, no hwmon (interface) support, thermal_device interface, most likely as buggy as this project was one year ago
• asus_wmi realization as a part of the exisiting asus_wmi module, which is maybe the only way to submit it for the upstream kernel, nevertheless support for the second fan is not available through wmi. Sister project, closely related to the one shown here.
• NBFC NotebookFanControl provides---despite others---support for various ASUS Zenbook models, written in C#, cross-platform, user-land only. Convinient and easy to use, but might be a little too much overhead in order to manage a hw-fan, but that's a matter of preference for sure.

So this project distinguishes itself from the others by providing a hwmon standard state-of-art interface with a wide variety of supported zenbook models realized as a kernelspace driver. Guess you found the right one ;)

Tools / Configs / Simple Fancontrol Script

fancontrol script

There is a script called "fancontrol" that can be configured according to temperature source, fans to control, minimum and maximum temperature, thats done by "pwmconfig" Nevertheless that script did it worse for me than the original controller - thus you can tell it to stop the fan completely...

debug module

DEBUG=1 may be passed to make to build the module in debug-mode. dmesg will then contain alot more debug output for the module:

  make DEBUG=1
  sudo rmmod asus-fan
  sudo insmod asus-fan.ko

force load module

USE THIS ONLY WITH CAUTION FOR TESTING, UNFORSEEABLE THINGS MAY HAPPEN! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED... force_load=1 may be passed as an argument during module loading to skip the device checks and tests:

  sudo rmmod asus-fan
  sudo insmod asus-fan.ko force_load=1

TODOs:

• do a code review and clean it up
• check with more models
• submit an upstream patch - any howtos?? wtf, write acpi-devel kernel-mailinglist ??

THANKS TO:

• To Felipe Contreras felipec for providing the initial version (https://gist.github.com/felipec/6169047)
• To Markus Meissner daringer for the asus_fan version using the "thermal_device" interface
• To Bernd Kast KastB for the port using the hwmon interface
• To Frederick Henderson frederickjh for ubuntu dkms support
• To Tharre for the never ending stream of useful hints and information
• Various testers and users providing valuable information and thus increasing the list of compatible devices