NoteBook FanControl

This is a C port of Stefan Hirschmann's NoteBook FanControl.

It provides the same utilities with the same interfaces as the original NBFC, although the implementation differs.

To check if your laptop is supported, use the Configuration Search.

If you want to write a configuration for your laptop model, see Configuration HowTo.

If you find my work helpful, you can show your appreciation by buying me a coffee.

Table of Contents

• Comparison of NBFC C# and NBFC Linux
• Installation
• Getting started with the GUI
• Getting started without the GUI
• Advanced configuration
• Differences in detail
• Troubleshooting
• Advanced Compilation
• Shell autocompletion
• Contributing

Comparison of NBFC C# and NBFC Linux

What	NBFC Mono	NBFC Linux
Portability	Crossplatform	Linux
Configuration files	XML (210 files)	JSON (297 files)
Model compatibility database	No	Yes
Runtime	Mono	Native
Memory consumption (ps_mem)	~50MB	~280KB
Package size (pkg.tar.gz)	448K	100K
Fan control rights	Any user	Any user
Service control rights	Any user	Only root
IPC Concept	TCP/IP	Unix sockets
IPC Protocol	Binary	JSON
Graphical User Interface	Windows only	Linux only

The service, the client and the probing tool are written in C.

Installation

• Arch Linux:

  • Download Latest Version 0.3.19
  • Install NBFC-Linux: pacman -U ./nbfc-linux-git-0.3.18.r4.g656af52-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
  • Or via AUR (yay -S nbfc-linux)
  • Or by using the PKGBUILD nbfc-linux-git

• Debian / Ubuntu:

  • Download Latest Version 0.3.19
  • Install NBFC-Linux: apt install ./nbfc-linux_0.3.19_amd64.deb

• Fedora:

  • Download Latest Version 0.3.19
  • Install NBFC-Linux: dnf install ./fedora-nbfc-linux-0.3.19-1.x86_64.rpm

• OpenSuse (Tumbleweed)

  • Download Latest Version 0.3.19
  • Install NBFC-Linux: zypper install ./opensuse-nbfc-linux-0.3.19-1.x86_64.rpm

• NixOS:

  • Declaratively
  • Imperatively (with nix profile install or nix-env -if .)

• Fedora - this will not build the current working directory, but downloads a source archive from chosen release on github and builds an installable rpm:

  • ensure, that podman is installed
    • docker should work also, but is currently not tested
  • edit pkgbuilds/rpm/nbfc-linux.spec and
    • set wanted Version (e.g. 0.3.19)
    • set wanted Releasenumber (e.g. 1%{?dist} or 2%{?dist})
  • ./pkgbuilds/rpm/buildNBFC-LINUX
  • the resulting rpm can be found in pkgbuilds directory

• In general:

  • ./autogen.sh && ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc && make && sudo make install

• For systems with OpenRC (gentoo):

  • ./autogen.sh && ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --with-init-system=openrc && make && sudo make install

• For systems with System-V-Init:

  • ./autogen.sh && ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --with-init-system=systemv && make && sudo make install

Getting started with the GUI

Graphical User Interfaces are available as separate projects.

Currently there are two GUI implementations:

• NBFC-Qt

  • Simple GUI written in Python based on Qt5/Qt6
  • Comes with an extra tray application for controlling fans

• NBFC-Gtk

  • Simple GUI written in Python based on Gtk4

Getting started without the GUI

When running NBFC for the first time, you need to give it a configuration file for your laptop model.

Follow the steps below:

1. sudo nbfc update will download the latest configuration files from the internet.

2. sudo nbfc config --set auto will try to set a configuration automatically.

   If this succeeds, skip to Step 5.

3. nbfc config --recommend will compare your DMI system-product-name to the available configuration file names and print a list of descending similarity.

4. Repeat the following until you found a working configuration:

• sudo nbfc config --set "<MODEL>" -- set a configuration

• sudo nbfc restart -r -- (re-)start the service in read only mode

• nbfc status -- show the fan status

• Let the fan turn up (and down) (e.g. using stress) and observe if nbfc status shows fan speed changes

• If speeds are reported correctly, the config is likely valid. Proceed to Step 5.

5. sudo nbfc restart will (re-)start the service in write mode (enabling fan control)

6. Test fan control manually

• nbfc set -s <SPEED> will set the fan speed. (0=off, 100=full speed)

  If this does not work, the specified configuration is invalid. Go back to Step 4.

7. nbfc set --auto will enable auto mode (temperature-based automatic fan speed control as specified in configuration)

8. sudo systemctl enable nbfc_service will enable the service to start automatically on boot

Advanced configuration

NBFC-Linux allows you to specify which temperature sources to use for controlling fans and the algorithm to compute the temperature.

NOTE: Since version 0.3.3 NBFC-Linux also allows you to specify sensors in FanConfigurations using the Sensors field

NOTE: The command nbfc sensors is available since version 0.3.16. If you are running a previous version, you can still configure it by hand.

Default Configuration

If no configuration is specified, NBFC uses the "Average" algorithm and utilizes all sensor files named "coretemp", "k10temp", or "zenpower".

Available Algorithms

You can choose from three different algorithms to compute the temperature:

• "Average": Computes the average temperature from all specified sources.
• "Min": Selects the lowest temperature among all specified sources.
• "Max": Selects the highest temperature among all specified sources.

Temperature Sources

You can specify temperature sources either by a

• sensor name (which may result in multiple temperature sources)
• temperature file: A file containing the temperature (usually named temp*_input)
• shell command: A command whose output is used as temperature (the command has to be prefixed by $)
• sensor group:
  • @CPU: Uses all sensors named "coretemp", "k10temp" or "zenpower"
  • @GPU: Uses all sensors named "amdgpu", "nvidia", "nouveau" or "radeon"

Specyfing Temperature Sources

1. nbfc sensors list will output all available sensors

2. nbfc sensors show will show all available fans and their configured sensors

3. sudo nbfc sensors set -f <FAN_INDEX> [-s <SENSOR>...] [-a <ALGORITHM>] will set the specified sensors and the algorithm for a fan.

Examples

• sudo nbfc sensors set -f 0 -s coretemp -a Min

  Fan 0 uses the "Min" algorithm with all sensors named "coretemp".

• sudo nbfc sensors set -f 0 -s /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon4/temp1_input -s /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon4/temp2_input

  Fan 0 uses the default algorithm with the specific sensor file paths.

• sudo nbfc sensors set -f 0 -s '$ echo 42'

  Fan 0 uses the output of echo 42 as temperature

• sudo nbfc sensors set -f 1 -s @GPU

  Fan 1 uses all sensors in the @GPU group ("amdgpu", "nvidia", "nouveau", "radeon")

Differences in detail

Files	NBFC Mono	NBFC Linux
Systemd service file	nbfc.service	nbfc_service.service
EC Probing tool	ec-probe	ec_probe
Notebook configuration files	/opt/nbfc/Configs/*.xml	/usr/share/nbfc/configs/*.json
Service binary	/opt/nbfc/nbfcservice.sh	/bin/nbfc_service
PID File	/run/nbfc.pid	/run/nbfc_service.pid
Config file	?	/etc/nbfc/nbfc.json

• The original NBFC service adjusts the fan speeds in intervals of EcPollIntervall according to TemperatureThresholds. - NBFC Linux directly sets the fan speed (also according to TemperatureThresholds).

• The original NBFC service selects a TemperatureThreshold and applies its FanSpeed when the temperature exceeds its UpThreshold. In contrast, NBFC Linux will select the next TemperatureThreshold and apply its FanSpeed when the temperature exceeds the current UpThreshold. The provided config files have been reconfigured to account for this change, so that they provide the same behaviour as the original NBFC service. If you have a custom config file that works well with the original service, you can port it to NBFC Linux using the provided tool (requires python3-lxml).

• NBFC Linux dropped the Autostart option, since it relies on the systemd service file only.

Troubleshooting

The preferred way of running nbfc is using the ECSysLinux implementation, which depends on the ec_sys kernel module. There is also an alternative implementation which uses /dev/port, called dev_port. It can be specified on the commandline using --embedded-controller=dev_port and permanently set in /etc/nbfc/nbfc.json with "EmbeddedControllerType": "dev_port".

Many Linux distributions do not provide the ec_sys module, and the module should be compiled manually. Alternatively, the acpi_ec module can be used. The acpi_ec module comes with a DKMS config script, which automatically rebuilds the acpi_ec module when a new kernel is installed and supports running NBFC with Secure Boot and Lockdown Kernel. NBFC-Linux will try to use the acpi_ec module if available. It can be set with "EmbeddedControllerType": "acpi_ec".

Advanced Compilation

NBFC-Linux allows disabling features at compile time to produce an even smaller binary.

Pass the following flags to ./configure to disable specific components.

• --disable-syslog: Don't log to syslog in daemon mode
• --disable-ec-debug: Disable debugging of reads/writes from/to the embedded controller
• --disable-ec-dummy: Disable the dummy embedded controller implementation
• --disable-ec-dev-port: Disable the /dev/port embedded controller implementation
• --disable-ec-sys: Disable the embedded controller implementation that relies on ec_sys kernel module
• --disable-ec-acpi: Disable the embedded controllern implementation that relies on the acpi_ec kernel module

See Configure Command Generator for an interactive interface to generate the ./configure command.

Shell autocompletion

NBFC-Linux comes with shell completion scripts for bash, fish and zsh.

The completion files are generated using crazy-complete.

~ $ nbfc_service <TAB>
--config-file          -c  -- Use alternative config file (default /etc/nbfc/nbfc.json)
--debug                -d  -- Enable tracing of reads and writes of the embedded controller
--embedded-controller  -e  -- Specify embedded controller to use
--fork                 -f  -- Switch process to background after sucessfully started
--help                 -h  -- show this help message and exit
--read-only            -r  -- Start in read-only mode

~ $ nbfc <TAB>
config          -- List or apply configs
donate          -- Show how to support the project
get-model-name  -- Print model name for notebook
help            -- Show help
restart         -- Restart the service
sensors         -- Configure fan sensors
set             -- Control fan speed
start           -- Start the service
status          -- Show the service status
stop            -- Stop the service
update          -- Download new configuration files
warranty        -- Show warranty

Contributing

You can write a configuration file for your laptop model. See the Wiki of the original NBFC for more details.

Please do not create issues on GitHub requesting a configuration file for your laptop!

If you found a working configuration for your laptop model, you can register it in the Compatibility Database.

If you want to write a program that controls the NBFC service, see the protocol.

Developers are welcome to try optimizing the code of the service for memory usage. However, be warned that it is likely a waste of time, as the author has already tried every possible approach. It seems that every line of code is necessary for the current functionality.

See also the documentation about the nbfc configuration.