THINKFAN(1)

NAME
thinkfan - A simple fan control program

SYNOPSIS
thinkfan [-hnqzD [-b BIAS] [-c CONFIG] [-s SECONDS] [-p [DELAY]]]

DESCRIPTION
Thinkfan can use temperature inputs and one PWM control file in /sys/class/hwmon or the Thinkpad-specific thinkpad_acpi interface in /proc/acpi/ibm. If nothing is specified, it tries to use /proc/acpi/ibm.

WARNING: This program does only very basic sanity checking on the configuration. That means that you can set your temperature limits as insane as you like.

Thinkfan has two modes of operation:

  SIMPLE MODE
In simple mode, it uses only the highest temperature found in the system. That may be dangerous, e.g. for hard disks. That's why you should provide a correction value (i.e. add 10-15 °C) for the sensor that has the temperature of your hard disk (or battery...). See the example config files for details about that.

  COMPLEX MODE
In complex mode, temperature limits are defined for each sensor thinkfan knows about. Setting suitable limits for each sensor in your system will probably require a bit of experimentation and good knowledge about your hardware, but it's the safest way of keeping each component within its specified temperature range. See http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Thermal_Sensors for details on which sensor measures what temperature in a Thinkpad. On other systems you'll have to find out on your own. See the example configs to learn about the syntax.

CONFIGURATION
Some example configurations are provided with the source package. For detailed explanations please read the README file. If you installed thinkfan from a distribution package, you may find them under /usr/share/doc or wherever your package manager puts documentation.

OPTIONS

-h  Show a short help message

-s  Maximum seconds between temperature updates (default: 5)

-b  Floating point number (0 ~ 20) to control rising temperature exaggeration (see README for why this is needed). Default 5.0

-c  Load different configuration file (default: /etc/thinkfan.conf)

-n  Do not become a daemon, log to both terminal and syslog

-q  Be quiet (no status info on terminal)

-z  Assume we don't have to worry about resuming from standby when using the sysfs interface (see README!)

-p  Use the pulsing-fan workaround (for older Thinkpads). Takes an optional floating-point argument (0-10s) as depulsing duration. Default 0.5s.

-D  DANGEROUS mode: Disable all sanity checks. May damage your hardware!!

BUGS
If you have any problems with thinkfan, please go to the help forum at sf.net: http://sourceforge.net/projects/thinkfan/forums/forum/905019