My 6400’s CPU temperature sometimes over 50 degree, this makes keyboard becomes hotter. I didn’t know did the fan work properly or not, but I am sure it does now. There is a package call i8kutils on Fedora and Fedora Core. You can download the source code. It doesn’t really support 6400, check this out
$ dmesg | grep i8k
i8k: not running on a supported Dell system.
i8k: vendor=Dell Inc., model=MM061 , version=A15
i8k: unable to get SMM BIOS version
However, it still can control the fan. Once you installed it, reboot and run
$ i8kctl
1.0 (null) ServiceTag 40 -1 1 27660 74490 0 -1
$ cat /proc/i8k # or this
1.0 A15 ServiceTag 40 -22 1 27660 73770 -1 -22
The two bigger numbers are the RPM of your fans. But they seems to be incorrect and 6400 has only one fan.
i8kctl allows you to control, e.g. set the fan to high speed by i8kctl fan - 2.
Now, here are what I did: First, create /etc/i8kmon.
set config(0) {{- 0} -1 40 -1 45}
set config(1) {{- 1} 35 50 40 55}
set config(2) {{- 2} 45 128 50 128}
This tells the monitor program i8kmon how to control your fan. There are three configurations. Second one means when CPU temperature within 35 to 50 degree Celsius or 40 to 55 degree on battery, it will control fan at low speed {- 1}. Once temperature drops down to below 35 degree, it goes first configuration and turn off the fan {- 0}. Since there is only one fan, therefore the first argument of {- X} is always -.
Run i8kmon at booting
echo "/usr/bin/i8kmon -d &" >> /etc/rc.local
By the way, if your volume control hotkeys(Fn+VolUp, etc) don’t work, try i8kbuttons, it might be a solution. My hotkeys work perfectly, so I don’t need it.
LLBB 