This script controls the fan speed of ATI Radeon video cards in Linux with Catalyst driver on Linux.

The Catalyst driver on Linux is supposed to work with the following command:

aticonfig --pplib-cmd "set fanspeed 0 auto"

which should regulate the fan speed automatically. Unfortunately this does not work. Dear ATI: this is very lame.

You really should ready Tunning part. I mean it.

Usage

$ ./atifand.sh

For debug prints:

$ ./atifand.sh debug

To run in background:

& ./atifand.sh &

Add to your desktop environment autostart scripts and be done.

Tunning

The atifand.sh script contains some constants at the beginning of the file.

I strongly advise you to tune this values for your system before deciding to use this script without supervision!

temp_ means temperature (in Celsius degrees) fan_ means fan speed in percentages. Note that some fans do not start spinning at all before the speed is 20 or more.

Basic rules are:

fan_idle <= fan_min < fan_max
temp_idle <= temp_min < temp_max

First pick fan_idle value. This is the preferred speed of the fan when card is sitting idle. For some cards stopping the fan completely is probably a bad idea because the card will be getting hot too quickly - even when doing mostly nothing. It's better to use some small value that will keep the card "cool enough", yet acceptably quiet.

temp_min should be a little bigger than what your card's temperature is when fan is spinning on fan_idle speed. To measure this, make sure your video card is mostly idle and set fan speed to the fan_idle value manually with:

$ aticonfig --pplib-cmd "set fanspeed 0 <SPEED>"

and periodically check current temperature with:

$ aticonfig --odgt

Let the temperature stabilize. Then add 3-10 and this should be your temp_min. If your card just gets hotter and hotter up to values bigger than around 60 C, pick bigger fan_idle and try again.

Check on the web what temperatures are "hot" for your particular graphic card. Set the temp_max to this value.

When the temperature reaches at least temp_min the fan speed will be set to fan_min or bigger, up to fan_max. Theoretically 100 is a max fan speed value. But in practice 100% speed could probably ruin your fan pretty quickly, so I recommend leaving fan_max around 80.

Now set your fan speed manually to fan_min and let the temperature stabilize. Add 1-2 and set this as temp_idle.

Run in debug mode to see if the script is doing a good job now. Test both when idle and some stress.

If you're using fan_idle value that is making the fan stop completely, make sure the fan does not constantly switch between spinning and being stopped. Constant switching on and off would probably shorten it's life. Use higher fan_idle value in such cases.