Linux ruins your Nvidia graphics card fan

[RayLopez99]

Linux ruins your Nvidia graphics card fan. This is not me saying
this, but "Paul", who at another forum I visit is one of the most
knowledgeable posters on electronics I know. Note he fixed this
problem using his advanced hardware expertise, but there's little that
the average user could do.

Windows is "doomed"? I think not.

RL

http://groups.google.com/group/alt....t/browse_thread/thread/6fdb60db36341f4f?hl=en

I'm less concerned with the rest of the computer. The CPU fan,
which blows down onto the motherboard, keeps both the CPU and the
chipset cool. And the video card, has been neutered so that the fan
runs at a constant 20 percent. I did that, because if you booted
Linux,
the stupid Nvidia video card would ramp the fan to 100% for the entire
session, which is unnecessary. After some study, I determined 20%
covered
all requirements (gaming or not), and so I've rigged the fan for
constant
speed, to make it less annoying.

--Paul

 

[Mike Easter]

cola xpost clipped

Linux ruins your Nvidia graphics card fan.

You lie and you are also trolling -- in your usual way.

This is not me saying
this, but "Paul",

What you said above and in the subject isn't what he said in the link
and the pasted cite and you shouldn't troll using someone else's words
placed/inserted into another forum where they don't participate -- most
especially if you respect him for his expertise and willingness to help.

 

[Paul]

cola xpost clipped


You lie and you are also trolling -- in your usual way.


What you said above and in the subject isn't what he said in the link
and the pasted cite and you shouldn't troll using someone else's words
placed/inserted into another forum where they don't participate -- most
especially if you respect him for his expertise and willingness to help.

My hardware-based fix, is not the only fix. It is the easiest one to do
for me. And, it suits my collection of Linux LiveCDs, which I don't install
but only boot on occasion.

If you have a Linux install on the hard drive, switch to the (tainted) Nvidia
driver. Nvidia provides a very nice driver for their cards. The Linux
community won't use it, because it contains a binary only module, and
they use the term "tainted", to voice their disapproval. The Nvidia
driver includes proper fan control. I believe, if you look around,
there is also some software, which when used with the Nvidia driver,
allows the end user to adjust the fan speed.

If you install Linux, install the Nvidia driver, then your fan will run
at 20%. If you boot a LiveCD, which uses the open source (regular) driver,
it doesn't have fan control, and for me, runs the fan at 100%. The
noise level is intolerable. And being a hardware guy, I hard wired the
fan for 20% operation, so it would no longer matter what driver
was in place. By doing so, I can boot *any* of my LiveCDs, and the
computer is then no louder than it would be in Windows.

So if you've installed Linux on your hard drive, there is a
solution for you.

Paul

 

[Rex Ballard]

Linux ruins your Nvidia graphics card fan.  This is not me saying
this, but "Paul", who at another forum I visit is one of the most
knowledgeable posters on electronics I know.  Note he fixed this
problem using his advanced hardware expertise, but there's little that
the average user could do.

I guess we're supposed to take your word for that.

Windows is "doomed"? I think not.

Windows may not be doomed, but the Microsoft Monopoly is getting
challenged on all fronts. IE is challenged by Firefox and Chrome. MS-
Office is challenged by OpenOffice, Symphony, and KDEOffice. Outlook
is challenged by Thunderbird and Enlightenment, and Visio is
challenged by dia. An Windows itself has to share with OS/X and Linux
more and more often.

All of this happening covertly.

RL

I'm less concerned with the rest of the computer. The CPU fan,
which blows down onto the motherboard, keeps both the CPU and the
chipset cool. And the video card, has been neutered so that the fan
runs at a constant 20 percent. I did that, because if you booted
Linux, the stupid Nvidia video card would ramp the fan to 100% for
the entire session,

Was that with the generic Nvidia driver? In which case,that should be
easy to fit.
Or the Proprietary driver? Which means that NVidia might know
something your friend doesn't?

which is unnecessary. After some study,
I determined 20% covered all requirements (gaming or not),
and so I've rigged the fan for constant
speed, to make it less annoying.

I have a machine with an ATI video card that frequently overheated,
especially when you actually put the laptop on your lap. It didn't
seem to matter whether it ran Windows or Linux. The only way to keep
the chip from overheating was to set the fan to 100%. The thermostat
wasn't reliable because of the temperature sensor placement.

Your friend might be extending the life of a $2 fan for another year,
and this might be OK if you're running the laptop on a table-top or
desktop all the time. On the other hand, if you're like me and like
to put the laptop on your lap, cutting the fan to 20% might result in
the overheating of a $200 chip that will result in the replacement of
a $600 laptop.

On many new laptops, the video chip is the hottest chip in the PC.
Letting that chip overheat can even cause the hard drive or CPU chips
to overheat, as well as the RAM.

The life of those fans is typically longer than the life of the
laptop.

Put perhaps you can get validation from NVidia that this is a good
idea, and that they are going to change their driver software.

 

[Mike Easter]

Mike Easter wrote:

If you have a Linux install on the hard drive, switch to the
(tainted) Nvidia driver. Nvidia provides a very nice driver for their
cards.

NVidia has a nice driver selection tool for selecting linux drivers for
'linux' 32/64bit, Solaris 32/64, and FreeBSD 32/64 at
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us Option 1: Manually
find drivers for my NVIDIA products.

The automated tool - Option 2: Automatically find drivers for my NVIDIA
products. - NVIDIA Smart Scan is a web-based service that identifies the
hardware and the software configuration of your computer.

.... just works with certain combinations of OS and browser which does
not include linux at this time, all Windows and one specific version Mac
OS X.

The Linux
community won't use it, because it contains a binary only module, and
they use the term "tainted", to voice their disapproval.

Many linux distros - but not all - eschew including proprietary ware
such as drivers and codecs - within the live CD .iso or within the
'standard' repos. Some distros have more liberal philosophy. The basis
for the 'problem' is both philosophical and also complicated by
worldwide variabilities in dealing with the copyright issues.

The Nvidia
driver includes proper fan control. I believe, if you look around,
there is also some software, which when used with the Nvidia driver,
allows the end user to adjust the fan speed.

If you install Linux, install the Nvidia driver, then your fan will run
at 20%. If you boot a LiveCD, which uses the open source (regular) driver,
it doesn't have fan control, and for me, runs the fan at 100%. The
noise level is intolerable. And being a hardware guy, I hard wired the
fan for 20% operation, so it would no longer matter what driver
was in place. By doing so, I can boot *any* of my LiveCDs, and the
computer is then no louder than it would be in Windows.

So if you've installed Linux on your hard drive, there is a
solution for you.

I have a number of different NVidia chipsets and a couple of different
NVidia cards mixed with a number of different linux and windows
installations, but it happens that my only NVidia card with fan control
is on a box with Windows only right now.

 

[Paul]

WTF:

First off, after using Linux with an Nvidia video card for close to two
years I've not had a single problem

though sure, a fan running full time at 100% may be annoying...
it will not ruin the fan


I'd rather have a cooling fan run too fast than too slowly.

20% during gaming might not be a great idea

The previous video card I used in that system, had a constant speed
GPU fan. It didn't cause a fuss, and had no driver preferences. Before
I changed the video card, I could boot with anything, and get satisfactory
operation.

When Nvidia designed that GPU, they had a number of options available to
them, to implement fan control (when you put 500 million to a billion transistor
equivalents of logic in there, fan control wouldn't use many of those gates).
Having a closed loop solution that relied on software (and the driver), is
the lazy man's way. No points awarded for bad hardware design.

I fixed it for them. I ran some games, used GPU-Z and recorded temperatures
while the Windows driver was running. That gave me a temperature to shoot
for (perhaps 50C). I prepared my modified cooling solution, and adjusted
for the same degree of cooling. I'm happy with that. When gaming, the card
gets no hotter, than it did when the Nvidia driver controlled cooling was
present.

What the fixed speed solution does, is allow the daily temperature variation
to be larger than it would be with the driver provided "intelligent" cooling.
In practice, the card really didn't make that many adjustments to the fan
speed, so it's not like the driver was doing such a great job to begin with.
But just leaving the fan howling, because I'd booted a Linux LiveCD, was
intolerable. And being a hardware guy, I'm not going to put up with it.

If they wanted a trigger event for fan speed, they could have used the
same event that kicks up the clock for 3D gaming. That would have
been easy to do in hardware. The basic design already has a notion of
power states, and that could have been used to control the values in
the fan speed register.

Paul

 

[Homer]

Bullshit.

Can software physically remove voltage regulators too?

--
K.
http://slated.org

..----
| You can't make an omelet without building some bridges
| ... but don't count your bridges until they've hatched
`----

Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.31.5
03:25:41 up 14 days, 10:44, 0 users, load average: 0.04, 0.05, 0.01

 

[RayLopez99]

Bullshit.

Can software physically remove voltage regulators too?

--

You make no sense, as usual. What is bullshit? Who are you
responding to?

Pfft. Linux user. Figures.

RL

 

[JEDIDIAH]

Linux ruins your Nvidia graphics card fan. This is not me saying

Sounds like an old bug in the proprietary driver.

Nvidia ruins your Nvidia graphics card fan.

[deletia]

 

[NekosilvertaiL]

WTF:

First off, after using Linux with an Nvidia video card for close to two
years I've not had a single problem

Using it for a year now..got no problem, too