Linux Mint 18 Dell Inspiron 5521 Fan Issue Fix

Last month I decided to upgrade my Dell laptop to Linux Mint 18 (Sarah) from Linux Mint 17.3. I have been using linux mint as a daily driver for that laptop and so far I have no issues with it until after upgrading to linux mint 18.

The fans on my laptop kept running at full speed even if its idle. A quick google search and I found out that I am not the only one having the issue. It does seem like it is a common issue with Dell laptops not just the model that I own and it is not specific with linux mint as well.

I did try to configure a lot of things including changing settings in acpi to linux but that did not seem to help. I found out about i8kutils during the process but after installing it, the fans just stopped working for a few seconds then went back to it’s merry own way of running at full speed.

Installing lm-sensors (sudo apt-get install lm-sensors) did not show that it detected any fans on my system (an update to this after a kernel upgrade provided by linux mint, running lm-sensors now show that it detects a fan and shows the fan speed) even though you can hear the fan physicall running.

Please watch the video below on how I fixed the issue for my machine. It might or might not work for you but it is worth a try anyway. This might also work for other Dell laptops not just the model that I have. If it does work for you please leave a comment here or on my youtube video and please state the dell laptop model you used it on to help other people.

My config file below (i8kmon.conf)

# Run as daemon, override with --daemon option
set config(daemon) 0

# Automatic fan control, override with --auto option
set config(auto) 1

# Report status on stdout, override with --verbose option
set config(verbose) 1

# Status check timeout (seconds), override with --timeout option
set config(timeout) 20

# Temperature thresholds: {fan_speeds low_ac high_ac low_batt high_batt}
set config(0) {{-1 0} -1 40 -1 40}
set config(1) {{-1 1} 30 60 30 60}
set config(2) {{-1 2} 59 100 59 100}

# For computer with 2 fans, use a variant of this instead:
# Temperature thresholds: {fan_speeds low_ac high_ac low_batt high_batt}
# set config(0) {{-1 0} -1 52 -1 65}
# set config(1) {{-1 1} 41 66 55 75}
# set config(2) {{-1 1} 55 80 65 85}
# set config(3) {{-1 2} 70 128 75 128}

# end of file