I’m not really sure what you are saying, but Alienware, MSI, Asus, Gigabyte, and Acer all have software that lets you control the fan speed of the laptop. Alienware has a turbo boost mode that sets the power limits to max, and MSI has full wattage control as does Asus.
Having a high-performance laptop where the power limits can’t really be controlled and neither can the fan speeds is pretty ridiculous. Now it is mitigated a little bit by the sense of you being able to set your power profile in Windows. That does cap the TDP of the system a bit but it doesn’t do really anything on the CPU side because of the figures chosen.
The lack of the ability to control anything with the fans though is to me a very big problem and I had this issue when I had the laptop in my room for the one day I decided to try to use the laptop and the fans would ramp up and down randomly and the CPU hit 100 Celsius multiple times for no reason. My Alienware laptop that has been there for the last years stays controlled perfectly.
IMO theses features are more or less “eye candies” they cap part of the performance on “normal” mode and allow full performance on “boost” mode since these software can’t change the physical limitations of the processor
No they are not eye candy. The last thing that you want is a gaming / high performance laptop that runs at full tilt all the time. This will result in poor thermals and high fans most of the time. Which is something that I experienced with my Framework 16 on the CPU side. With the CPU hitting 100C multiple times for no reason.
With my custom fan curve on my Alienware (which I am writing this message from) I can keep the CPU temp under 90C at all times basically. When I want to play a game that is heavy; I will press the button for turbo mode which sends the fans to 100% and sets the power to the top limit for the GPU especaially.
Otherwise the system runs at a lower wattage by a bit. The turbo mode specifically gives the GPU an extra 15W of turbo boost power and can give 10W on the CPU (depending on how you have it configured) however the fans will spin at max speed at all times.
This mode is really useful, as is the fan curve optimizer.
I had an MSI laptop as well and it has even more customization for the CPU and GPU wattage for different settings as well as fan sliders. This lets me tune the laptop based on how I am going to use it.
My AW laptop here runs 24/7 in my bedroom on my desk here for quick work and managing my companies as well as doing trading. I use it for gaming here and there but mostly I use it for the fact that it has 64GB of ram and can handle 100+ browser tabs + other background tasks without screaming all the time.
This function is already present on nearly all laptops, gaming or not, and Linux kernel fully support this via Intel/AMD pstate driver and energy performance preference(EPP). Thus the computer doesn’t run ful tilt on light tasks such as document editing or web browsing. Think that like the automatic transmission on your vehicle, the gearbox will downshift if you apply full throttle regardless of whether it’s in “eco” or “sport” mode. The different of performance modes are mostly at medium load where a more aggressive setting boosts higher clock speed at a given load.
These features are relatively more useful as it caps the performance (still within the hardware limits). Then again we have TLP/power-profiles-daemon and fw-fanctrl on Linux
I think you are mistaking what I mean by full tilt. Like I am very well aware, being a software engineer myself, that computers do downclock. But I can tell you that just having my same number of web browsing tabs open as my Alienware has this laptop reaching 100 Celsius over and over again, randomly.
As I sit down and use the laptop, the CPU ramps to full power over and over again. Every time I am loading heavy web pages, for example, and this causes spikes in temperatures which I personally do not like. Unfortunately, the laptop also does not support Ryzen controller.
It’s good to hear that there is fan control on Linux because I planned to install Linux as well as Windows. However, since I developed software for Windows, I would definitely need Windows to work properly.
To me, I am willing to work, especially with other people, to build a software that would be able to manage the fan and maybe even the power of the laptop because I really like the build quality and the keyboard and such. But at this point in time, framework decided to give me an RMA.
Since I did not want to use the 180 watt power adapter and instead was interested in using a lower power adapter (140W but way more portable), but the laptop does not work properly unless there is a 180 watt adapter. So I have sent framework of proposal and I wait to hear back.
Edit: Framework denied my proposal. They are not interested in me working on fixing the firmware. I asked them to send me a charger and a non-GPU backplate so that I could fix it in all scenarios (especially since the charger is sold out for 1MO+ on the store already). They refuse to send me anything and say they are not willing to accomodate me. They have stood by their path for a refund. Therefore the laptop is being RMA’d and I don’t think I will be back here again.
I guess I placed too much hope in an American based company to truly care about their product and future.
Probably you can try to use Notebook FanControl GitHub - hirschmann/nbfc: NoteBook FanControl
I was using it for my HP EliteBook 1050G1
It let me set fan duty/speed based on temperature thresholds. it was writing data to EC so it should be a nice replacement for ectool. I have not yet tested it on my framework 16 because it is still in a box and waiting for some spare time
Apparently they are not developing anything in this regard. A disappointment since they don’t even allow the average user to use programs like msi afterburner.
It is incomprehensible, contrary to the open philosophy of the product.
It’s something that other brands like xmg, asus, alienware, msi have… and I don’t see the problem. It is also a highly requested topic, and there are even programs on Linux and Windows, which are not for the average user that allow it.
And if the framework is not going to make a program, at least it allows the use of external programs.
It is contrary to the open philosophy that is supposed to have a framework.
Hello, an official request was made. There have been more users who have requested it.
I don’t know what the status of the request is but it seems that Marco didn’t listen to us.
There are also other users with other requests that need to be heard regarding the number of complaints such as a single piece tradkpad.
I imagine that most of us users thought that the framework team, after having created this wonderful piece of engineering, would solve these “problems”. Maybe we were wrong.
Well as a Windows User it is not that easy to change your Fancurve. I would to love to have a all in one Tool to change a Fan Curve or the TDP. Yes the Windows Power Profile works but not very comfortable or as preferable.
Last i checked fw-fanctrl requires disabling secure boot. Imo anything that requires that is an incomplete temporary solution that still needs Improvement
# on fedora 40 with last 6.10 kernel:
# default report:
$ sudo ./ectool temps all
--sensor name -------- temperature -------- ratio (fan_off and fan_max) --
ambient_f75303@4d 303 K (= 30 C) N/A (fan_off=0 K, fan_max=0 K)
charger_f75303@4d 305 K (= 32 C) N/A (fan_off=0 K, fan_max=0 K)
apu_f75303@4d 307 K (= 34 C) 0% (320 K and 335 K)
cpu@4c 304 K (= 31 C) 0% (338 K and 370 K)
gpu_amb_f75303@4d 273 K (= 0 C) N/A (fan_off=0 K, fan_max=0 K)
gpu_vr_f75303@4d 273 K (= 0 C) 0% (323 K and 347 K)
gpu_vram_f75303@4d 273 K (= 0 C) N/A (fan_off=0 K, fan_max=0 K)
gpu_amdr23m@40 273 K (= 0 C) 0% (323 K and 353 K)
$ sudo ./ectool thermalget
sensor warn high halt fan_off fan_max name
0 363 363 378 0 0 ambient_f75303@4d
1 363 363 378 0 0 charger_f75303@4d
2 363 363 378 320 335 apu_f75303@4d
3 381 381 400 338 370 cpu@4c
4 0 0 0 0 0 gpu_amb_f75303@4d
5 344 0 0 323 347 gpu_vr_f75303@4d
6 0 0 0 0 0 gpu_vram_f75303@4d
7 0 0 0 323 353 gpu_amdr23m@40
# change temps curve: cpu@4c with 0rpm@30°C => 100%@90°C:
# > thermalset <sensor id> <warn> <high> <halt> <fan_off> <fan_max>
sudo ./ectool thermalset 3 381 381 400 303 363
#> result:
$ sudo ./ectool temps all
--sensor name -------- temperature -------- ratio (fan_off and fan_max) --
ambient_f75303@4d 307 K (= 34 C) N/A (fan_off=0 K, fan_max=0 K)
charger_f75303@4d 308 K (= 35 C) N/A (fan_off=0 K, fan_max=0 K)
apu_f75303@4d 308 K (= 35 C) 0% (320 K and 335 K)
cpu@4c 305 K (= 32 C) 3% (303 K and 363 K)
gpu_amb_f75303@4d 273 K (= 0 C) N/A (fan_off=0 K, fan_max=0 K)
gpu_vr_f75303@4d 273 K (= 0 C) 0% (323 K and 347 K)
gpu_vram_f75303@4d 273 K (= 0 C) N/A (fan_off=0 K, fan_max=0 K)
gpu_amdr23m@40 273 K (= 0 C) 0% (323 K and 353 K)
$ sudo ./ectool pwmgetfanrpm all
Fan 0 RPM: 1080
Fan 1 RPM: 1010
For me (FW16 7940HS without dGPU) does not make noise at normal/low CPU load and the case is now kept cool. CPU@33°C (was more 38/40 °C with default settings)
(Now need to add a systemd service to enable it at startup…)
