question: how to control fans in EVGA 1080 ti FTW3 ?????

[maxreason]

Just for the record, the following is a message I sent to EVGA tech support, plus their very unsatisfactory answer:

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Greetings,

I just purchased and installed my EVGA GTX 1080 ti FTW3 GPU card into a new AMD Ryzen 7 1800X system that I just built.

None of the fans spin.

I added the following command to the list of Linux Mint v18.1 startup applications:

nvidia-settings -a GPUFanControlState=1 -a GPUTargetFanSpeed=100

Now the fan nearest the outside end of the GPU card runs when I start the computer.

Note that this is the worst of the three fans to run because it is right next to the thermal exhaust outlet at the back of the GPU (the end where video connectors are plugged in and heat is exhausted from the GPU card). This leaves the middle and far end of the GPU card without any fan cooling. As per normal practice and nominal nvidia design GPU cards, single fans are always at the other end of the GPU card so air passes across all regions of the GPU PCB and all active components of the GPU.

According to my nvidia-settings application, my system is running the latest nvidia drivers: v381.22

In the nvidia-settings application...
- in the "GPU 0 - GeForce GTX 1080 ti" section...
- in the "thermal settings" section...
- the "enable GPU fan settings" checkbox is checked and...
- the "fan 0 speed" is specified as "100" and the corresponding control bar is all the way to the right (full speed)

However, no text or settings or control bar is shown for "fan 1" or "fan 2" (or any fan beyond "fan 0").

I don't care about fan noise from my computer or its components (including GPU card). I prefer to set all my GPU fans to "full speed all the time". Or at least be able to specify much lower temperatures to spin up the fans and/or more aggressive fan profiles to keep the GPU cooler. I much prefer to extend the life of the active components in my GPU card (and CPU and other active components of my computer) than "keep noise down".

I tried entering the following into a terminal window:

nvidia-settings -a "[gpu:0]/GPUFanControlState=1" -a "[fan:0]/GPUTargetFanSpeed=100" -a "[fan:1]/GPUTargetFanSpeed=100" -a "[fan:2]/GPUTargetFanSpeed=100"

But error messages indicated that "[fan:1]" and "[fan:2]" were not supported. The exact error message was:

ERROR: Error resolving target specification 'fan:1' (no targets match target specification), specified in assignment '[fan:1]/GPUTargetFanSpeed=100".

Note that the "[fan:0]" target did work.

No matter what I tried, I was never able to make fan1 or fan2 spin.

Question: How do I do one of the following:

#1: Make all three fans spin at full speed all the time?

#2: Make commands analogous to those shown above to control all three fans independently?

#3: Make the techniques that successfully control the speed of "fan 0" also apply to "fan 1" and "fan 2"?

#4: Set fan-speed versus temperatures profiles for the three fans to much higher fan speeds at much lower temperatures?

#5: Provide me some other solution for Linux Mint v18.1 [and other Linux releases].

Thanks.

Max Reason

PS: We in the Linux world do not need fancy GUI applications... but we need SOMETHING.

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Answer from EVGA:

Hello Max,

Thanks for contacting EVGA. We currently do not do support on systems running Linux. That is a question I would direct to NVIDIA themselves as they are more accustomed to dealing with Linux based issues. I did a little searching myself and I personally could not find any information related to your issue. I am very sorry for that, if there is anything else I could help you with or questions, feel free to ask!

Regards,
EVGA

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My comment:

Maybe others here can identify which GPU companies are the least and most responsive to people with Linux systems. If EVGA is worse than others, I think all us Linux folks should boycott ALL their products (and say why)... until they clean up their Linux act. As I said in my question to them, we in the Linux world don't need fancy GUI apps, but we need SOMETHING (which means some way to perform all NECESSARY operations). Note also that I offered to write software to provide these capabilities if EVGA would give me just as much as I need to control the fans (and nothing more). They also flat out refused this offer too. So I am not impressed, and now quite sorry that my past 5 or 6 GPU purchases were EVGA products.

[maxreason]

Put a line in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to enable coolbits:

To get the best support for your newer Ryzen CPU, you can test installing kernel 4.10. Open Update Manager > View > Linux kernels. Read the warning message. Upgrading the kernel can benefit your system and also break components of it, and at the top are graphics and networking. After the installation, reboot and the newer kernel will be automatically selected. At the desktop you can verify that the newer kernel was installed and working by using the command uname -r or inxi -S.

If you experience a major problem and it can't be solved in the Mint forums, then the kernel can be removed. Reboot and at the GRUB boot menu select the Advanced options line. Then select the first line pertaining to the previous kernel 4.4. If no menu is displayed, then hold down the Shift key during startup. At the desktop, open Update Manager and remove kernel 4.10. Then test installing kernel 4.8.

I just rebooted to make sure my memory was correct, and confirmed that nothing like a grub boot menu was displayed. It says something about pressing F2 or DEL to enter BIOS, but nothing else.

I vaguely recall being in this pickle before, but also vaguely recall there is some magic key-presses (or something) that makes the grub boot menu appear.

Can you refresh my memory about how to get to that elusive grub boot menu before I take the dive into kernel upgrade chaos land? Thanks.

PS: Current state:

max@mintmax ~ $ inxi -S
System: Host: mintmax Kernel: 4.4.0-31-generic x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: Cinnamon 3.2.7 Distro: Linux Mint 18.1 Serena

[powerwagon75]

Max, if you would like to make GRUB appear at every boot-up, comment out the "GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0" line in your /etc/default/grub file. (see sample below with that line commented out with a #)

Code: Select all

# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
#   info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'

GRUB_DEFAULT=4
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=15
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

<<remaining info edited out for brevity>>  

Before making any changes to your /etc/default/grub file, copy the following exactly, paste it in terminal press enter, type your password, hit enter. This will make a backup file of your existing, working, GRUB file.

sudo cp /etc/default/grub /etc/default/grub.bak

You can get to an edit mode of the file by running sudo nano /etc/default/grub in Terminal. Make the change, then press Ctl + x, then press y to save/exit. (Key instructions are at the bottom of the terminal screen)

Don't forget to run in Terminal afterwards, sudo update-grub prior to rebooting.

Upon reboot, if you have more than one kernel on your system, you should be presented with options of which kernel to start the OS with. Use the down arrow to skip down to your selection, and hit enter.

If at some point you no longer want to see GRUB at every start up, just edit the file again, and uncomment (remove #) from that line.

--- Apologies if this long-winded response is not what you were looking for. Just offering a suggestion, and will not offer any suggestion that I haven't tried/know works myself.

[doubleganger]

for fan control on a nvidia 1080 or 1080 TI
Just to keep things simple, to set cool bits simply execute the below command and then reboot. No hand editing of the file is required.
cd /etc/X11
sudo nvidia-xconfig -a --cool-bits=31 --allow-empty-initial-configuration

then to set your fan speed at boot create an executable file and execute from startup. It should contain


nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/GPUFanControlState=1
nvidia-settings -a [fan:0]/GPUTargetFanSpeed=100

I've been doing this for years and the setting applies to all fans on the gpu.
while on the subject, also:
#Enable PowerMizer (Adaptive)
nvidia-settings -a '[gpu:0]/GPUPowerMizerMode=0'

#Enable PowerMizer (Auto)
nvidia-settings -a '[gpu:0]/GPUPowerMizerMode=2'

#Enable PowerMizer (Prefer Maximum Performance)
nvidia-settings -a '[gpu:0]/GPUPowerMizerMode=1'

#Gain manual fan control
nvidia-settings -a '[gpu:0]/GPUFanControlState=1'

#Set GPU fan to 75%
nvidia-settings -a '[fan:0]/GPUCurrentFanSpeed=75'

#Set GPU Clock offset +160Mhz
nvidia-settings -a '[gpu:0]/GPUGraphicsClockOffset[3]=160'

#Set GPU Memory offset +100Mhz
nvidia-settings -a '[gpu:0]/GPUMemoryTransferRateOffset[3]=100'

If you want to limit power to a gpu use:
sudo -n nvidia-smi -i 0 --persistence-mode=1 #these are for wattage control
GPU=0
sudo -n nvidia-smi -i $GPU --power-limit=300 # enter something like 999 and it will return the allowable range for your gpu