ThinkPad Fan Controller (tpfancontrol): Complete Setup Guide

This guide walks through installing, configuring, and troubleshooting tpfancontrol to manage ThinkPad fan speed for quieter operation or improved cooling. Assumes a ThinkPad running a Linux distribution with root privileges.

Overview

tpfancontrol is a lightweight user-space daemon that reads ThinkPad thermal sensors and sets fan speed via the thinkpad_acpi kernel interface. It provides custom fan curves and profiles without relying on heavy GUI tools.

Requirements

A ThinkPad with thinkpad_acpi support (modern ThinkPads generally supported)
Linux kernel with thinkpad_acpi module loaded
Root or sudo access
Basic shell familiarity

Installation

1. Enable thinkpadacpi

Load module:

Code
sudo modprobe thinkpadacpi

Verify:

Code
lsmod | grep thinkpadacpi

confirm control interface exists:

Code
ls /proc/acpi/ibm

2. Install tpfancontrol

On Debian/Ubuntu:

Code
sudo apt update sudo apt install tpfancontrol

On Fedora:

Code
sudo dnf install tpfancontrol

From source (if not packaged):

Code
git clone https://github.com/hertg/thinkpad-fan-controller.git cd thinkpad-fan-controller make sudo make install

Configuration

Main config file

Edit /etc/tpfancontrol.conf (path may vary). Key settings:

SENSORS: sensor names (e.g., acpi, coretemp) and mapping

TEMP_THRESHOLDS: temperature to fan-speed mapping

FAN_LEVELS: PWM or discrete fan levels supported by your model

POLLINTERVAL: how often to check temps (seconds)

Example minimal config:

Code
SENSORS=(acpi coretemp) FAN_LEVELS=(0 1 2 3) TEMP_THRESHOLDS=(45 55 65 75) POLLINTERVAL=5

Creating custom fan curves

Choose thresholds that reflect desired noise vs cooling.

Use smaller step sizes near critical temps for smoother transitions.

User vs system service

Start manually for testing:

Code
sudo tpfancontrol -c /etc/tpfancontrol.conf

Enable at boot (systemd example): Create /etc/systemd/system/tpfancontrol.service:

Code
[Unit] Description=TPFanControl service[Service] Type=simple ExecStart=/usr/sbin/tpfancontrol -c /etc/tpfancontrol.conf
[Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target

Code
sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl enable –now tpfancontrol

Testing and Validation

Show current fan state and temps:

Code
cat /proc/acpi/ibm/fan sensors

Force a higher fan level (for testing) via config or echo to interface if supported:

Code
echo level > /proc/acpi/ibm/fan

Monitor logs:

Code
journalctl -u tpfancontrol -f

Troubleshooting

Fan control not working:

Confirm thinkpad_acpi exposes fan controls: check /proc/acpi/ibm/fan contains writable mode/level.

Some models require kernel parameters (thinkpad_acpi.fan_control=1). Add to GRUB:

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ThinkPad Fan Controller (tpfancontrol): Complete Setup Guide