8 ms·

Relatedly... One of the things I'm not happy about on my current machine (Ryzen 1800X, RTX 2070S) is the heat and noise. I'm going to invest in a better case a

by mastax 4y ago

Relatedly... One of the things I'm not happy about on my current machine (Ryzen 1800X, RTX 2070S) is the heat and noise. I'm going to invest in a better case and fans next time, but new hardware is trying to make the problem even worse. The new hardware is supposed to be very efficient if you limit the max power, but they don't make it easy to do. From what I can tell the only way to change power limits and fan curves for CPU/GPU are either to reboot into BIOS or use multiple separate manufacturer's shitty bloated windows GUI utilities. AMD's Ryzen Master software is supposed to be good but it doesn't work at all if you have Hyper-V enabled which is basically mandatory for developers nowadays. My GPU's default fan curves have them turn on/off around typical idle desktop temperatures so they continuously cycle on/off and have worn out the bearings and now make a scraping noise every time they do this. The only way to fix this is to launch a bloated windows GUI utility every boot. I was surprised to not find an open source Linux library or kernel driver that lets you read and write fan speeds for GPU and motherboard controlled fans. I want two things: 1. A simple, unobtrusive button in my system tray that lets me toggle power limits of my CPU and GPU from "silent" to "performance". 2. A simple, unobtrusive way to configure fan curves with averaging and hysteresis that, crucially, lets the case fan speeds be controlled by a combination of GPU and CPU temperatures. As far as I know neither of those are possible today. I've considered buying or making a USB fan speed controller and even plugging my GPU fans into it because there's no other good way to control them.

strich 4y ago
So what you're after re fan control exists, in this bloody fantastic app: https://github.com/Rem0o/FanControl.Releases https://github.com/Rem0o/FanControl.Releases
- mastax 4y ago
  I'll look into that, thanks! Too bad it's not open source, though.
cameronhowe 4y ago
I use this for my radeon RX 5700XT: https://gitlab.com/corectrl/corectrl https://gitlab.com/corectrl/corectrl You can use it for cpu as well, but i havent felt the need to fiddle with any settings there.
KronisLV 4y ago
Currently using AMD Software Adrenalin Edition (on Windows): https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/software https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/software Pretty average as far as bloat goes, ~150-200 MB of RAM used, about as much as JetBrains Toolbox takes up in the tray, or Mattermost, Discord or other apps like that. Lets me switch between GPU power/fan profiles (Performance > Tuning) so I can run my GPU at 50% of its maximum power most of the time (as well as different fan curves), for longevity/noise related reasons, especially when dealing with badly optimized software/games. The CPU just seems to do its own thing and throttles up/down based on system load, haven't really needed to tune it for any particular reason yet. It's passable but you're right that things could be way better, more usable and user friendly! I guess in a way, when everything is bloated, nothing is. Wirth's law at its finest.
- mastax 4y ago
  It can't control the speed of case fans though, no? I suppose I don't care about memory usage for "bloat". I want it to be easy and pleasant to use, and to start quickly and unobtrusively. No 10 second long splash screen every time I boot.
  - pohuing 4y ago
    100% depends on your mainboard manufacturer and their software support. Once upon a time most Mainboards had Fans controllable through SpeedFan
mwint 4y ago
> they continuously cycle on/off and have worn out the bearings Does cycling a fan on/off wear bearings faster than being on all the time? Naively I would have assumed that bearing wear is a function of time enabled and speed, with # of spinups a negligible factor.
twblalock 4y ago
I have found it much more difficult to tune fan curves for quiet operation on Ryzen than on Intel chips. There are frequent short surges in fan speed, presumably caused by frequent short surges in core temperature. This happens at normal load just above idle, e.g just web browsing and YouTube. This has happened with a few different brands of motherboards, in multiple chassis with different brands of fans, so I think it's a characteristic of the Ryzen platform rather than a specific motherboard brand or BIOS. It's really odd and annoying, and I've resorted to fan curves that keep the fan on low RPM until just before the CPU hits 90C -- basically flat with a big hockey stick inflection at the end.
- SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
  > It's really odd and annoying, and I've resorted to fan curves that keep the fan on low RPM until just before the CPU hits 90C -- basically flat with a big hockey stick inflection at the end. Same. I haven’t found much better. I always wonder how it doesn’t drive other people nuts.
  - edpenz 4y ago
    The counterintuitive trick I've used for my 5900X is to increase the minimum fan speed up to around 60% or so. It makes the base volume very slightly higher, but avoids it constantly ramping up and down through the 50% zone which is what I found the most annoying/noticeable.
morepork 4y ago
How about putting the button on the case, like the good old turbo buttons on 386/486s

by mastax 4y ago

strich 4y ago

So what you're after re fan control exists, in this bloody fantastic app: https://github.com/Rem0o/FanControl.Releases https://github.com/Rem0o/FanControl.Releases

mastax 4y ago
I'll look into that, thanks! Too bad it's not open source, though.

cameronhowe 4y ago

I use this for my radeon RX 5700XT: https://gitlab.com/corectrl/corectrl https://gitlab.com/corectrl/corectrl You can use it for cpu as well, but i havent felt the need to fiddle with any settings there.

KronisLV 4y ago

Currently using AMD Software Adrenalin Edition (on Windows): https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/software https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/software Pretty average as far as bloat goes, ~150-200 MB of RAM used, about as much as JetBrains Toolbox takes up in the tray, or Mattermost, Discord or other apps like that. Lets me switch between GPU power/fan profiles (Performance > Tuning) so I can run my GPU at 50% of its maximum power most of the time (as well as different fan curves), for longevity/noise related reasons, especially when dealing with badly optimized software/games. The CPU just seems to do its own thing and throttles up/down based on system load, haven't really needed to tune it for any particular reason yet. It's passable but you're right that things could be way better, more usable and user friendly! I guess in a way, when everything is bloated, nothing is. Wirth's law at its finest.

mastax 4y ago
It can't control the speed of case fans though, no? I suppose I don't care about memory usage for "bloat". I want it to be easy and pleasant to use, and to start quickly and unobtrusively. No 10 second long splash screen every time I boot.
- pohuing 4y ago
  100% depends on your mainboard manufacturer and their software support. Once upon a time most Mainboards had Fans controllable through SpeedFan

mwint 4y ago

> they continuously cycle on/off and have worn out the bearings Does cycling a fan on/off wear bearings faster than being on all the time? Naively I would have assumed that bearing wear is a function of time enabled and speed, with # of spinups a negligible factor.

twblalock 4y ago

I have found it much more difficult to tune fan curves for quiet operation on Ryzen than on Intel chips. There are frequent short surges in fan speed, presumably caused by frequent short surges in core temperature. This happens at normal load just above idle, e.g just web browsing and YouTube. This has happened with a few different brands of motherboards, in multiple chassis with different brands of fans, so I think it's a characteristic of the Ryzen platform rather than a specific motherboard brand or BIOS. It's really odd and annoying, and I've resorted to fan curves that keep the fan on low RPM until just before the CPU hits 90C -- basically flat with a big hockey stick inflection at the end.

SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
> It's really odd and annoying, and I've resorted to fan curves that keep the fan on low RPM until just before the CPU hits 90C -- basically flat with a big hockey stick inflection at the end. Same. I haven’t found much better. I always wonder how it doesn’t drive other people nuts.
- edpenz 4y ago
  The counterintuitive trick I've used for my 5900X is to increase the minimum fan speed up to around 60% or so. It makes the base volume very slightly higher, but avoids it constantly ramping up and down through the 50% zone which is what I found the most annoying/noticeable.

morepork 4y ago

How about putting the button on the case, like the good old turbo buttons on 386/486s