Fan Control

Take control of your ThinkPad's cooling system — from whisper-quiet to maximum cooling.

Control Modes

Auto Mode

Let the system intelligently manage fan speed based on temperature. Recommended for most users.

Manual Mode

Set a precise fan speed level from 0 (silent) to 7 (maximum). Great for finding the sweet spot between noise and cooling.

Maximum Mode

Run fans at full blast — useful for intensive tasks like video rendering or gaming.

Fan Curve (Auto with Custom Curve)

Draw a custom temperature-to-speed mapping on an interactive canvas. The background task checks temperature every 2 seconds and adjusts fan speed according to your curve.

Temperature Sensors

ThinkUtils monitors all available thermal sensors:

• CPU core temperatures
• GPU temperature
• Battery temperature
• Other platform-specific sensors

Data is read via the sensors command (lm-sensors).

How It Works

Fan control uses /proc/acpi/ibm/fan through the thinkpad_acpi kernel module. A dedicated fan helper script at /usr/local/bin/thinkutils-fan-control handles writes securely — see Permissions for setup details.

TIP

Make sure you've enabled fan control in the kernel module. See Getting Started.