PWMCONFIG(8)

💖 PWMCONFIG 💖

okay bestie, welcome to pwmconfig(8) — it's a System Manager's Manual situation, and it's literally the tool that tests the PWM outputs of your sensors and then configures fancontrol. she's giving fan whisperer, and honestly? obsessed.

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

pwmconfig

that's it. that's the whole thing. no flags, no arguments, she just goes. 🎀

⚠️ WARNING ⚠️ (read this fr fr, no skipping)

pwmconfig will attempt to stop your fans, one at a time, for approximately 5 seconds each.

and bestie, when your fans stop, your processor temperature may rise. that's just the physics of it. 😭

Verify that all fans are running at normal speed after this program has exited. like, actually go look. with your eyes. 👀

pwmconfig does its best to check that the fans are spinning when they are supposed to, but due to the diversity of available motherboards and fans, it shouldn't be blindly trusted. Always verify by yourself. she's doing her best but she is not your mom.

It is strongly recommended to run pwmconfig at a time when there is no significant system load, to minimize the risk of overheating. so like... not while you're rendering, not while you're compiling, not while your game is doing its thing. 💀 give her a calm little moment.

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so here's the tea ☕ — pwmconfig searches your sensors for pulse width modulation (PWM) controls, and tests each one to see if it controls a fan on your motherboard. she's going down the list like "you? you a fan controller? let's find out."

ngl, many motherboards do not have PWM circuitry installed, even if your sensor chip supports PWM. so don't come for her if she finds nothing — the board simply didn't come with the goods. 🙈

When a connection is established between a PWM control and a fan, pwmconfig can generate a detailed correlation, to show how a given fan is responding to various PWM duty cycles. it's giving science experiment but make it fans. 🔬

Lastly, pwmconfig will enter in fancontrol configuration mode (unless you decide to skip that part — your call, bestie). In this mode, you are invited to enter several parameters which will determine how the fancontrol daemon regulates the speed of one or more fans in your system based on temperature measurements. In particular, you will have the opportunity to:

• establish mappings between fans and temperature inputs 🌡️
• define the temperature range over which the speed of the fan should be adjusted dynamically
• set the minimum speed at which the fan should spin
• ...etc 💅

See fancontrol(8) for additional information.

🐛 BUGS 🐛

okay so this one's a terminology thing, and it's honestly iconic of computing:

The term "PWM" is used because most fan control systems in computers are based on pulse width modulation. Some motherboards however use DC variation instead. So, the term "PWM" should be seen as a generic term for "fan speed control", regardless of the actual method used. periodt. 💅

🔍 SEE ALSO 🔍

• fancontrol(8)
• sensors(1)

👑 AUTHORS 👑

• Marius Reiner <marius.reiner@hdev.de>
• Jean Delvare <jdelvare@suse.de>

and that's the whole page, bestie 🫶 this is lm-sensors 3, dated September 28, 2008 — yes she's an elder icon and she still ate. go check your fans before you close the terminal, i'm serious. 💖✨🎀