Dell 7590 - modprobe i8k (force=1 or not) doesn't load or throw an error message. Fans go at 0rpm, 2500rpm, or 5100rpm (max)

[levihb]

Right so I got this laptop and I really like it. It's a Dell 7590 with an i7-9750H, a GTX 1650, and the 4K OLED.

I run Arch Linux and am fully up to date. I have installed i8kutils as well as dell-smm-hwmon. In /etc/modprobe.d/ I have:

dell-smm-hwmon.conf:

# This file must be at /etc/modprobe.d/
options dell-smm-hwmon ignore_dmi=1 restricted=0

And when I do lsmod | grep dell it appears there.

Similarly I have a file called i8k.conf with:

options i8k force=1

Similarly in /etc/modules-load.d I have the same file names and just i8k in the i8k one, and dell-smm-hwmon in the Dell one.

But i8k just doesn't work.

E.g. I can do sudo modprobe i8k force=1 and then sudo lsmod | grep i8k, and i8k just isn't there. I've checked dmesg, journal, etc, and i8k doesn't even appear in them. It also doesn't load on boot, same thing.

And yes I've made sure that both the services are started and enabled. There's no errors or anything in them.

My i8kmon.conf is the default:

# Sample i8kmon configuration file (/etc/i8kutils/i8kmon.conf, ~/.i8kmon).

# External program to control the fans
set config(i8kfan)	/usr/bin/i8kfan

# Report status on stdout, override with --verbose option
set config(verbose)	0

# Status check timeout (seconds), override with --timeout option
set config(timeout)	2

# Temperature threshold at which the temperature is displayed in red
set config(t_high)	80

# Temperature thresholds: {fan_speeds low_ac high_ac low_batt high_batt}
# These were tested on the I8000. If you have a different Dell laptop model
# you should check the BIOS temperature monitoring and set the appropriate
# thresholds here. In doubt start with low values and gradually rise them
# until the fans are not always on when the cpu is idle.
set config(0)   {{0 0}  -1  55  -1  60}
set config(1)   {{1 1}  50  65  55  70}
set config(2)   {{2 2}  60  75  65  80}
set config(3)   {{2 2}  70 128  75 128}

# Speed values are set here to avoid i8kmon probe them at every time it starts.
set status(leftspeed)	"0 1000 2000 3000"
set status(rightspeed)	"0 1000 2000 3000"

# end of file

This system does have two fans. But it's obvious that nothing is working because as I said, the fans only have three modes. 0rpm when the system has been close to idle for a while. 2500rpm when doing ok things. Then if I do something like watch a YouTube video (lo) it roars straight to 5100rpm within seconds.

I don't know how to debug this or what to do. There's no logs or anything, it just doesn't say anything when I load the module (with or without force), but doesn't actually load it...

[Wer-Wolf]

The i8k module is actually an alias for the dell-smm-hwmon module, so of couse only the latter will show up in lsmod.
Also it is sadly also totally normal for your fans to have only three modes. The hardware interface does not provide access to more fan modes, so i8kutils can only choose between those three modes :(.

You can check if the driver is loaded by using the sensors command. If a hwmon chip called dell_smm is visible, then the driver works as expected. Please keep in mind that this version of i8kutils requires the kernel to be build with CONFIG_I8K enabled. AFAIK the arch kernel stopped enabling this deprecated Kconfig option.

I created a fork here which does not rely on the deprecated procfs interface. You can try it out and see if it helps.

[Wer-Wolf]

Also, setting restrict=0 does not improve hardware compatibility in any way, it just allows for unprivileged (potentially malicious) users to change the fan speed. This is necessary for some very old i8kutils setups, you should not enable it anymore.

If the dell_smm_hwmon module loads fine without force=1, then you should disable this option too since it also overrides any feature blacklists causing for example system hangs.