Initial commit

README.md

@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+Dell XPS fan control helper tool
+================================
+
+The problem
+-----------
+
+The BIOS of Dell XPS 9560 frequently forgets to stop the fan when the fan is on lower speed and the CPU is cool
+enough. This is very annoying, as once the fan turns on, it rarely shuts down. There exists a custom fan control
+daemon called i8k, but it turns off BIOS fan control which is very dangerous and suppors only 2 fan speeds.
+
+How it works
+------------
+
+Fortunately the fan immediately stops if "smbios-thermal-ctl --set-thermal-mode=quiet" command is run. But next time
+the CPU heats up, it starts over again. This tool is supposed to run the command periodically, but only in a given
+range of temperatures. There are some zones that results in oscillations (smbios-thermal-ctl turns off the fan for
+a second, and then it turns back on). On even higher temperatures, the command does nothing.
+So in order to avoid oscillations, we need a bit more sophisticated method than running smbios-thermal-ctl
+periodically.
+
+Tested for 15 9560.
+
+Installation
+------------
+
+Run ./install.sh as root. This will set up the config file, the systemd scripts and the script itself.
+
+You can try editing /etc/silent_xps.json if you run in some oscillation problems.
+
+Requirements
+------------
+
+Python 3 for running the script, lm_sensors for reading the temperatures and libsmbios for smbios-thermal-ctl tool.

config.json

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+[
+  {
+    "max" : 49
+  }
+]

install.sh

@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+cp silent_xps.py /usr/bin/silent_xps
+cp config.json /etc/silent_xps.json
+cp silent_xps.service /etc/systemd/system/
+systemctl enable silent_xps
+systemctl restart silent_xps