I’m trying to control my CPU fan on a Dell Optiplex. I ran sensors and it didn’t detect the CPU fan. I modprobed dell_smm_hwmon and tried sensors again. I said yes to everything on the scan. I see that there is i8kutils but I can’t tell if this just works for Dell Laptops. Just wondering if anyone has this working on a small form factor Dell or if I’m wasting my time with i8k. Running 6.11.0-6-MANJARO since I need to set edid for my dual monitors.
I have a Dell Inspiron 5575 and still have to use i8kutils, however the i8k module has been deprecated for quite some time.
The dell_smm_hwmon module is enabled by default:
EDIT: Turns out DELL_SMM is not enabled by default. I have a config file for it:
❯ cat /etc/modprobe.d/dell-smm-hwmon.conf
options dell-smm-hwmon ignore_dmi=1
❯ lsmod | grep dell
dell_pc 12288 0
platform_profile 16384 1 dell_pc
dell_laptop 45056 0
dell_wmi 28672 1 dell_laptop
dell_smbios 36864 3 dell_wmi,dell_pc,dell_laptop
dcdbas 20480 1 dell_smbios
dell_wmi_descriptor 20480 2 dell_wmi,dell_smbios
sparse_keymap 12288 1 dell_wmi
dell_rbtn 20480 0
rfkill 40960 11 iwlmvm,bluetooth,dell_laptop,dell_rbtn,cfg80211
dell_smm_hwmon 28672 0
i8042 57344 1 dell_laptop
video 81920 3 dell_wmi,amdgpu,dell_laptop
wmi 32768 6 video,dell_wmi,wmi_bmof,dell_smm_hwmon,dell_smbios,dell_wmi_descriptor
Thanks. I can modprobe dell_smm_hwmon. I will install the i8kutils and give it a go. I tried to install the one by using yay but it is missing some files like the .service file so I’ll compile from github.
The AUR package isn’t missing anything as far as I know. I’ve been using it for years. Did you enable the i8kmon.service?
❯ pacman -Ql i8kutils | grep service
i8kutils /usr/lib/systemd/system/i8kmon.service
❯ systemctl status i8kmon.service
● i8kmon.service - DELL notebook fan control
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/i8kmon.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
Active: active (running)
That kernel is no longer supported. Please update to a more recent kernel, and/or use an LTS kernel such as 6.6 or 6.12.
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When I tried to start i8k, I got an error that /proc/i8k wasn’t created.
Hmm… /proc/i8k exists for me. Well, we do have different hardware.
By the way, I made an edit above. You might want to try creating this file and rebooting:
Thanks this worked. I added what you have and since I don’t have a laptop I had to add
set config(acpi) /usr/bin/true
to my /etc/i8kutils/i8kmon.conf
I also had to load the i8k module to create the /proc/i8k
options i8k force=1
to my /etc/modprobe.d/i8k.conf
I used the AUR that had the i8kutils.service file. The other one built the dell package that wasn’t needed.
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You’re welcome. I’ve had my Dell laptop since about 2018. It still serves me well–mostly. 
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