tp-fanctl

Adaptive fan controller for ThinkPad laptops. Automatically switches between quiet and gaming fan curves based on CPU load — no manual intervention needed.

Built on top of thinkfan. Designed for ThinkPads with thinkpad_acpi fan control. Tested on the T580 but should work on any ThinkPad that thinkfan supports.

How it works

tp-fanctl monitors CPU utilization by reading /proc/stat every 3 seconds. When sustained load is detected, it switches thinkfan to an aggressive cooling profile. When load drops, it switches back to a quiet profile.

Hysteresis prevents thrashing:

• Gaming mode engages after 12 seconds of sustained >55% CPU
• Quiet mode re-engages after 30 seconds of sustained <25% CPU
• Counter decay (not hard reset) absorbs transient spikes and dips

The asymmetry is deliberate — ramp up fast to protect thermals, ramp down slow to survive loading screens.

On shutdown, BIOS auto fan control is restored.

Components

File	Purpose
tp-fanctl	Adaptive fan daemon (Python 3, zero deps)
tp-fanctl-tray	System tray applet (GTK3 + AppIndicator3)
tp-fanctl-gaming	Manual switch to gaming profile
tp-fanctl-quiet	Manual switch to quiet profile

The tray applet shows a purple Q in quiet mode and a blue G in gaming mode. Right-click for manual override.

Requirements

• A ThinkPad with thinkpad_acpi kernel module
• thinkfan installed and working
• Python 3.10+
• python3-gobject + libappindicator-gtk3 (for tray applet only)

Install

git clone <this-repo>
cd tp-fanctl
sudo ./install.sh
sudo reboot  # required for fan_control=1 to take effect

The installer:

1. Copies binaries to /usr/local/bin/
2. Installs fan curve configs to /etc/
3. Enables thinkpad_acpi fan_control=1 via modprobe
4. Configures thinkfan to use the active profile
5. Installs and enables the systemd service
6. Sets up tray applet autostart

Immutable distros (Bazzite, Silverblue, etc.)

Layer thinkfan first:

rpm-ostree install thinkfan
sudo reboot

Then run the installer as normal. All files go to /usr/local/ and /etc/, which persist across updates.

Fan curves

Edit /etc/thinkfan.yaml (quiet) and /etc/thinkfan-gaming.yaml (gaming) to adjust temperature thresholds and fan levels.

You may need to adjust the coretemp sensor indices to match your CPU core count. Find your sensors:

find /sys/class/hwmon -name name -exec sh -c 'echo "$(cat {}): $(dirname {})"' \;
sensors

Uninstall

sudo ./uninstall.sh

License

MIT