Provided by: i8kutils_1.41_amd64 bug

NAME

       I8kmon - Monitor the cpu temperature and fan status on Dell laptops

SYNTAX

       i8kmon [<options>]

DESCRIPTION

       The  i8kmon  daemon  can  be  used  to  monitor the cpu temperature and fan status on Dell
       laptops.  The program can be run in background as daemon or under X as an applet which can
       be swallowed in the gnome panel.

       By  default the program monitors the cpu temperature but doesn't do any automatic controls
       of the fan status accordingly to user-defined temperature thresholds because this may  not
       be needed if your laptop does already a good job with fans control.  The automatic control
       can be enabled manually with the --auto option.

       The automatic fan control can also be turned on in the control popup menu which is invoked
       by  clicking  with  the  left mouse button on the temperature label.  The control menu has
       three items: Auto, which controls the automatic fan control, Verbose, which prints  status
       on  stdout,  and  Suspend,  which  closes the /proc/i8kfan file and suspends the daemon to
       allow unloading the kernel module.

       The user interface reports the current cpu temperature in the top  box  and   in  the  two
       lower  buttons  the  status  of the fans. On systems wiht only one fan the interface shows
       only one fan button.  If a button's background becomes red it means that the corresponding
       fan  has a rotation speed lower than the minimum expected speed and is probably stuck.  In
       this case proding it with a bent paper clip can often cause it to become unstuck.

       The fan buttons can also be used to manually control the fan speeds.  Clicking  on  a  fan
       button  with  the  left  mouse  button will cycle the selected fan between low speed, high
       speed and off.  Clicking with the middle button  will  set  the  fan  to  high  speed  and
       clicking  with  the right button will switch the fan off.  Note however that both the BIOS
       and the daemon have their own idea of what the fan speed should be and can  sometimes  try
       to override the manual settings.

OPTIONS

       The program accepts the following command-line options:

       -a, --auto
              Monitor cpu temperature and fan status and control automatically the fans.

       -na, --noauto
              Monitor  cpu  temperature  and fan status but don't control automatically the fans.
              This is the default setting.

       -d, --daemon
              Run the program in daemon mode, i.e. without the user interface.

       -nd, --nodaemon
              Don't run the program in daemon mode, i.e. open the user  interface.  This  is  the
              default setting.

       -nc, --nouserconfig
              Don't attempt to source the ~/.i8kmon configfile, only /etc/i8kmon.conf.

       -v, --verbose
              Report hardware status and program actions on stdout.

       -g, --geometry <geometry>
              Specifies  the  geometry  of  the applet window. Geometry should be 24x24, 36x36 or
              48x48 to fit the size of the gnome panel.

       -t, --timeout <seconds>
              Specifies the interval at which the  daemon  checks  the  hardware  status.  Useful
              values are in the range of 1-5 seconds. Default is 2 seconds.

       -u, --unit C|F
              Specifies  the  temperature  display  unit.  Default  is  C (Celsius).  This option
              affects only the value shown in the applet. All other temperature values are always
              in Celsius.

CONFIGURATION

       The  program  has  builtin defaults and temperature thresholds but users can specify their
       own settings in configuration files /etc/default/i8kmon and ~/.i8kmon.  The daemon defines
       4  states  with  different  fan speeds ({0 0}, {1 0}, {1 1}, {2 2}) and for each state are
       defined the temperature thresholds which cause the switching to a higher or  lower  state.
       Furthermore each state can have different thresholds for operation on ac power or battery.
       For example the following configuration:

              set config(0) {{0 0}  "-"1  60  "-"1  65}
              set config(1) {{1 0}  50  70  55  75}
              set config(2) {{1 1}  60  80  65  85}
              set config(3) {{2 2}  70 128  75 128}

       defines state 0 with both fans off, high threshold of 60 degrees (65 on battery)  and  low
       threshold "-"1, which is actually never reached since 0 is the lowest state. When the high
       threshold is reached the program switches to state 1 (left low, right  off)  which  has  a
       high  threshold  of 70 degrees and a low threshold of 50 degrees. If the temperature drops
       below 50 the program will switch back to state 0, if it rises above 70 it will enter state
       2,  and  so on.  For better operation the temperature ranges should be overlapping with an
       hysteresis of at least 10 degrees, i.e. 1={50 70},2={60 80} is better than 1={50 70},2={70
       80}.  It  must  be  rembered  that  the low threshold of state 0 must be "-"1 and the high
       threshold of state 3 must be 128.

       If your laptop has only one fan you should specify a '-' instead of the fan speed  of  the
       missing fan, for example:

              set config(2) {{1 -}  60  80  65  85}

       This  program can be used by normal users as Gnome panel applet or started as daemon by an
       init script. Under Debian GNU/Linux it is possible to start the  daemon  automatically  by
       creating  an  /etc/default/i8kmon  configfile  containing the line "set config(daemon) 1".
       Note the the /etc/default/i8kmon configfile is  not  installed  by  the  i8kutils  package
       because the program is designed to be run by normal users. If you want to use it as daemon
       you must create the config file yourself. In this  case,  the  --nouserconfig  option  can
       sometimes also help by limiting it to sourcing /etc/i8kmon.conf (and not ~/.i8kmon).

FILES

       /proc/i8k
       /etc/default/i8kmon
       /$HOME/.i8kmon

AUTHORS

       Massimo Dal Zotto <dz@debian.org>

COPYRIGHT

       i8kmon  and  all the i8kutils programs , scripts and other files are distributed under the
       GNU General Public License (GPL).  On Debian GNU/Linux systems, the complete text  of  the
       GNU General Public License can be found in `/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL'.

BUGS

       On some Linux distributions i8kmon exits with an error like this:

              can't find package Tk
                  while executing
              "package require Tk"

       This  is  not  a  bug of i8kmon. It means that Tcl/Tk files are not installed correctly on
       your system and the Tk library can't be dynamically loaded from Tcl as it  should  be.  In
       this case you can run i8kmon with the command:

              wish /usr/bin/i8kmon -- [options...]

SEE ALSO

       i8kctl(1), i8kbuttons(1)