Fan control stopped working sometime last week on a running system

Support & Help Requests Hardware
1

I have a amd A10 based toshiba laptop. it has been solid and reliable for the last year at least, running mate 24.04.5 as of now. I have ubuntu pro enabled for updates.

sometime since last week, while the machine was idling away on my desk, the ability to regulate fan speed according to temperature broke, and it spun up to max RPM.

I have spent a while, but not been able to get it back working.

The one clue I have found ( which may or may not be a false lead since its a amd system) is log entries from thermald about not finding a file system and shutting down, this is the oldest one.

> 
> ay  7 15:38:11 rsvtoshiba thermald[3177]: NO RAPL sysfs present 
> May  7 15:38:11 rsvtoshiba systemd[1]: Finished Permit User Sessions.
> May  7 15:38:11 rsvtoshiba thermald[3177]: Unsupported cpu model or platform
> May  7 15:38:11 rsvtoshiba systemd[1]: Starting Light Display Manager...
> May  7 15:38:11 rsvtoshiba bluetoothd[3153]: Starting SDP server
> May  7 15:38:11 rsvtoshiba systemd[1]: Starting Hold until boot process finishes up...
> May  7 15:38:11 rsvtoshiba dbus-daemon[3155]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.hostname1' unit='dbus-org.freedesktop.hostname1.service' requested by ':1.11' (uid=0 pid=3156 comm="/usr/sbin/NetworkManager --no-daemon " label="unconfined")
> May  7 15:38:11 rsvtoshiba systemd[1]: Finished OpenVPN service.
> May  7 15:38:11 rsvtoshiba systemd[1]: thermald.service: Deactivated successfully.

since then this repeats once in a while.

What coould have been pushed that broke thermald on may 7 ?

how do I find out what pro did at the time point so I can reverse it. Its not fun to have the fan constantly at max.

2

Did you do a OS update on that date, or time prior to previous reboot, that contained the list of hardware supported, along with their characteristics?

The hardware list is periodically purged, and yours might have fallen into the age cutoff. If so, you could revert that hardware package to regain the data that offers your needed support.

I can't think of anything else, unless you tweaked the OS somehow.

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3

Ubuntu Pro Client log files (the default is /var/log/ubuntu-advantage*)

Any tarballs in there?

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4

Check and maybe correct your details.

Ubuntu MATE 24.04 LTS is currently only at the .2 point release, with 24.04.5 scheduled for release in Aug/Sept 2026, so unless you've got a blue police box or other time machine, your details are incorrect.

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5

Either a kernelupdate or a thermald update.
I've seen several people on internet with the same or comparable issue, even on intel CPU's

Once in a while ? That sounds like a race condition.
There is a possibility that thermald is started too soon.

try restarting the thermald.service and see if that works:

sudo systemctl restart thermald.service

if that works you can edit the thermald.service to start a bit later by adding a sleep command:

sudo systemctl edit thermald.service

and add this in the uncommented region:

[Service]
ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/sleep 3
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6

It turns out it was hardware broken. The battery has swelled and made the cooling system loosen from the graphic chip.

Can I mark this post solved somehow?

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7

Thank you for letting us know :+1:
What a bummer that it is a hardware failure. I hope it is not too expensive to switch batteries.
If you want to mark this thread as solved, just click on the tickbox symbol next to the :orange_heart: symbol

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8

You are right. its 22.04.5 LTS

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