any toshiba fan control thoughts?

[mikewse]

I'm looking into trying to implement fan control for my Toshiba laptop. In Hwinfo I've seen that you display fan speed but don't control it (and that's fine).

I'd just like to check if you learned any lessons while implementing the reading of fan speed that could be valuable when trying to control it? Are there any solution paths you can recommend investigating?
(Or maybe you are calling the ACPI PTID.TSDD method through Toshiba's system driver and haven't digged into the details of their embedded controller?)

Best regards
Mike

 

[Martin]

I'm reading that fan speed through the Toshiba TVALZ driver, but I don't know if it's possible to control the fan using it. It's undocumented and proprietary.
I haven't dealt with the EC, since each machine/model uses different methods and it's almost impossible to check this for all.

 

[mikewse]

Ah, thanks. I was thinking maybe you were accessing the EC directly as there is an information message "found Toshiba embedded controller" when starting Hwinfo, but then I guess this is based on finding the device published by the TVALZ driver instead.

I am starting to think my laptop doesn't use EC registers as there is no EmbeddedController region when decompiling the DSDT. There are references to H_EC (Host EC Interface) symbols but no declarations. The laptop has Intel AMT, maybe this is related?

Do you have any suggestions for how to look for possible fan control functions in the driver?

Best regards
Mike

 

[mikewse]

I think I probably cracked it. Some appropriate ioctl calls to the driver seems to control the fan!

 

[Martin]

I'm almost sure the laptop has an EC, it doesn't matter if/how it's exposed via ACPI or not.
So you have found IOCTLs via TVALZ to control the fan? Nice

 

[SandyBridge]

I think I probably cracked it. Some appropriate ioctl calls to the driver seems to control the fan!

I know this is an old thread, but i'm gonna crazy about this thing. Please help me.

Can you please explain how did you do this ?

 

[mikewse]

Is your fan maybe running constantly after a few years of use? I have the same and am about to send the laptop in for repair (still on warranty) as I think something with the cooling is broken. Will check first for dust of course by removing the bottom plate.

 

[VincentU]

I'm working on a small application to increase the speed of my fan and I'm hoping you could share the control codes that you used for this? I can connect to the driver using DeviceIoControl function but unable to locate any documentation on the control codes for tvalz.sys or tvalz_o.sys