I have the Pironman 5 MAX with a 2TB NVMe SSD. I have set the pironman fan setting to “Performance” which means the fans only turn on if the Raspberry Pi 5 CPU temperature reaches 50 degrees C. The problem here is that none of my applications are CPU-driven and so the fans rarely are on. Instead, I am getting S.M.A.R.T. alerts on my SSD when it reaches 50 degrees (which is very frequently). I installed a passive heat sink on the SSD, but this has not solved the problem. The manufacturer (Western Digital) operating range is 35-62C. Operating at high temperatures will shorten the life of my 2TB storage.
The SSD is only hot when there is sustained I/O activity, such as when backups run.
I set the fans to always-on and this lowered my SSD temperature by 10C.
I’d prefer to reduce power consumption and noise by limiting the fans to when there are I/O or CPU stress. Or at least dropping the lower limit from 50C (Performance) to a new setting “Cool” at 40C.
Is there any way to reduce the fan threshold or trigger it by some other component than CPU temperature?
You can edit the /boot/firmware/config.txt configuration file.
Here are example parameters you can add or modify to control the fan:
dtparam=fan_temp0=40000
dtparam=fan_temp0_hyst=10000
dtparam=fan_temp0_speed=125
Explanation of each parameter:
dtparam=fan_temp0=40000: Sets the high-temperature limit (in millidegrees Celsius) at which the fan starts or increases speed. In this example, 40000 represents 40.0°C.
dtparam=fan_temp0_hyst=10000: Sets the hysteresis temperature (in millidegrees Celsius). This determines how much the temperature must drop below the threshold before the fan turns off or slows down. 10000 equals 10.0°C.
dtparam=fan_temp0_speed=125: Sets the fan speed when triggered. The range is 0 (off) to 255 (100% full speed). 125 is approximately 49% speed.
You can adjust these values based on your specific needs and preferences.
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Did a little Google searching to find the documentation behind your recommendation, placing it here for future reference by other forum members:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/config_txt.html
https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/blob/rpi-6.12.y/arch/arm/boot/dts/overlays/README
Also I adopted a scheme that reduces the temperature fan speed thresholds through all four ranges:
# Additional overlays and parameters are documented
# /boot/firmware/overlays/README
dtparam=fan_temp0=42000
dtparam=fan_temp0_hyst=5000
dtparam=fan_temp0_speed=75
dtparam=fan_temp1=52000
dtparam=fan_temp1_hyst=5000
dtparam=fan_temp1_speed=125
dtparam=fan_temp2=62000
dtparam=fan_temp2_hyst=5000
dtparam=fan_temp2_speed=175
dtparam=fan_temp3=72000
dtparam=fan_temp3_hyst=5000
dtparam=fan_temp3_speed=250
And a reboot is required.