alienfan-tools

Utilities for fan and power, and sometimes lights control for Alienware and Dell G-series devices trough direct calls into ACPI BIOS.
This is the side step from my alienfx-tools project, dedicated to fan and power control subsystem.

Tools avaliable:

alienfan-cli - simple fan control command line utility
alienfan-gui - Fan control GUI application
alienfan-overboost - command line utility to calculate maximum overboost for you system

Disclaimer

Antiviruses will detect virus into package. It's not a virus, in fact, but the kernel hack for load driver. If you don't like it:
- Remove kdl.dll and drv64.dll from package (or you antivirus do so).
- Use "Test mode" instalation method.
This tools utilize low-level ACPI functions access, it can provide BSOD at start if supported ACPI bus not found! Use with care, at you own risk!

How it works?

Instead of many other fan control tools, like SpeedFan, HWINFO or Dell Fan Control, this tools does not use direct EC (Embed controller) access and data modification.
My tools utilize propietary Alienware function calls inside ACPI BIOS instead (the same as AWCC).

It's more safe - BIOS still monitor fans and have no risk fans will be stopped at full load.
It's more universal - Most Alienware systems have the same interface.
In some cases, this is the only way - for example, Alienware m15/m17R1 does not have EC control at all.

Known issues

Starting fan control first time at Windows 11 can provide system crash! It's also reccomended to disable "Memory Integrity" into "Settings/Privacy & Security/Windows Security/Device Security"!
ACPI driver can hang into stopping state. Run alienfan-cli without parameters to reset it.
Fan PRMs boost is quite fast, but if you lower boost, it took some time to slow down fans.
Power control only avaliable on some models, f.e. m15R1, m15R3.
Power control modes not detected in power grow order, so check real PL1 after set using other tool, f.e. HWINFO.
Set Power control to non-zero value can block (lock back) fan control.
As usual, AWCC service can interfere (reset values from time to time), so it's reccomended to stop it.

Requrements

Windows 10 x64, revision 1903 or later. Any older Windows release Does not supported!
There are 2 ways to prepare you system for driver loading:
- You can go into BIOS and disable "Secure boot" option, reboot, then issue bcdedit /set testsigning on command from Administarator command prompt and reboot again. You should see "Test mode" watermark on desktop if you do all correct.
- Do nothing, in this case driver will be installed using kernel hack. Some antivirus can complain, because it's close to rootkit way. Anyway, it will not stay in memory after reboot.
Supported Dell/Alienware hardware.

Installation

Unpack tools into folder, run exe.
NB: You should have hwacc.sys into the same folder.

Supported and tested hardware

Full list of supported devices and API versions avaliable into AlienFX-Tools wiki

New devices support: Send me ACPI dump from RW Everything for analysis, then it will be added tested and addded.

`alienfan-gui` usage

GUI application for fan control.
Then you start it, you will see 3 main windows - Temperaturs (with current reading), Fans (with checkboxes and current RPM) and Fan curve (graph).
Also, "Power mode" dropdown avaliable to select global power mode.
"GPU limit" slider define top maximal GPU board power limit shift. 0 (left) is no limit, 4 (right) - maximal limit. This feature only supported at some notebooks, and real limit can vary. You can use this value to keep more power at CPU or extend battery life.

NB: Fans can only be controled if Power Mode set to "Manual"!

How it works

Fan control is temerature sensor-driven, so first select one of temperature sensors.
Then, select which fan(s) should react on it's readings - you can select from none to all in any combination.
So select checkbox for fan(s) you need.

After you doing so, currently selected (checked or not) fan settings will be shown at "Fan Settings" window - you will see selected fan boost at the top, and the fan control curve (green lines). Now play with fan control curve - it defines fan boost by temperature level. X axle is temperature, Y axle is boost level.
You can left click (and drag until release mouse button) into the curve window to add point or select close point (if any) and move it.
You can click right mouse button at the graph point to remove it.
Big red dot represent current boost-in-action position.

Please keep in mind:

You can't remove first or last point of the curve.
If you move first or last point, it will keep it's temperature after button release - but you can set other boost level for it.
Then fan controlled by more, then one sensor, boost will be set to the maximal value across them.

"Reset" button reset currently selected fan curve to default one (0-0 boost).

You can minimize application to tray pressing Minimize button (or the top one), left click on try icon restore application back, right click close application. There are two settings into application menu "Settings":

"Start with windows" - If checked, application will run at system start.
"Start minimized" - If checked, application hide into tray icon after start.

`alienfan-cli` usage

It's a simple CLI fan control utility for now, providing the same functionality as AWCC (well... a bit more already). ACPI can't control fans directly (well... i'm working on it), so all you can do is set fan boost (More RPM). Run alienfan-cli [command[=value{,value}] [command...]]. After start, it detect you gear and show number of fans, temperature sensors and power modes avaliable. Avaliable commands:

usage, help - Show short help
rpm - Show current fan RPMs
percent - Show current fan RPMs in percent of maximal (not so precise on some systems)
temp - Show known temperature sensors name and value
unlock - Enable manual fan control
getpower - Print current power mode
setpower=<value> - Set system-defined power level. Possible levels autodetected from ACPI, see message at app start
setgpu=<value> - Set GPU power limit. Possible values from 0 (no limit) to 4 (max. limit).
getfans[=mode] - Show current fan RPMs boost
setfans=<fan1>,<fan2>...[,mode] - Set fans RPM boost level (0..100 - in percent). Fan1 is for CPU fan, Fan2 for GPU one. Number of arguments should be the same as number of fans application detect
resetcolor - Reset color system
setcolor=<mask>,r,g,b - Set light(s) defined by mask to color
setcolormode=<brightness>,<flag> - Set light system brightness and mode. Valid brightness values are 1,3,4,6,7,9,10,12,13,15.
direct=<id>,<subid>[,val,val] - Issue direct Alienware interface command (see below)
directgpu=<id>,<value> - Issue direct GPU interface command (see below)

getfans and setfans commands can work into 2 different modes. If mode is zero or absent, boost value will be calculated between 0 and 100% depends of the fan overboost. If mode is non-zero, raw boost value will be dispayed/set.

NB: Setting Power level to non-zero value can disabe manual fan control!

direct command is for testing various functions of the main Alienware ACPI function.
If default functions doesn't works, you can check and try to find you system subset.

For example: issuing command direct=20,5,50 return fan RPM for fan #1 on laptop, but for desktop the command should be different.

You can check possible commands and values yourself, opening you system ACPI dump file and searching for Method(WMAX function.
It accept 3 parameters - first is not used, second is a command, and the third is byte array of sumcommand and 2 value bytes.
Looking inside this method can reveal commands supported for you system and what they do.
For example, for Aurora R7 command direct=3,N return fan ID for fan N or -1 (fail) if fan absent.

You can share commands you find with me, and i'll add it into applications.

directgpu command doing the same for GPU subsystem, altering some chip settings.

NB: for both direct commands, all values are not decimal, but hex (like c8, a3, etc)! It made easy to test values found into ACPI dump.

`alienfan-overboost` usage

This tool is a probe trying to determinate can you fan(s) be overboosted (setted more, then 100% of the BIOS values) and how much it can be overboosted.
It set new boost value, wait until fan RPM will be steady, then check steady RPM against top reached.
By default, just run it at IDLE system and wait some minutes until it define and store overboost values for every fan found into you system.

You can also try to overboost only one fan, issue alienfan-overboost <fan ID> command, as well as set maximum boost manually using alienfan-overboost <fan ID> <max. boost> command.

NB: For my system is better run this tool at system idle state (it provide more precise results), but for some system it can be better to run it at fully loaded system, running some bench app like Heaven Benchmark. Please keep in mind, full-auto test took some minutes, so you benchmark should be long enough for this.

WARNING: Stop all fan-control software before start this tool, or results will be incorrect!

Tools Used

Visual Studio Community 2019

License

MIT. You can use these tools for any non-commercial or commercial use, modify it any way - supposing you provide a link to this page from you product page and mention me as the one of authors.

Credits

Idea, code and hardware support by T-Troll.
ACPI driver based on kdshk's WindowsHwAccess.
Kernel loading hack based on hfiref0x's KDU
Special thanks to DavidLapous for inspiration and advices!
Thanks to Raoul Duke for Aurora R7 testing.

vaishnav67/alienfan-tools