vagr9k / nvidia-zerodb

A 0dB fan control service for the nvidia driver.

NVIDIA-ZERODB

A 0dB service for the nvidia driver.

Since the zero RPM fan mode doesn't always properly work with the nvidia driver, even when the GPU BIOS supports it (e.g. Zotac RTX 3080 AMP Holo). This service manually monitors GPU temperature via nvidia-settings and manually switches fan control from automatic to zero RPM, based on your configuration.

WARNING

Disabling fans can potentially damage your hardware depending on your GPU type, cooling requirements and your configuration.

By using this software you take full responsibility for the potential damage caused to your hardware.

Configuration

Edit /etc/nvidia-zerodb.conf:

[MAIN]
# Delay between checking the temperature in milliseconds
REFRESH_DELAY = 1000

[TEMPERATURES]
# Peak temperature in degrees C at which fans are disabled
MAX_TEMP = 50
# Minimal temperature in degrees C at which fans are active (after hitting MAX_TEMP)
MIN_TEMP = 40

[FAILSAFES]
# The time in milliseconds after a failed attempt to re-enable fans, after which system will be forced to shutdown
SHUTDOWN_DELAY = 30000

Running

Due to nvidia-settings requiring a running instance of X.org server, it doesn't make sense to run the service as a root systemd service. On top of that, the additional functionality of D-Bus based desktop notifications depends on the service having access to user level D-Bus environment variables. That being said, the service will invoke sudo when running the actual fan control commands (since nvidia-settings requires it) so make sure that your user is whitelisted in sudoers.

Execute systemctl --user start nvidia-zerodb.service to start the daemon.

Optionally you can execute systemctl --user enable nvidia-zerodb.service to automatically start the service after a reboot.

Make sure to do a test run and check the logs with journalctl --user --unit nvidia-zerodb.service before enabling the service.

License

Copyright © 2022, Ruben Harutyunyan. Released under GPLv3 license.