GPU fan control for headless Linux
This script lets you set a custom GPU fan curve on a headless Linux server.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | NVIDIA-SMI 430.40 Driver Version: 430.40 CUDA Version: 10.1 | |-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ | GPU Name Persistence-M| Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC | | Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap| Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. | |===============================+======================+======================| | 0 GeForce RTX 208... On | 00000000:08:00.0 Off | N/A | | 75% 60C P2 254W / 250W | 9560MiB / 11019MiB | 100% Default | +-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ | 1 GeForce RTX 208... On | 00000000:41:00.0 On | N/A | | 90% 70C P2 237W / 250W | 9556MiB / 11016MiB | 99% Default | +-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
It does not work on partially-headless servers, where some of the GPUs have displays and some don't
pip install coolgpus sudo $(which coolgpus) --speed 99 99
If you hear your server take off, it works! Now interrupt it and re-run either with Sensible Defaults (TM),
sudo $(which coolgpus)or you can pass your own fan curve with
sudo $(which coolgpus) --temp 17 84 --speed 15 99This will make the fan speed increase linearly from 15% at <17C to 99% at >84C. You can also increase
--hystif you want to smooth out oscillations, at the cost of the fans possibly going faster than they need to.
More generally, you can list any sequence of (increasing!) temperatures and speeds, and they'll be linearly interpolated:
sudo $(which coolgpus) --temp 20 55 80 --speed 5 30 99Now the fan speed will be 5% at <20C, then increase linearly to 30% up to 55C, then again linearly to 99% up to 80C.
If your system uses systemd and you want to run this as a service, create a systemd unit file at
/etc/systemd/system/coolgpus.serviceas per this template:
[Unit] Description=Headless GPU Fan Control After=syslog.target[Service] ExecStart=/home/ajones/conda/bin/coolgpus --kill Restart=on-failure RestartSec=5s ExecStop=/bin/kill -2 $MAINPID KillMode=none
[Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
You just need to sub in your own install location (which you can find with
which coolgpus), and any flags you want. Then enable and start it with
sudo systemctl enable coolgpus sudo systemctl start coolgpus
--kill, which'll murder any existing X servers and let the script set up its own. Sometimes the OS might automatically recreate its X servers, and that's tricky enough to handle that it's up to you to sort out.
coolgpus: command not found: the pip script folder probably isn't on your PATH. On Ubuntu with the apt-get-installed pip, look in
~/.local/bin.
coolgpus --help
sudo /path/to/coolgpusactually works
XOrg,
nvidia-settingsand
nvidia-smican all be called from your terminal.
coolgpusin a text editor, add a
import pdb; pdb.set_trace()somewhere, and explore till you hit the error.
If you want to install multiple GPUs in a single machine, you have to use blower-style GPUs else the hot exhaust builds up in your case. Blower-style GPUs can get very loud, so to avoid annoying customers nvidia artifically limits their fans to ~50% duty. At 50% duty and a heavy workload, blower-style GPUs will hot up to 85C or so and throttle themselves.
Now if you're on Windows nvidia happily lets you override that limit by setting a custom fan curve. If you're on Linux though you need to use
nvidia-settings, which - as of Sept 2019 - requires a display attached to each GPU you want to set the fan for. This is a pain to set up, as is checking the GPU temp every few seconds and adjusting the fan speed.
This script does all that for you.
When you run
coolgpus, it sets up a temporary X server for each GPU with a fake display attached. Then, it loops over the GPUs every few seconds and sets the fan speed according to their temperature. When the script dies, it returns control of the fans to the drivers and cleans up the X servers.