Dell Laptop Platform Profile Patches Being Worked On For Linux

A patch recently posted to the Linux kernel mailing list is working on implementing ACPI Platform Profile support for modern Dell laptops to allow users to have more control over their balanced / cool / quiet / performance behavior of the laptop and its resulting impact on the fan noise / cooling performance.

Lyndon Sanche posted a patch for adding platform profile support to the Dell Laptop x86 platform driver. This platform profile support allows configuring the fan mode where applicable and where there are fan mode presets exposed via the SMBIOS tables. Like other x86 laptops supporting ACPI platform profiles, the common modes are for balanced (the default performance threshold between performance and energy/power savings), performance preference (maximum performance), cool preference (keeping the fan speeds high to ensure the laptop bottom is cool), and quiet (fan speeds at a minimum).

This thermal management platform profile support for the Dell-Laptop Linux driver is currently being reviewed via this mailing list thread for those with a relevant Dell laptop and looking for more control over the cooling behavior.