u/Reasonable-Quote7948

I’m using an Acer ALG AL15G-52 laptop. On Windows, the fan control works normally. For example, Fn + 1 can increase the fan speed to maximum, and Acer’s Windows utilities/hotkeys provide performance and fan-control modes However, on Pop!_OS/Linux, I cannot find an equivalent Acer Control Center or a dedicated Linux utility for this laptop. Unlike some other gaming laptops that have Linux tools or community utilities for hardware control, there doesn’t appear to be an obvious Linux tool specifically supporting the Acer ALG AL15G-52.

I tried:

sudo apt install lm-sensors sudo sensors-detect sensors

I also checked for fan-control interfaces:

ls /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon*/fan*_input /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon*/pwm* 2>/dev/null

There are no normal fan*_input or pwm* interfaces available, so tools such as fancontrol cannot directly control the fan.

This does not mean the fan is broken. The fan works correctly under Windows.

It seems that the fan and performance modes are controlled through the laptop’s Embedded Controller (EC) / BIOS firmware. Acer’s Windows Control Center communicates with this firmware and provides the fan/performance controls, while the same interface does not appear to be exposed through standard Linux hardware-monitoring interfaces.

Possible workarounds I have considered:

• Test whether Fn + 1 works directly under Linux for maximum fan speed.
• Test Fn + 3 or other Acer hotkeys for performance/power modes.
• Check BIOS/UEFI for thermal or performance options.
• Use Linux’s performance profile:

powerprofilesctl set performance

or, if System76’s power-management tools are available:

system76-power profile performance

I don’t want to install random fan-control scripts or EC drivers because an incorrect configuration could potentially cause thermal or hardware-control problems.

Also, since the fan and Acer Control Center already work correctly in Windows, I don’t think downloading Acer’s entire 3.7 GB driver/software package just for fan control is necessary.

Has anyone with the Acer ALG AL15G-52 managed to get fan control or Acer Control Center functionality working on Pop!_OS/Linux? I’m particularly interested in whether the Acer EC exposes a Linux-compatible interface or whether the fan control is firmware-only on this model.

The main concern is that without proper fan/performance control, the laptop can reach around 85°C even during normal use, so I would really appreciate any solution or guidance for controlling the fan properly under Linux.

I attempted to configure my NVIDIA RTX 3050 Laptop GPU (6GB) on EndeavourOS with an Intel i5-12450H hybrid/Optimus setup. I followed the official Arch Linux NVIDIA documentation and tried nvidia-open, nvidia-open-dkms, nvidia-utils, and nvidia-settings. The NVIDIA kernel modules (nvidia, nvidia_drm, nvidia_modeset, nvidia_uvm) loaded successfully, but nvidia-smi did not work correctly and sometimes hung. After configuring the driver, I experienced black screens and boot issues, including getting stuck at “Loading initial ramdisk.” I checked the kernel and headers, rebuilt the initramfs with mkinitcpio -P, and regenerated the GRUB configuration, but the issue remained. Removing the NVIDIA driver restored normal operation using the Intel iGPU. After trying many troubleshooting steps without success, I eventually gave up and switched to another Linux distribution. Very frustrating experience, especially after following the Arch NVIDIA documentation according to my hardware configuration.