Thermald – Fix Detection of Temperature Sensors

There is a hack solution via shellscript: https://github.com/Sepero/temp-throttle/

#!/bin/bash

# Usage: temp_throttle.sh max_temp
# USE CELSIUS TEMPERATURES.
# version 2.20

cat << EOF
Author: Sepero 2016 (sepero 111 @ gmx . com)
URL: http://github.com/Sepero/temp-throttle/
EOF

# Additional Links
# http://seperohacker.blogspot.com/2012/10/linux-keep-your-cpu-cool-with-frequency.html

# Additional Credits
# Wolfgang Ocker <weo AT weo1 DOT de> - Patch for unspecified cpu frequencies.

# License: GNU GPL 2.0

# Generic  function for printing an error and exiting.
err_exit () {
    echo ""
    echo "Error: $@" 1>&2
    exit 128
}

if [ $# -ne 1 ]; then
    # If temperature wasn't given, then print a message and exit.
    echo "Please supply a maximum desired temperature in Celsius." 1>&2
    echo "For example:  ${0} 60" 1>&2
    exit 2
else
    #Set the first argument as the maximum desired temperature.
    MAX_TEMP=$1
fi


### START Initialize Global variables.

# The frequency will increase when low temperature is reached.
LOW_TEMP=$((MAX_TEMP - 5))

CORES=$(nproc) # Get number of CPU cores.
echo -e "Number of CPU cores detected: $CORES\n"
CORES=$((CORES - 1)) # Subtract 1 from $CORES for easier counting later.

# Temperatures internally are calculated to the thousandth.
MAX_TEMP=${MAX_TEMP}000
LOW_TEMP=${LOW_TEMP}000

FREQ_FILE="/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies"
FREQ_MIN="/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_min_freq"
FREQ_MAX="/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq"

# Store available cpu frequencies in a space separated string FREQ_LIST.
if [ -f $FREQ_FILE ]; then
    # If $FREQ_FILE exists, get frequencies from it.
    FREQ_LIST=$(cat $FREQ_FILE) || err_exit "Could not read available cpu frequencies from file $FREQ_FILE"
elif [ -f $FREQ_MIN -a -f $FREQ_MAX ]; then
    # Else if $FREQ_MIN and $FREQ_MAX exist, generate a list of frequencies between them.
    FREQ_LIST=$(seq $(cat $FREQ_MAX) -100000 $(cat $FREQ_MIN)) || err_exit "Could not compute available cpu frequencies"
else
    err_exit "Could not determine available cpu frequencies"
fi

FREQ_LIST_LEN=$(echo $FREQ_LIST | wc -w)

# CURRENT_FREQ will save the index of the currently used frequency in FREQ_LIST.
CURRENT_FREQ=2

# This is a list of possible locations to read the current system temperature.
TEMPERATURE_FILES="
/sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp
/sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone1/temp
/sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone2/temp
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon0/temp1_input
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/temp1_input
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon2/temp1_input
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon0/device/temp1_input
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/device/temp1_input
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon2/device/temp1_input
null
"

# Store the first temperature location that exists in the variable TEMP_FILE.
# The location stored in $TEMP_FILE will be used for temperature readings.
for file in $TEMPERATURE_FILES; do
    TEMP_FILE=$file
    [ -f $TEMP_FILE ] && break
done

[ $TEMP_FILE == "null" ] && err_exit "The location for temperature reading was not found."


### END Initialize Global variables.


### START define script functions.

# Set the maximum frequency for all cpu cores.
set_freq () {
    # From the string FREQ_LIST, we choose the item at index CURRENT_FREQ.
    FREQ_TO_SET=$(echo $FREQ_LIST | cut -d " " -f $CURRENT_FREQ)
    echo $FREQ_TO_SET
    for i in $(seq 0 $CORES); do
        # Try to set core frequency by writing to /sys/devices.
        { echo $FREQ_TO_SET 2> /dev/null > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu$i/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq; } ||
        # Else, try to set core frequency using command cpufreq-set.
        { cpufreq-set -c $i --max $FREQ_TO_SET > /dev/null; } ||
        # Else, return error message.
        { err_exit "Failed to set frequency CPU core$i. Run script as Root user. Some systems may require to install the package cpufrequtils."; }
    done
}

# Will reduce the frequency of cpus if possible.
throttle () {
    if [ $CURRENT_FREQ -lt $FREQ_LIST_LEN ]; then
        CURRENT_FREQ=$((CURRENT_FREQ + 1))
        echo -n "throttle "
        set_freq $CURRENT_FREQ
    fi
}

# Will increase the frequency of cpus if possible.
unthrottle () {
    if [ $CURRENT_FREQ -ne 1 ]; then
        CURRENT_FREQ=$((CURRENT_FREQ - 1))
        echo -n "unthrottle "
        set_freq $CURRENT_FREQ
    fi
}

get_temp () {
    # Get the system temperature.

    TEMP=$(cat $TEMP_FILE)
}

### END define script functions.

echo "Initialize to max CPU frequency"
unthrottle


# Main loop
while true; do
    get_temp # Gets the current temperature and set it to the variable TEMP.
    if   [ $TEMP -gt $MAX_TEMP ]; then # Throttle if too hot.
        throttle
    elif [ $TEMP -le $LOW_TEMP ]; then # Unthrottle if cool.
        unthrottle
    fi
    sleep 3 # The amount of time between checking temperatures.
done

Probably your embedded controller is set to a conservative thermal setting. Note that these settings are persistent on the mainboard and not the hard disk. So if you are playing with Lenovos tools under windows, putting your notebook in a kind of "power economic & quiet" profile and then boot up ubuntu, the setting is still active.

To change this under Ubuntu, you need the right kernel module (in my case it's dell-smbios) and the smbios-thermal-ctl package to do something like this:

sudo smbios-thermal-ctl -i

 Print all the Available Thermal Information of your system: 
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Supported Thermal Modes: 
     Balanced
     Cool Bottom
     Quiet
     Performance

and then activate a more permissive profile, in my case (Dell) the best of both worlds seems to be Balanced.

sudo smbios-thermal-ctl --set-thermal-mode=Balanced

Another tool I can recommend is s-tui to diagnose such behavior.