[librem 14] how to update EC firmware to ec-2021-06-04_ef9fd3c

Hardware
9

Hi, did the 3rd of August update fixed the fan noise for you? :thinking:

10

i didn’t had fan noise issue from very beginning

12

Is that possible @MrChromebox?

13

is what possible exactly?

14

depends on how you define “issue”
on my unit fan launch only on very heavy load

while during regular work my cpu is 40-45 degree hot.
fan stay at 0 rpm
while it hit 62 degree it runs around 1700rpm
at 70degree 2300 rpm
at 80 degree it hits 3300 rpms

if i can find any issue with fan is a delay between cpu getting hot, and fan reaction.
i can easily catch a moment when cpu is 85 and fan is under 1200rpms.
it takes 2-5 seconds when EC reacts.
imho it should be more aggressive.

also this cpu loses temperature very easily, so after such delayed fan start occur, temperature drops to 40~50 degree quite fast, so people can catch fan at 3300 rpm while cpu is cold.

1 Like
15

OK
now i know what you are referring and , i have sad news.
“issue” you are referring is not an issue at all.
i didn’t had “issue” because i am multi-threading, so my cpu never goes 4GHz , in my case it stays around 2.0GHz max , temperature 69-70 Degree
eg run stress --cpu 12
but
if you run stress --cpu 1 , cpu will go 4GHz and instantly jump to 90 Deg, that will obviously trigger fan at full speed.

Sad news is, that is not an issue, that is EC trying to cool down hot cpu in combination of how Intel Turbo works.
in this cpu model only single core can go Turbo to 4G , normally loaded cpu should go not higher than 2G.

so sorry, this is not a BUG it’s a feature.

EDIT:
12 threads cpu speeds up to 2GHz
6 threads CPU speeds up to 2Ghz(no change it have 6 physical cores)
3 threads CPU speeds up to 2.7GHz
2 threads CPU speeds up to 3.1GHz
1 thread CPU speeds up to 4Ghz
More GHz == more power consumption == more heat

1 Like
16

This procedure should be done from a Live USB

18

any sane automatic fan control algorithm implements some hysteresis, which helps insulate the fan speeds from sudden changes in CPU temp

2 Likes
19

fair point.

20

Have the official instructions been released yet?

21

We are working on publishing them on the next few days.

2 Likes
22

Any news about this? Sorry for the nagging, I am impatient but not enough to risk bricking my laptop :smirk_cat:

1 Like
23
10 Likes
24

Finaly … wohooo … I’ll try tomorrow morning :grinning:

25

I have installed this update and it has worked like a charm! What an amazing improvement to fan noise reduction. My Librem 14 now is as silent as MacBook Pro was!

My complements :heart: :heart: :heart: to @MrChromebox, @nicole.faerber and the rest of the team for all the hard work!

4 Likes
26

I had one issue in following the EC firmware update steps. The link provided at “Download the Librem-EC firmware update file” seems incorrect (couldn’t be gzip decompressed).

The link that is provided on the page is:

https://source.puri.sm/firmware/releases/-/blob/master/librem_14/ec-2021-08-03_05d9990.rom.gz

The link that works is:

https://source.puri.sm/firmware/releases/-/raw/master/librem_14/ec-2021-08-03_05d9990.rom.gz

Note the blob vs raw in the URLs.

1 Like
27

fixed, thx (might take a few for the page to regenerate)

28

In the page https://pureos.net/download/ the button for PureOS 10 will download the version of 5 July, but in the following page there are newer versions (the last is 18 August)
https://downloads.puri.sm/byzantium/gnome/

Is any PureBoot version (17, 17.1, 18) supported with any Librem-EC version?

29

all that matters is that you use PureOS 10 (not 9)

yes, though you’d want to use 17.1 at a minimum since there are ACPI fixes on the coreboot side related to the EC

1 Like
30

Many many thanks! Also to @nicole.faerber. The install was super easy and the result is great :smiley_cat:

5 Likes