linux-surface/contrib/thermald

Example Thermald Configuration

This is a minimal thermald configuration, which sets the maximum sustained CPU temperature to about 65°C. Modify the <Temperature>65000</Temperature> value to adapt that to your liking.

Tested on a Surface Book 2, other devices may need adapting, see e.g. the thermald man page.

More complex and device specific examples can be found in subdirectories If any subdirectory does not have both files or any dedicated instructions, use the missing files provided here and/or follow these instructions.

Installation

Both XML files (thermal-conf.xml and thermal-cpu-cdev-order-xml) need to be placed in the /etc/thermald/ directory.

Newer thermald versions attempt to automatically load the configuration from ACPI. If you want to use a manual configuration with such a version, you may need to remove the --adaptive option from the systemd service ExecStart line. You can do so by running sudo systemctl edit thermald.service.

Note that with systemctl edit, before the modified ExecStart line, you should add a new line containing ExecStart= and nothing on the right, like this:

ExecStart=
ExecStart=<modified line>

This instructs to replace the existing ExecStart instead of adding a new one. Otherwise, you may get an error "Unit thermald.service has a bad unit file setting", and the command systemctl status thermald.service may prompt a message "Service has more than one ExecStart= setting".