The Fan option is only available on the Raspberry Pi 4.

We have a really simple fan service that will control the onboard fan. The reason we have it set up as a service instead of keeping the fan on all the time is so that it doesn't drain too much power from the Pi during the initial power on.

The fan service basically controls turning GPIO 4 on at startup, which is what the fan is connected to. Installing the fan service is really simple and we have a script for doing that.

To install, just type sudo raspi-config

Select Performance Options

Select Fan

Select Yes

And make sure you put down GPIO pin 4 for the fan

You can customize the fan temperature setting

That's it!

You can then 'stress test' by running

  • sudo apt-get install stress
  • while true; do vcgencmd measure_clock arm; vcgencmd measure_temp; sleep 10; done& stress -c 4 -t 900s

When the temperature hits the limit you set earlier, the fan should turn on, and cool the pi back down (in this case I set it to 70 C):

This guide was first published on Oct 06, 2020. It was last updated on Mar 29, 2024.

This page (Fan Service Setup) was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

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