MControlCenter

MControlCenter is a Free and Open Source GNU/Linux application that allows you to change the settings of MSI laptops.

Features

• CPU and GPU temperature display
• Fan speed display
• Switch between modes (Since version 0.2):
  • High Performance
  • Balanced
  • Silent
  • Super Battery
• Change the maximum battery level limit
• Advanced Fan Speed Control (Since version 0.4)
• Change other settings such as keyboard backlight mode, USB Power Share, etc.

TODO

• Saving multiple fan speed profiles
• Automatically change performance mode on charger connect/disconnect

Supported devices

With version 0.5.0 the app uses the msi-ec driver that comes with the linux kernel (you might need to reinstall the driver), so device support depends on whether the kernel driver supports your device or not.

List of tested devices by msi-ec

If your device is not on the list, follow the steps on the msi-ec github page and open an issue there to add support for your device.

Installation

Pre-Installation

• Check the output of cat /sys/devices/platform/msi-ec/shift_mode in your terminal, if it says No such file or directory it means that you need to install or reinstall (uninstall first then install) the msi-ec driver. or the application will open but will have limited functionality!

• If you're not installing from the packages, You'll need to install libqt6widgets6 or its equivalent on your distribution (qt6-base for example). the application will fail to open without it!

• to get temperature and fan curve support, you'll need to install ec_sys, which comes installed on most distributions, or acpi_sys (fedora) with write_support=1. the app can still work with only msi-ec installed.

Installation from packages

1. Download the correct package for your distribution from the releases page
2. Double click to open it in the software manager (ex. Discover or GNOME software)
3. Install

If your distribution is not listed, use the generic installer:

1. Download MControlCenter-x.x.x.tar.gz from the releases page
2. Unpack the archive with the program
3. Open a terminal in the unpacked directory
4. Run the script sudo ./install
5. (Optional) sudo ./uninstall to uninstall

Note: Below are the steps for compiling, usually needed if your distrobution ships old versions of Qt6

Building from source

After installing the main package (qt6-base or libqt6widgets6), you'll need to install other packages to build the app.

For ubuntru/Linux mint: qt6-base-dev and/or qt6-tools-dev also build-essential

For Arch qt6-tools And for fedora qt6-qttools

After you install the packages:

Make sure the app is completely closed if it was installed before (check if there is a system tray icon and close it).

Download the source code and extract the zip file.

Open the scripts folder.

Open a terminal inside the folder, then run these scripts in order:

1. build
2. create installer

If things went well, you should see a compressed file,

4. Extract it.
5. Open a terminal inside the new folder
6. Run the UNINSTALL script as sudo, it might fail if you don't have MCC installed. thats fine.
7. Run the INSTALL script as sudo, the last line should be a confirmation that the install was successful.
8. Check your apps, McontrolCenter should be there.

If the installation was successful but the app fails to run, open a terminal and type mcontrolcenter, copy the output and open an issue (IF there isn't one already).

Launch MControlCenter on session startup

To restore settings after a reboot, add MControlCenter to startup.

Execute this command on a terminal:

cp /usr/share/applications/mcontrolcenter.desktop ~/.config/autostart/mcontrolcenter.desktop

Localization

You can help translate the MControlCenter app into your native language

1. Copy /src/i18n/MControlCenter_en.ts to src/i18n/MControlCenter_xx.ts where xx is language code into which the translation is being made.
2. Open MControlCenter_xx.ts in text editor and change language="en_US" to your language code.
3. Translate strings into your language directly in a text editor or use the QT Linguist app or Lokalize.
4. Translate GenericName in app shortcut resources/mcontrolcenter.desktop. To do this, add the line GenericName[xx]=translated generic name.
5. Open a pull request on github.