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Do not ever disable the fans! It’s probably not a hardware problem with the fans. If it has a server OS running on it the bios on the laptop is probably not ser

Do not ever disable the fans! It’s probably not a hardware problem with the fans. If it has a server OS running on it the bios on the laptop is probably not server friendly. Plus if the OEM had some kind of temp sensing application on the laptop to spin the fans up and down as needed the server install might have wiped it out. Net result the fans run wide open all the time making the laptop seem noisy.

jrockway 17y ago
What differences in CPU power management do you think there are between a server OS and a desktop OS? (Operators of server farms try even harder than laptop users to save power. Hot servers sucking down a lot of power require very expensive infrastructure. Reducing power consumption and heat production makes the infrastructure cheaper.)
- Scott_MacGregor 17y ago
  It is not a power management issue, but servers are optimized to run certain server operating systems. Laptops lack this server OS optimization. For instance our Dell PowerEdge 1850 has different fan drivers depending on if we load it with RHEL5 vs WinServer 2008. The drivers control the fan speed and are OS specific and work with the server bios. If we loaded XP Pro or Ubuntu as an OS the box would probably light up and function but would lack the fan speed control (and some other management features), plus the Bios is not optimized for a non-server (non-supported) OS meaning possible loss of USB functionality (This is the voice of experience).
  - jrockway 17y ago
    Fan speeds are often a software-controlled feature. There's a daemon running in the background that gets temperature inputs, and sets the fan speed output as a result. If this daemon (not "the OS") doesn't step in and do something, many mainboards will just turn all the fans to "high" just to be safe. The is not an OS issue, but rather a userspace configuration issue. Install your favorite Netbook OS, install the userspace fan-control daemon, and enjoy quiet fans from your server. It has nothing to do with the OS.
weaksauce 17y ago
If I had to guess he has an old sony vaio series of laptops that had a problem with the fans not slowing down ever. There was a firmware fix for it a while ago. If there is not a problem with that then I would guess that the laptop has high cpu utilization warranting the fan speed increase. Seriously though you should get a linode account and let them handle the sound/power/bandwidth costs. 20$ a month and you can leave it on.

jrockway 17y ago

What differences in CPU power management do you think there are between a server OS and a desktop OS? (Operators of server farms try even harder than laptop users to save power. Hot servers sucking down a lot of power require very expensive infrastructure. Reducing power consumption and heat production makes the infrastructure cheaper.)

Scott_MacGregor 17y ago
It is not a power management issue, but servers are optimized to run certain server operating systems. Laptops lack this server OS optimization. For instance our Dell PowerEdge 1850 has different fan drivers depending on if we load it with RHEL5 vs WinServer 2008. The drivers control the fan speed and are OS specific and work with the server bios. If we loaded XP Pro or Ubuntu as an OS the box would probably light up and function but would lack the fan speed control (and some other management features), plus the Bios is not optimized for a non-server (non-supported) OS meaning possible loss of USB functionality (This is the voice of experience).
- jrockway 17y ago
  Fan speeds are often a software-controlled feature. There's a daemon running in the background that gets temperature inputs, and sets the fan speed output as a result. If this daemon (not "the OS") doesn't step in and do something, many mainboards will just turn all the fans to "high" just to be safe. The is not an OS issue, but rather a userspace configuration issue. Install your favorite Netbook OS, install the userspace fan-control daemon, and enjoy quiet fans from your server. It has nothing to do with the OS.

weaksauce 17y ago

If I had to guess he has an old sony vaio series of laptops that had a problem with the fans not slowing down ever. There was a firmware fix for it a while ago. If there is not a problem with that then I would guess that the laptop has high cpu utilization warranting the fan speed increase. Seriously though you should get a linode account and let them handle the sound/power/bandwidth costs. 20$ a month and you can leave it on.