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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 ou

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.