[vox-tech] Loud fan, only on Linux

[Mark K. Kim]

Keywords: loud fan, acpi

I recently installed Mandrake on a work computer.  It's working great,
except its fan is really loud.  So what's the big deal, right? -- well,
the fan powers down if I go into Windows.  The fan turns on when I power
up the computer -- if I go into Linux, it stays on, but if I go into
Windows, it powers down.

So there must be a way to power down the fan under Linux, too, and safely.
I poked around a bit and I think ACPI is what's doing it, but I'm not
sure.  I recompiled the kernel with ACPI support but it won't load the
modules (the kernel needs ACPI support, and the modules provide some more
support, I guess -- I made everything I can into modules so I can test
them) -- it says either the IRQ/IO hasn't been configured properly or the
device doesn't exist.

So either this computer doesn't use ACPI (but I'm pretty sure it does as
the ACPI services show up under Windows), or I got the IRQ/IO wrong.  I
can find out the IRQ/IO from Windows end, but how do I pass the paramters
to the modules?  Which modules do I need to power down this freakingly
noisy fan?

Thanks in adv!

-Mark

--
Mark K. Kim
http://www.cbreak.org/
PGP key available upon request.