On Monday, February 10, 2003, at 08:17 PM, wulf@ping.net.au wrote:
> Allow me a stupid questions: Why would anyone want to manipulate the 
> on/off
> times of a cooling fan? The system's manufacturer would have set these 
> to
> match certain specifications that are mostly unknown to the common 
> people
> and interference with this may possibly void system warranty.

Handing control of the fans to software lets you define your own 
thermal management criteria...

If you wanted to optimize for speed:
   If we go above <a> degrees, turn on fans. If we continue to get 
hotter to <b> degrees,
     slow down the CPU.
Or noise (if you're just reading e-mail, you don't need 100% of the 
CPU):
   If we go above <a> degrees, slow down the CPU. If we continue to get 
hotter to <b>
     degrees, slow down the CPU.

Cheers,
Jared