Fan speed and Heat

["J. Javier Maestro" <jjmaestro@computer.org>]

Hi everyone,

I would like to post a comment on the Powerbook fans, ventilation and
heat.

I am currently using pmud+pbbuttonsd, and I configured pmud to have
six running levels for the processor, 3 for AC, 3 for battery namely:

		minimum:
			AC  - 500-667  MHz
			BAT - 300-500  MHz
		medium:
			AC  - 667-800  MHz
			BAT - 500-667  MHz
		maximum:
			AC  - 800-1000 MHz
			BAT - 667-800  MHz

So far, so good. When I boot up plugged in, the system sits in 800MHz,
doing "nothing", as it is supposed to do. My concern is that the fans
work way much more than when I run the laptop under MacOSX. I wonder if
this is due to the lack of a good power control driver or something.

My previous laptop, an old Pentium 233MMX Toshiba, used to have an
address that when written some values, it would start/stop the internal
fan. I don't know if something similar exists for the Powerbook, but
sometimes, the fan kicks in when the computer is iddle doing nothing (I
mean, it kicks in when it receives mail, but I hardly believe it can
take soooo much power as to launch the fans!) and it would be nice to be
able to do something about it.

How good is the power control in the Powerbooks? any ideas/suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

-- 
J. Javier Maestro
<jjmaestro@computer.org>
http://rigel.homelinux.com