any thoughts on why cooling fan keeps spinning up and down?

[Jason Turning]

Robert L Cochran wrote:
> "...new out of the box" does not mean "it works perfectly". And I don't
> see postings on this list from others with fan speed issues which would
> tend to indicate a repeatable software issue.
> 
> Bob
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 07/05/2009 02:21 PM, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>> On Sun, 5 Jul 2009, Robert L Cochran wrote:
>>
>> ... snip ...
>>
>>   
>>> I'll look into this, thanks. On the other hand I've opened up enough
>>> system cases (including laptops) and cleaned more than enough dust
>>> bunnies or coffee spills to realize fan speeds can have very
>>> physical causes indeed. Don't think of the fan as "just" controlled
>>> by operating system software. There is usually a physical reason why
>>> the speed varies and that ought to be the first thing to check
>>> before suspecting the operating system.
>>>      
>>
>>    this behaviour has been there since day one of installing f11 beta
>> on this laptop, when it was new out of the box.
>>
>> rday
>> -- 
>>
>> ========================================================================
>> Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
>>
>>          Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry.
>>
>> Web page:                                          http://crashcourse.ca
>> Linked In:                             http://www.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
>> Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
>> ========================================================================
>>
>>    
> 

I've noticed some strange fan behavior on my laptop after upgrading to Fedora
11. Sometimes right after Fedora loads and I log in the fan is running where it
is audible, but the temperature sensors show it's cold. After a couple minutes
it settles down to normal where I only hear the fan if things get warm from
heavy CPU or wireless use. I've also noticed that sometimes the Gnome battery
indicator stays full when I'm running on battery. So there are more than a
couple hardware glitches.

-- 
Jason Turning