2019-07-07, 0:22 AM

Hello,

There are hundreds of people complaining about their fans not spinning fast enough, causing CPU's to throttle and sit at higher temperatures than they're comfortable with.

These are mobile workstations, and they are going to see heavy workloads, so we should be able to turn the fan on to preserve the hardware and our laps from burns.

There's been software like thinkfan (in GNU/Linux) which has enabled manual control, but this is limited to a single fan.

I want to ask Lenovo, "How can I control both fans' speeds?"

I think Lenovo's answer is "You can't, we won't let you" based on their lack of fan software, like those found in gaming motherboard BIOSes.

So, I'd like to appeal to Lenovo and bargain for fan rights.

There is no commercial value in the single line of source code which talks to the GPU fan and sets its PWM fan speed.

If you share just that one line of source code, the community can use it to get better cooling in their machines, raising the ThinkPad line's reputation for heavy workloads (which businesses and individuals would be willing to pay more for).

If a user decided to make fan control manual and uses asinine (hot and quiet) settings, they would void their right to have the motherboard be under warranty (since they'd cause damage to the silicon running too hot for too long).

But, when users make their fans spin more, they may wear out their fans, but would make the processors last longer, preventing an expensive motherboard repair, at the cost of a cheap fan repair, which could also be voided.

If you release the source code for the single line that controls the GPU fan speed, you can void warranties, imply no explicit warranty, liability, etc. to all those who use the code.

Heck, I'd even be willing to sign an NDA if I could see the line of source code that sets the fan speed so I could cool my processors better.

Lenovo, please have mercy on my hardware.