Processor Fan

I've been noticed when starting Suse my fan for the procesor (CENTRINO on IBM T42) runs all the time at high speed, even I am running just the browser. Does this occur due to a unproper setting somewhere? How can I fix it?

I don't have experience with that IBM, but I had similar issues with my Compaq EVO n610c. There's a BIOS setting you may be able to change to force the fan ON when plugged into AC power. I actually NEEDED to have the fan running during the install of SuSE, as it would overheat after about 10 minutes due to ACPI not working quite right during install phase.

Once I had the machine fully up and running, I put the fan back to the auto setting.

Is the fan running even when you're on battery power? If not, then I'd check the BIOS for some settings. I think Windows has a different way of using APM/ACPI with Intel SpeedStep-type processors. Maybe Linux doesn't have the same amount of control?

Good luck! I flushed XP Pro off my laptop about a month ago after watching my last BSOD. Haven't looked back since. Well, I do miss MapPoint, but I'm going to try that with Crossover Office next week...

If all else fails you can install lm-sensors. After you have configured it so that it can read things like you processor temps and fan speeds you can then use a bundled utility that will use the temp reading to control your fans speed. It uses a bash script for this. This is a rather obscure feature of lm-sensors so it is hard to find info about. So you will have to do some looking around to get the info you need to get this working.