Myron Tuttle

US Patent:

6643128, Nov 4, 2003

Filed:

Jul 13, 2001

Appl. No.:

09/904928

Inventors:

Herman W. Chu - Palo Alto CA
Eugene Chung - San Jose CA
Robert J. Thomas - San Jose CA
Myron R. Tuttle - Santa Clara CA
Samuel M. S. Lee - San Jose CA

Assignee:

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP. - Houston TX

International Classification:

G06F 116

US Classification:

361687, 361695, 318471

Abstract:

A method and system of controlling a cooling fan of a computer system including a power supply unit. The method includes sensing a power load of the power supply unit. A reference air temperature of the computer system is also sensed. Finally, a fan setting is determined based upon the sensed power load and the sensed reference air temperature. By basing the fan setting on both reference temperature and actual power supply load, the method and system effectively minimizes cooling fan operation, and thus resulting acoustic noise, when a computer system is operating at less than full capacity. In one preferred embodiment, a look-up table is provided in which a plurality of fan settings are included, each fan setting being based upon a correlation of power supply load and reference temperature. The method and system of the present invention is particularly useful with high-end, server-type computer systems being used for low-end applications, and is readily applied to multiple platforms.