Fan control

Is there any way to control a fan from FreeBSD? I have a ThinkPad X220 in which the fan just droans on and on and on, although there are rare occasions when it switches off. I can't tell if this is a hardware fault, but I'd like to see if I can switch it off under software control.
 
First check your processor temperature then I will suggest you to clean your laptop cooling radiator you need to open the laptop to clean it. Also replacing the thermal grease of the processor can help but it's not aways necessary. Here you can found the service manual for X220

The speed of the fan is controlled by ACPI. There's differentiated system description table (DSDT) that control the speed of the fan depending of the processor temperature. It's not recommended to override it but if you still want check the acpi_thermal(4)
 
I monitor my CPU temp and other stats with sysutils/gkrellm2. It's nice IMO and you can monitor a lot of different things including /var/log/pflog for activity.

I keep it visible at all times on my desktops.
 
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