Fans are often used to remove excess heat generated by electrical components of devices such as laptops, servers, displays, gaming consoles, and so on. While a fan may effectively cool components of the electronic device, the fan may also generate excessive noise at elevated speeds. This excessive noise can be mitigated by reducing a speed of the fan to the lowest speed at which sufficient cooling is still provided to the components of the electronic device.
To ensure that a speed of the fan is sufficient to cool a component, the speed of the fan is typically based on a directly measured temperature of the component. The sensors used to directly measure the component's temperature, however, are often expensive, hard to place in componentry-dense locations, or limited in number per device making direct sensing of some components difficult or impractical. Without direct temperature measurements, fan speeds are set conservatively high to ensure un-monitored components remain cooled. These higher-than-necessary fan speeds can result in wasted energy and increased noise levels that disrupt or interfere with a user's experience.
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