Oh, that laptop has 2 fans? I've only got 1 in mine. Were they both running
previously? That might explain why they were running at a lower rpm, if
you've got two to help with the airflow. I don't see why you shouldn't be
able to do the same thing with the second fan to increase the speed. Are
there fan2_manual and fan2_output files present in that same folder?
In terms of possible harm/downside of running the fans at a higher speed, the
main things I can think of are:
- The laptop will probably be more noisy
- It will use more power and probably drain the battery faster
- You will probably wear out the fans more quickly and need to replace them
sooner
These issues will probably be exacerbated as well, if you use the manual mode
to set the fans to max constantly, even if the system is not under load. If
you can do some coding, you might be able to write some sort of daemon
process, that takes over control of the fans using those files, but that is a
bit more involved (I haven't done it myself).
The thing is, if the underlying issue is that the CPU is generating more heat
under Linux, then you've only really got two options: either accept that the
machine will run hotter, or increase the fan speed to deal with the heat.
