[luau] Underclocking / Aluminum cases

[Joe Linux]

It's my understanding that lowering the voltage on electric motors 
generally increases the heat buildup in the motor windings and leads to 
a shorter life expectancy of the motor.  There are motor speed 
controllers that chop the wave.  An interesting question would be: "How 
is the speed of a household fan controlled.  I don't think they have 
true speed controllers.  Most likely they just add a resistor in series 
with the fan motor.  However, I'm just guessing, as I don't really know 
how they work.  I do know that they tend to be very cheap, so whatever 
the solution is, it can't cost too much.

Jim Roby wrote:

>Last night on slashdot was a link to water cooling,which leads to many
>interesting sites...total kit for $200 on one,also saw a page from a guy
>who says the fan can be quieted with out significant proformance loss
>by simply lowering the voltage from 12V to 7V...he does it by placing
>diods in line,observing curent flow(two in,two out)Commercially they sell
>a little inline gysmo that allows you to dial the fan RPM,believe $7.
>Wonder is /. reading our list? :-)
>
>>Be really careful with desk/room fans as they have really ugly magnetic 
>>fields and can cause total EMI chaos in your comp.
>>
>>...
>>
>>--MonMotha
>>