Hope I'm not too off topic -
I found an old Athlon Thunderbird 1.2ghz . It has win2000 on and works pretty well. However the cpu fan is driving me nuts, it's loud as f, I lubricated it and the situation got slightly better but still.. ...there's apparently no fan control feature in the bios and it's spinning at 5000+rpm which I presume is 100% speed.
I don't know how things worked way back then, is there a software I could install to control the fan speed? (temps are ok). The fan is 3pin.
Welcome to socket A!
+3000rpm high-torque fans were a thing, keep your fingers off at all times! (that is really tough ABS plastic)
Anyway, some boards did allow for fan control through SpeedFan, like the Abit NF7-S. Other contemporary solutions would be the likes of a
Thermaltake Volcano cooler, with a resistor that allowed you to adjust the fan speed with a dial on the back or front of the case. At one point, those fans die so
this is a more silent but still good replacement in case you don't OC to high heavens.
As it has been sugested, there are thermistor fans like from
Everflow (for example) are also an option but need to be in pull configuration to sense the air temperature changes from the cooler.
You might find the Arctic F8 fans with a temperature sensor, but even at max speed they do not move enough air to cool down a sktA cooper block.
Then you have front-bay fan controllers that can add a bit of flare, but not inside the case unless you are really creative sorting-out the spaghetti of temperature sensors and fan power wires.
I did have this one for my 3200+: