I saw the arch linux thread and did install lm-sensors but sensors-detect had difficulty seeing any fans at all though it did give me the core temps. I have to lower the threshold to 300 to boot anything. That said, every time I lose power, the bios resets to alarm if the fans are lower than 600 rpm which appears to be the default but the fans are always turning much slower on a cold boot. Thank you ClixTrix - I do let bios control the fans.
