Counterpoint: I bought a System76 laptop last year. As it came, the CPU fan was never off for longer than a few seconds, even when there was no load at all. The fans are not very loud, but the coil whine just before re-enabling the fan was disturbing.
The motherboard's firmware is open, however, so I rebuilt it with a slightly adjusted "CPU fan curve." After flashing it, the fans now go online when there's an actual need, which is to say - rarely. The coil whine still happens, but hearing it once or twice a day is much less irritating than hearing it every 10 seconds.
So it's possible the problem is on the OS side (I think we can agree the firmware is part of the OS) and it's sometimes possible to fix the problem in software... as long as you have control over it.
The motherboard's firmware is open, however, so I rebuilt it with a slightly adjusted "CPU fan curve." After flashing it, the fans now go online when there's an actual need, which is to say - rarely. The coil whine still happens, but hearing it once or twice a day is much less irritating than hearing it every 10 seconds.
So it's possible the problem is on the OS side (I think we can agree the firmware is part of the OS) and it's sometimes possible to fix the problem in software... as long as you have control over it.