By Eydie Cubarrubia

If Hewlett-Packard’s servers could talk Tuesday, they probably would have said, “Ayyyy.”

That’s because a new system, using sensors and software to react to heat spots around a room, is guaranteed to keep servers cool—with little effort, just like TV’s The Fonz and his trademark motto.

The so-called Dynamic Smart Cooling system uses sensors placed on server hardware to pick up hot spots. Then software reads and reacts to these spots, focusing fans and refrigerant only on these areas. The result? A much quieter machine, as well as the elimination of too-cold work environments kept frigid for the sake of the servers.

The system, which will start shipping by summer 2007, is expected to save customers money by increasing energy efficiency as well as reducing the number of people needed to maintain server climates—reducing costs by up to 45 percent, HP officials said.

“This is not [merely] a cooling system… It’s really an energy provisioning solution,” Paul Perez, vice president of HP’s technology solutions group, said during a meeting with the press.

With a team of more than 100 engineers and a budget of about $100 million, HP Labs developed the system. HP Fellow Chandrakant Patel’s pride was palpable as he led visitors through a “before” and “after” tour of the lab’s server room—which went from loud and chilly to a place where people could have a normal-decibel conversation and not freeze.

When asked if the system could eliminate offices where workers are miserably chilly, Mr. Patel replied, “Absolutely! There’s no need to over-provision” cooling.

Adam Braunstein, senior research analyst at the Robert Frances Group, which advises IT executives, said the system is bound to appeal to markets everywhere, even in developing countries like China—at least in a few years.

“Right now maybe saving energy is 11^th on a list of the top 10 things [IT managers] worry about,” Mr. Braunstein said. “But there’s increased pressure from legislative bodies around the world” for companies to reduce energy consumption.

“So this issue is getting a level of interest it hasn’t before—in three years it will be, maybe, No. 5 on the list,” Mr. Braunstein said.

To be sure, it’s not like HP is cornering the market on cooling.

“There is nothing smart or dynamic about making customers wait a year for technologies they can get from IBM today,” James Gargan, vice president of System X and Cool Blue for IBM, said in a release.

Mr. Gargan touted IBM’s own cooling system “that is available today.”

But HP executives said they’re seeking patents on the technologies that make up Dynamic Smart Cooling. Mr. Patel said, “The IP is, ‘how do you manage this’.”