NimaGraven 0 Posted October 10, 2003 Okay well, where to start? I didn't really know where would be the best place to ask advice on this so I chose here and I would appreciate it very much if you could spend the time and listen to my current woes on my PC. Basically, I bought a AMD athlon 2000 XP+ last November with the retail fan boxed with it, I also upgraded my tower, motherboard, power supply, RAM and graphics card. Here are my system specs: CPU: AMD Athlon 2000 XP+ Motherboard: MSI KT3 Ultra2 Power Supply: Not quite sure, :| I think 300 watts+, i can't remember . RAM: PC2700 DDR 256MB Graphics Card: GeForce 3 Ti 200 Soundcard: Onboard. Basically, up until mid-July this system was working fine until one day I switched my PC on. It sounded different, as if one fan had not come on and I was like Hmm.. Weird. Then the motherboard alerted me to the fact that my CPU fan had not started, of course, I opted to shut down my PC as I don't want the CPU burning out or something. I then pressed the power button again, this time the fan DID work. I went on holiday that week and I came back, I decided to look inside my PC and tied up any loose cables that could possibly be obstructing the fan and gave the whole thing a good clean. Everything has been working fine and dandy for a long time till last Friday when it was booting up from cold and had the same problem. Yet again, I shut down, restarted the machine and the fan started to work. Same thing happened today, same process, same result. Is my fan slowly shutting itself down? Is my power supply doing something weird? I mean, I thought about it, it could be that my fan isn't drawing enough power from the power supply at that moment to start up or it simply isn't spinning fast enough and the motherboard stops it. Any answers would be appreciated, very much. Thankyou in advance. Share this post Link to post
Tomay 0 Posted October 10, 2003 Well the next time this happens try to turn the fan with your hand to see if it just gets stuck. Maybe some teflon grease would help. But I'd recommend buying a new cpu cooler because stock coolers are not the best. Don't try to save money on the cpu cooler cos if the cpu burns it'll be a lot more money. Share this post Link to post
pmistry 0 Posted October 10, 2003 Try to figure out your PSU manufacturer. Some cheapo brands aren't very good and may give you fits from time to time. Investing in a good PSU is a good idea. I use Enermax personally. Share this post Link to post
packman 0 Posted October 10, 2003 This is very unlikely to be a PSU problem, as an 80mm fan (for example) will draw less than 100mA from the PSU. Also, if your +12v was well down, other devices in your PC wouldn't work either, including possibly your hard drive. I know from personal experience that fans are difficult to de-bug in situ. And when it's the CPU fan, it's doubly-difficult, as the CPU will shut down as soon as it begins to overheat - at least Pentiums do! Like anything else, fans don't last for ever, especially those running at high speed and which, being over the top of the CPU, get hot. My advice would be to replace the fan immediately with one of the same specification (voltage, speed, diameter), making sure the new one is a ball-bearing type. Sometimes, manufacturers use sleeve-bearing types but they're not so good in hot airstreams and won't last anything like as long as ball-bearing types. You might want to replace the entire cooler, ie heatsink included, in which case a visit to somewhere like www.quietpc.com would be useful. If it's an 80mm fan that's used and you have difficulty in getting a suitable replacement, I could give you the model nos. of two brands that are worth considering. The normal running speed for adequate cooling needs to be known, though. Share this post Link to post
Ali 0 Posted October 10, 2003 Do you have any overheating problem? does the system run smoth or you think it gets slow time to time? Check the voltage monitor in the Bios (3.3v should be close to 3.3, not 2.9 or 3.0v, if that's the case get a more powerful powersupply (not a chipo/generic ones, they don't work good with AMD. Get an Enermax, or something similar). I have had so much problems with AMD's and powersupplies. Try the Bios settings and check the CPU fan speed (some mobo's use variable CPU fan speed, ie. they can adjust the rpm of the fan to temp), make sure the Lowest speed is set to "slow" not "off", or even better disable it and see. Good Luck Share this post Link to post
packman 0 Posted October 11, 2003 With the greatest of respect, Ali, your suggestions are a diversion. The fans run on a 12v supply, not the 3.3v supply used for memory modules and suchlike. As for looking in the BIOS at the various supply voltages and fan speeds, well yes, under different circumstances or ones where that troublesome fan is clearly running, that would be the thing to do. But, if the CPU fan has stopped or is running very slowly, you certainly wouldn't want to power the PC on at all, because that will certainly stress the CPU, if not destroy it within seconds! Furthermore, looking at the 12v in the BIOS can be misleading when a fan is failing. I know this from personal experience. The 12v supply can momentarily dip, giving the impression that it's that that's at fault, whereas it's simply the fault in the fan dragging the voltage down. However, the 12v supply is normally well regulated and isn't effected in this way unless the fault puts virtually a dead short across it. If that were the case, though, the PC would be malfunctoning all over the place. Almost all the supply voltages in a PC have to be within +/-10% of the nominal value. Study the detailed data sheets of the various components. Outside that tolerance, proper operation cannot be guaranteed. Where nominal 12v fans are concerned, they'll normally continue to operate on a voltage from around 15v down to about 7v, though the rotational speed will change with the voltage. This is exploited in low-noise systems (my own, for example), where the fan's speed is reduced with the use of a series resistor or a variable resistor. Watch out for old BIOSs which are unable to monitor slow rotational speeds properly (less than about 2000 rpm). Share this post Link to post
NimaGraven 0 Posted October 11, 2003 Thankyou for all your quick responses . Share this post Link to post
Ali 0 Posted October 17, 2003 Quote: With the greatest of respect, Ali, your suggestions are a diversion. The fans run on a 12v supply, not the 3.3v supply used for memory modules and suchlike. Yes I know, but with AMD athlon i know that particular type of problem could show itself as overheating. even the AMD system i'm using at home had that problem and it took me a while to figure that the Vocano9 was not responsible for it! (Edit: i meant low 3.3v could show itself as overheating issue. the cpu will run wormer than usual and slower than usual. that happens with generic powersupplies every 2 to 6 months, and it keeps happening until you spend more money on a better psu.) Quote: As for looking in the BIOS at the various supply voltages and fan speeds, well yes, under different circumstances or ones where that troublesome fan is clearly running, that would be the thing to do. But, if the CPU fan has stopped or is running very slowly, you certainly wouldn't want to power the PC on at all, because that will certainly stress the CPU, if not destroy it within seconds! . Just a reminder: He IS using the PC!!!! if it didn't post at all, or the fan was not turning at all, you know you won't check the BIOS!!! cause you probably won't be able to. i think NimaGraven already knows that. Quote: Furthermore, looking at the 12v in the BIOS can be misleading when a fan is failing. I know this from personal experience. The 12v supply can momentarily dip, giving the impression that it's that that's at fault, whereas it's simply the fault in the fan dragging the voltage down. However, the 12v supply is normally well regulated and isn't effected in this way unless the fault puts virtually a dead short across it. If that were the case, though, the PC would be malfunctoning all over the place. And we know that is not the case, but you can check the 3.3v anyways. better than nothing! Quote: Almost all the supply voltages in a PC have to be within +/-10% of the nominal value. Study the detailed data sheets of the various components. Outside that tolerance, proper operation cannot be guaranteed. True, but 2.9 is TOO LOW. in my post i don't remember saying it has to be exactly 3.3v, i sayed it should be something close to that. Quote: Where nominal 12v fans are concerned, they'll normally continue to operate on a voltage from around 15v down to about 7v, though the rotational speed will change with the voltage. This is exploited in low-noise systems (my own, for example), where the fan's speed is reduced with the use of a series resistor or a variable resistor. Watch out for old BIOSs which are unable to monitor slow rotational speeds properly (less than about 2000 rpm). that is true! Share this post Link to post
