[curiousgeorge45678]

Hi there.

I am writing this on a separate computer than the one that is having troubles. That one is right over there.

It suddenly became irritable: shutting itself off for no apparent reason. It would not reboot, so I took the panel off the computer (it's an AMD XP running windows XP) and found that my thermaltake 5 heatsink/fan combo was not spinning.

I aimed a small desk fan in there and cooled it off a bit before rebooting. With the desk fan cooling its insides, the computer seems to run fine.

However, I was reading another post on G2G and i saw that there may be some default setting in my bIOs that is overriding my heatsink's fan's function.

The computer is running at 61 degrees even with the desk fan (I learned that through the Everestt Home Edition ... man isn't that a sweet program).

I would appreciate any help available as this is the art director's computer and we are three days from deadline!

Thanks.
Curious George

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ah sorry that's the heat sink at 61 degrees © not the motherboard

[curiousgeorge45678]

ah sorry that's the heat sink at 61 degrees © not the motherboard

[warriorscot]

Right, well it could be that the fan is done they do sometimes just break. So you might try another fan on the heatsink, also have you checked that the fan was plugged in.

[curiousgeorge45678]

Thanks for the fast response!

yes it appears to be plugged in...

though it's tough to tell for sure w/o taking the fan off the heat sink.
No loose wires in any event.

Are new fans available at regular, rural American computer shops?

[warriorscot]

Oh i would imagine they would be available, but the fan should have a wire coming from it leading to a set of pins on the motherboard to power it.

[Logic_Overflow]

Aye, CPU Fans are relatively cheap and available at a lot of places. Also you can buy fans at any place online.

[Doby]

Hi,

Your best bet would be to remove the fan and take it to the shop with you, this way you will get the proper size fan with the proper connector that goes to the motherboard.

This is not difficult, just be sure to first discharge static electricity from your body by touching a metal object like the computer case, then remove the wirer from the fan that connects to the motherboard and take note were its is removed from as it is very important that the new fan connects to the exact same place.

Then remove the four screws that attach the fan to the heatsink.

Replacement fans are cheap and I would first try this before doing anything else or trying to run the computer with a desk fan

Rick

[curiousgeorge45678]

Thanks guys.

I hope this is the solution... it certainly seems to make sense, as my art director was also reporting that her computer would crash when she was deep into Photoshop or Illustrator.

I appreciate the help from all of you!
George

[Doby]

Your welcome and let us know how you make out,

One other note, make sure the heatsink is clean and free of dust, to clean use a can of compressed air to blow the dust out, this won't fix a broken fan but on a system that the fans work they may just need a good cleaning.

When using the compressed air avoid turning the can on its side as this will discharge liquid from the can, rather set the computer on the side of a table so you can raise and lower the direction of the can and still keep it upright.

Rick