Power supply fan not running

Flammadeao · Post by **Flammadeao** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 12:07 am

Alrighty well i've been having several problems with my new computer so far

but this one is the most worrying to me at this point. I thought I had it up and running, but I just recently noticed that my PSU fan is NOT running. The computer powers up just fine and it apparently works as if nothing is wrong. This makes me wonder if somehow I turned off the fan (if this even possible). This is the 450 watt power supply that came with my antec sonata II. I believe it is a smart power 2.0. Should I send this thing back or is there anything I can do to remedy my problem?

iamezza · Post by **iamezza** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 2:26 am

This is completely normal for your power supply. This power supply has 2 fans and the rear fan only works when it is needed. To check if it actually works try playing a graphics intensive game for a while and/or put your hand over the exhaust of the PSU so that the heat builds up a little, once the heat builds up the fan should start.

http://www.antec.com/us/pro_p_SPII.html

Post by **Apoptosis** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 7:54 am

like the above post mentions correctly the rear external exhaust fan starts, stops and adjusts its speed in response to system temperature! No worries! It just means that your case is running nice and cool!

brajko2 · Post by **brajko2** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 8:39 am

Well dual (front and rear) technolgy fans mosty use Antec, Tagan and Topower.

Here is a quote from Tagan's web site
(click on service button, and FAQ will appear):
_________________________________________________________
8. Why after switching-on the Tagan power supply only 1 fan running?

Answer : It is whether problem nor failure, but intended if • on light-loads at the beginning only 1 frontside fan (for lowering the noise) • on higher loads (Middle to Full-Load) both fans
(front- & backside) working.

So you won't have any worries about second fan. Only if you have some prescott processor or something ;-) then you'll have little trouble with second fan noise.

Flammadeao · Post by **Flammadeao** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 9:17 am

That is great news to hear

. I did start up TES Oblivion to see if the fan would start running and it did not so thats what was worrying me, but I only went into the game for under a minute so when I get home today i'll run it for a bit longer to see if the fan begins to run.

Just to avoid having to post a new thread i'm going to add something on here

. My processor is running at about 43 *C idle and I have a Zalman 9500. This is a little high isn't it? Anything that I can do to get it lower? e.g. re apply the heatsink? I am using stock thermal paste not AS5 so that may also be a cause, but I didn't think it would be this big of a gap. Thankyou very much for you help so far.

Post by **DMB2000uk** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 9:29 am

Did you enable the cool and quiet feature for the CPU in the BIOS? Whats your ambient room temp like? Bear in mind that thermal paste requires some 'burn in' time to reach its optimal performance.

Dan

Flammadeao · Post by **Flammadeao** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 10:17 am

Quiet and cool feature? Don't remember it so i'm pretty sure no, but that's somehthing all check as well when I get home. Ambient room temp is ~mid/high 70's Fahrenheit.

Post by **Apoptosis** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 10:23 am

what are your full system specifications?

Flammadeao · Post by **Flammadeao** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 10:33 am

Case: Antec Sonata II Case w/ smartpower II 450 WATT PSU
Mobo: Asus m2n-sli Deluxe
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 x2 4200+
Heatsink: Zalman 9500
Vid card: Radeon x1900 xt
Hard Drive: 320 GB SATA II 7200 RPM 16mb cache
RAM: 2x Kingston PC 4200 521MB

azncarbos · Post by **azncarbos** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 11:23 pm

Did you overclock the CPU? Because I think that lil higher for idle, usually it at round the mid 30*C to high 30* because my other system is AMD 4400+ x2 (939s) and at idle is 37*C (room temp is 75*F) with the Zalman 9500 room the same heatsink as you.

Pengwin · Post by **Pengwin** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 8:47 am

its fine. the rear exhaust will only run if it gets very hot.

also does cool n' quiet even do anything?

brajko2 · Post by **brajko2** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 9:53 am

I also think you don't have to worry about the temperatures. They're fine. Especially on X2, they are a couple degrees hotter then venice s939 processors.
Anyway you can read this article, the components are much similar to you:
http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/coolin ... n/9500am2/

So yes, the temps are a bit high but you don't have to worry much.

Anyway you can read this article to give you an answer on which thermal paste to use:
http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews.php? ... comparison

I myself am using arctic silver and have never been dissapointed.
So buy a descent paste, and inform us with the results..

Flammadeao · Post by **Flammadeao** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 10:35 am

Azncarbos:
No I have not overclocked it. I'm generaly afraid of that kind of thing because I am worried about voiding my warrenty and then having it break on me

.

Brajko2:
Thanks for the links! Looks like I may be going with the Coollaboratory Liquid Pro, but it says not to use it with aluminum heatsinks. The page on newegg where I got it ([urlhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118004][/url]) says that it is made out of copper, but do you know if it is just the fans that are copper or the whole thing? The bottom of mine doesn't look very much like copper.

brajko2 · Post by **brajko2** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 12:10 pm

Ofcourse the bottom part of the cooler is made of copper. Is sure can't be plastic

So can can be sure, you can check out the manufactuter specs
http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/vie ... 2&code=005

Sp pure copper is pure copper. I myself have zalman 7000b and I'm happy how cool it runs (34C idle, 40-45C load)

Now I remember what I wanted to tell you in previos post. Maybe your cpu is a bit hot because of power supply (just let me explain).
I had tagan 380w before which also has two ventilators. When I played some games the PSU was really hot.
After a year I decited to change my PSU with Seasonic 430w. But this PSU has 12mm ventilator on bottom. So now I have exaust cooler which practically exaust heat from processor to outside of case.
I don't want to critisize you on your choice of PSU, but if you have some quality PSU to borrow from a friend, you'll surely notice the difference.

Flammadeao · Post by **Flammadeao** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 4:35 pm

Blah... looks as thought I may have wasted your time here. I guess the thermal compound takes some time to burn in (as they waited for in that test you linked to). The temperature that I was telling you was my idle temp from when I first put together the computer and I made the mistake of assuming that those temps would continue to be the same

. I just checked and right now it is running at 35/36 idle in the bios. You don't by chance know of a good program to use to monitor your temps do you? The only way that I know of is in the bios.

There is yet another problem though

. I have a 320 GB SATA II drive that I am using, but when I view it in the windows install it says that I have a maximum of ~120GB total. In my bios and in killdisk it says that it is the correct 320GB capacity just in the windows install it is ~130. This only started after I was having trouble installing with windows xp and so I tried installing with 2000 and I was able to get it to work although it only allowed me to install the mirror of this ~200 or so was my maximum install space. That installed just fine and so I went back to XP and tried it, but was limited to 130GB. I found out that my problem was not with XP, but that I had a bad install disk so I am wondering if I started the problem with partitioning with a bad install disk.

I have tried running killdisk on it with the hopes that if I wrote zeros to the entire drive it would show as 320GB, but I have had no luck with that. My next plan is to try to install linux and see if it views the drive as allowing me to have the remaining 190 availlible to use.

Post by **DMB2000uk** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 4:42 pm

lol, I said it takes time to burn in

You can try This to monitor both cores for your CPU temps, and speedfan for everything else and/or one core on your CPU.

Dan

brajko2 · Post by **brajko2** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 3:06 am

I really was no problem to help you with 'problem'. Glad the temps were o.k.
I think it would be best if you download asus utility for monitoring temperatures of cpu, mobo, and also for voltages, pc probe.
Just go to

http://support.asus.com/download/downlo ... el=M2N-SLI Deluxe&SLanguage=en-us

Hm.. now I see on web one strange thing. I can't get direct link to asus pc-probe software..
And I see on google that they have download link of softpedia..
Wow, that's really weird.
Just surely most have got this software on your driver installation cd, right?