Heatsink fan - Sometimes starts, sometimes not

[RPatrick]

Today I installed an Asus EN9800 GT video card. After about 5 - 10 minutes it shut down completely. I opened up the case and the "Glaciator Fansink" was very very hot. After it cooled down I started back up the system. I noticed the fan was not spinning, I bumped it with my finger and it started spinning. After looking further into this, it turns out that when the system is started, the fan only starts about 75% of the time. The times when the fan does not start, it will run after I bump it with my finger.

The fan is free spinning with no physical blockage. This sounds like a defective fansink to me. Anyone know exactly what is going on ?

 

[Roguestar]

If it's only sometimes working, under the same circumstances, and will often work if you literally give it a nudge, sounds to me a lot like a dodgy connector or something. Either way, replace it.

 

[Davegod]

fans will do that if they don't get quite enough power - it takes much more grunt to get it going than when it has momentum. A good fan controller will always start a fan up on full power then wind it down.

check the driver settings for automatic fan control and see if it's set too low.

Otherwise the fan's probably defective, RMA time.

 

[RPatrick]

Thank you. I was wondering if there were some software settings that might have something to do with it, but that does not sound right to me. If the fan is driver controlled, what is supposed to happen when the card is first installed before the drivers are installed ? The card first overheated and shut down during reboot during driver installation. I am thinking the fan is not supposed to be off while windows is booting and loading the driver.

RMA time sounds right to me.