help w/building first computer. can't read cpufan speed, keyboard & mouse stay on

[music]

I purchased the soyo p4i fire dragon and pentium 4 1.6a combo from fry's yesterday.
I've only installed the following:

p4i fire dragon motherboard
intel pentium 4 1.6a with retail hsf
ati radeon 7000 agp video card
512 mb legacy pc2100 ram
antec truepower 330
mitsumi 3.5 floppy

I haven't put in a cdrom or hard drive. (I'm waiting for my hard drive to arrive from staples.)


(1) I go into the bios and the cpufan speed reads 0. I tried plugging the fan into both cpufan1 and cpufan2, but it still reads 0 under the speed. The fan is spinning.

(2) The mouse and keyboard have power going to them even when the system is off. i.e. Before I push the power button the red light from the optical mouse is on, and after I turn the system off the red light stays on.

(3) Also, the cpu temperature is ~46-48C and the system temperature is ~28-31C. Are these okay? I left it on for about 15 minutes to see if the temps would go any higher but they never went higher than 48 and 31.

Help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[boomerang]

(1) If I had another fan I would try it. Will the lead reach to any other fan headers to see if you get a reading? Conversely, plug a case fan with RPM output into the headers to see if you get a reading. Gotta be the fan or the motherboard.

(2) This is normal. Newer board remain powered even when "off". The lights will go off when you either, flip the switch on the back of the PS to off, or unplug it from the wall.

(3) Temps are OK.

 

[music]

Originally posted by: boomerang
(1) If I had another fan I would try it. Will the lead reach to any other fan headers to see if you get a reading? Conversely, plug a case fan with RPM output into the headers to see if you get a reading. Gotta be the fan or the motherboard.

(2) This is normal. Newer board remain powered even when "off". The lights will go off when you either, flip the switch on the back of the PS to off, or unplug it from the wall.

(3) Temps are OK.

Thanks for the reply!
I just tried connecting the cpu fan to chafan1 and chafan2. Read 0 both times. I then tried connecting the power supply fan signal to cpufan1, cpufan2, chafan1, and chafan2. All read 0.

Is this a motherboard problem?

 

[music]

If not being able to read fan speeds is the only thing that is wrong, does that warrant a return? I only have two weeks to return it to fry's.

If I take everything out, will I be able to just put everything back into a new motherboard no problem? It's mostly the hsf I'm worried about.
I think I read in the CPU forum that if you remove the hs you shouldn't just put it back on. You would have to remove the thermal pad and then apply some artic silver.

I just checked the status of my hard drive and it won't be here until Thursday 6/13. Would it be a good idea to wait to have everything installed before returning the motherboard, or return now?

 

[ChefJoe]

First off, what's the model number of the fans? Some, like panaflow L1A's, typically don't have RPM sensors. The other thing I can think of is if you undervolt the fans and have them spin slower, they sometimes don't show up. Intel chipsets seem to have a lower limit of 2200 RPMs (as far as I've noticed). Explain anything you may have done other than just plug in a 3 pin tail.

After reading about an intel 1.6A retail HSF (if it is the actual boxed retail package, it should darn well have a RPM sensor) I think you may have some option about monitoring in the bios that has yet to be uncovered.

 

[music]

Originally posted by: ChefJoe
First off, what's the model number of the fans? Some, like panaflow L1A's, typically don't have RPM sensors. The other thing I can think of is if you undervolt the fans and have them spin slower, they sometimes don't show up. Intel chipsets seem to have a lower limit of 2200 RPMs (as far as I've noticed). Explain anything you may have done other than just plug in a 3 pin tail.

After reading about an intel 1.6A retail HSF (if it is the actual boxed retail package, it should darn well have a RPM sensor) I think you may have some option about monitoring in the bios that has yet to be uncovered.

I'm not sure about the model numbers. It's the retail hsf and the fan of the antec power supply. All I've done is plug in the tails. I can't think of anything I've done that would affect the readings.

It does seem strange that I can't get a reading from any of the connections I made. I'll have a friend of a friend look at what I've done before returning anything. Everything else seems fine. I feel pretty good for a first time build.

 

[boomerang]

It most definately sounds like the motherboard.

Your decision on whether to exchange the board. With no HD or OS installed you will have no problems. The swap will be pure mechanics. Look carefully at the thermal pad. I can't imagine that you could have run the system long enough to do it any harm. If it's mostly intact, I would leave it alone.

I've never seen a setting within any BIOS that disables/enables monitoring. However that doesn't mean one doesn't exist somewhere.

 

[Mem]

It does seem strange that I can't get a reading from any of the connections I made. I'll have a friend of a friend look at what I've done before returning anything.

On my Epox 8KHA+ the CPU fan also reads 0 RPM,so you`re not the only one ,but the chassis fan works ok,too bad my CPU fan lead won`t reach that far since it`s right in the bottom corner of the board plus I`ve my Enermax PSU RPM fan lead already connected to it to read RPM speed for the Enermax fan.Anyway it was too small an issue to really warrant RMA so I kept it,the board itself stability wise has been working great , so yes it`s really down to you on RMA or not.