Replaced C2D and P5W due to CPU fan failure.

[CreepieDeCrapper]

Well I'm now $470 poorer due to my Freezer 7 Pro fan failing on me and thus allowing my E6400 to fry itself and my P5W DH Deluxe. All components of my system are brand-new as of September of this year.

In short, here's what happened:

1. Rebooted PC on Wednesday night (no particular reason, just a random restart).

1. On reboot, Windows wouldn't load. I got to the blue screen (not a BSOD) right before the user icons show up. I had a solid powder/sky blue screen with a mouse pointer and hourglass that never advanced further than that. So I hit the reset switch on my case.

1. Now on this reboot, the machine froze during POST where it says "Initializing USB Controllers...". It's supposed to say "Done" after the 3 dots but it never did.

1. I hit the reset switch on the case again, and the same thing happened (it froze at the USB controller initialization).

1. With the machine still running, I took the side panel off to make sure everything "looked Ok" and to my horror, my Freezer 7 Pro fan was NOT spinning. It was sitting there as if it had no power applied to it at all.

1. I immediately killed the power but shortly after that started to smell that wonderful electronics burning smell. So I knew I was screwed.

1. I went out and bought an E6300 (trying to save some $$$) and put it in the original mobo, this time using the stock Intel cooler. On bootup, the fan was working great on the Intel cooler, but I still couldn't get past the USB controller initialization.

1. So I went back to the my local PC store and picked up another P5W DH Deluxe and installed that along with the new E6300 and stock Intel cooler. I'm now up and running again.

Basically, what the h4ll happened? Why would a fan just STOP spinning altogether? It doesn't sound like a fan header issue on the mobo because the stock Intel cooler was spinning on the original mobo without a problem.

More importantly, however, is if anyone thinks I'll be able to recoup any of the $470 I spent from Arctic Cooling. It is, after all, their fault, right?

Extremely frustrated...

- Kevin

 

[CreepieDeCrapper]

Bumping because I'm flying out of town on Monday so I'm hoping to get some feedback before then. Much obliged to anyone offering suggestions!

 

[jackschmittusa]

MB should have shut down if it stopped receiving the rpm signal from the fan. You should have also have had the cpu overheat alarm set in the bios, which should have made an awful noise when the cpu temp passed a preset point.

I am sure that Artic Cooling will mention these if you contact them.

 

[stevty2889]

Even if the fan stopped working, your cpu shouldn't have fried itself. Those CPU's have thermal protection, they will throttle once they reach a certain temp, and then they will shut themselves down, before reaching critical temp. What power supply are you using?

 

[btcomm1]

Yeah, you should see if the E6400 looks to be phyically burnt and if not try it in your new mobo and if it works fine return the E6300, save some cash and if it still works it's like you upgraded your PC.

 

[CreepieDeCrapper]

Thank you for all the replies. I'm not sure why the mobo didn't shutdown if it stopped receiving the RPM signal from the fan. Regarding the CPU overheat alarm, I have my BIOS set at default settings and never heard an alarm. (My original mobo AND my new mobo are both the ASUS P5W DH Deluxe, btw.)

I went ahead and threw my original E6400 into the new mobo (using the stock Intel HSF) and you guys are right, it's actually working! So now I can return the E6300 I just bought (although I'll have to pay a $30 restocking fee).

So I really have no idea what happened. I know that I saw that Freezer 7 Pro fan sitting idle and NOT spinning even though the power was on. And I also know that I smelled that electronics burn smell. So most likely my original mobo got fried somehow.

I'm still a bit worried because sometimes when I boot I still get a system hang at the point where the POST says "Initializing USB Controllers .." I don't know what's causing the hang at this point. For now, I can just power down then reboot and it ends up going all the way through, but it doesn't help me rest easy.

Btw, I'm using a Seasonic S12 PSU which was purchased brand new with all the other components in September of this year.