Why is my PSU fan stoping?

[StraightPipe]

I just moved into a new house, and was hooking up my wife's PC. turned it on and walked away. next thing I know I can here the mobo beeping from the other room. beep-beep-beep... smells like burnt silicon. I killed the power and pulled off the shell. nothing looks burnt, nothing even felt hot. rebooted with case off, the PSU fan spins up fine and runs until the WIN XP "welcome" screen appears. then the mobo starts beeping and 1 second later the fan stops. kill the power, it's really begining to stink from that burnt smell.

So i reboot again and go into CMOS to see if the fan will stop again. let the pc run for 3 hours on the BIOS settings screen, fan still spins, no more burning smell.

but if I boot up to windows, fan stops and beeping starts soon as I hit the welcome screen.


This is an ungodly old PC, it's 6
gateway GPC-400 (i think thats the model #)
Celeron 400
168 RAM
200W PSU
2 4.2 GB HDDs


My wife just uses this thing as a type writer and web browser, and I'll probly pull the HDD's for backup.

So what is the deal? I dont think my PSU is crapped out yet (because it ran for 3 hours on BIOS screen without cooking), but if I go back to windows that fan will stop and it will fry for sure. Any ideas? (I dont think my wife is quite ready for linux, she has enough difficulties getting around her PC now)


to make the situation worse the cable guy wont be able to connect my broadband until wed, so I have to go to library or work to check this thread.

 

[xsilver]

lol micro$oft has been accused of many things but this is new I've got to say
I think the problem lies within the bios under "thermal managment" or something similar
it turns off the fans when cpu load is low.... although I've never seen this related to the PSU fan-- mine has one for the CPU fan
Then again your system isn't exactly fast to be loading winxp with low CPU load -- my only other suggestion is that the PSU is stretched to the limit and when the OS starts up and all devices start spinning, cd's hdds together, your PSU craps out..... maybe others have an idea

 

[0roo0roo]

PSU FAN controlled BY PSU!! not mb or ms.

 

[StraightPipe]

in the BIOS there is an option for Power Supply Fan Control. it is (and has always been) set to "Always on"


what else may be causing this? I know the PSU is half way decent since it will run BIOS for 3 hours, but why hsould the fan stop as soon as windows boots?

 

[Zepper]

Just for grins, go into Windwoes power management and set the machine type to "Always On". See if that helps. Also look for a setting in there specifically for the PSU fan and set that to Always On there too. It's possible that if there is a setting in the BIOS for Always On and that the OS takes over from the BIOS after boot (the BIOS is generally out of the loop after boot time), that Windwoes also controls that function after boot. And is screwing it up - which is not atypical for Windwoes...
.bh.

 

[Deadtrees]

I see that you're following the good 'ol rule.
That is...when you don't have a clue. When you're an idiot.

Blame MS. Blame MS. Blame MS.

 

[Zepper]

Good, when one can't contribute something useful to the discussion, resort to ad hominem... So just who's the idget - mr Chicom avatar?
. Windwoes is NOT a religion, it's just software and significantly flawed software at that - get over it.
.bh.

 

[Zepper]

I was thinking that there may be some kind of special driver or utility from Gateway that needs to be loaded to control that fan. Is there an unusual connector to the mobo for that fan? If so, then I'd head to Gateway and look for a utiliity for XP. That thing was probably on W95 or 98 when it was new - here's hoping they updated the utilities for XP...
. Or you could just replace the PSU fan with a standard fan that hooks to a drive power connector and bypass all the mess entirely.
.bh.

Where's the :sun: ?

 

[StraightPipe]

thanks for the help zep, I'm going to get a new fan form radio shack today and try that, but i really think it's going to boil down to a dying PSU (too bad, that's going to cost alot more than a fan )

dead trees: you might wanna check the thread again, I dont think I ever actually said said that MS was the problem, I just thought it was kinda funny that the fan didnt stop until the windows welcome screen. but I do want to thank you for waisting our time with your worthless post.



I also noticed that when I boot safe mode the fan actually stops earlier than a regular boot.

I dont think I can get to the power managment controls without killing this thing, it gets really smelly after a couple of seconds of no fan.

I almost turned it on and let it run last night just to watch it burn, but I figured I should get my vid camera if I'm going to do that.

wish me luck with the new fan, I dont wanna buy a new PSU.

 

[newParadigm]

mmm, the wonderful smell of burnt silicone


This brings to mind something i read awhile back,

"Computers Run on smoke, when the smoke gets out, they don't work no more"


Good luck on fixin that

 

[StraightPipe]

interesting- today I was working on the electical systems in the house and had to flip the circuit breakers. a few hours later I noticed the screen saver was on that PC. the fan wasnt spinning. it's been om for most of the day now with no beeping, and no smoke.

apparently the move disldged a large chunk of dust + hair. burnt up in the PSU. now everything is fine. (apparently a 400Mhz celly doesnt pull enough juice to need a fan on much longer after post)


thanks for the help all