Can an LED fan cause a crash?

[Eedarf]

Custom built by myself, parts are as follows:

A8N32-SLI motherboard
GeForce 7900
2 sticks of 1gig Corsair Ram
AMD 4800+ Dual Core

The computer runs fine, however one of the LED Fans seems to flicker and sporadically not light. The fan portion of it however, runs normal.

I noticed that when the computer has these fits where it'll crash and refuse to boot, the fan plugged into the board itself will not light or run. The other fans are all run in series off of the Powersupply 4prong cables.

On occasion the computer crashes after exiting WoW also. The screen just jumbles the colors and locks on the sound it was last making.

Any suggestions? I know this isn't very detailed...

 

[joked u 2]

as for the fan problem which goes first the fan or the computer? it could b a power problem or mobo problem. probabaly a psu problem. as for the crashing after WoW vid card drivers or the same as before ^. could be a mutural problem. try updating you vid card drivers. what do you do to get it to turn on after it refuses to boot?

also i highyly dought that the fan mage your computer die like it does. but try un plugging that fan and see.


^V^

 

[Eedarf]

The fan and the computer itself go out at the same time.

...I thought LEDs were supposed to last a lifetime.


As for getting it to boot again, I give it a second and disconnect the power supply.

 

[pctec]

LED's theoretically last a lifetime... However manufacturing defects as well as power surges can cause them to go.

 

[Eedarf]

Drats. I suppose that explains the LED then. What about the unusual crashing? I noticed also that the lights on the Ram bottom out when it happens. I guess that could be expected though.

 

[NCSUFrenchie]

What color is the LED? Blue LEDs draw signifigantly more power than red ones, for example, and this extra current on top of what I assume is a high flow fan might be too much for the fan controller (essentially just a very small voltage regulator) to handle.

I have found that a simple hardware fix can be much easier than alot of software reinstalls and driver updates. Try and find another fan that doesn't have an LED attached to it and see if that solves it.

I would doubt that it is a psu issue because I'm assuming that if you spent that much time and effort (and money) to build this system, that you would have a solid psu in the case. Since none of the other fans that run off the HDD cables experience this, and that the mobo powered items are the only ones that die when this happens (inlcluding the video card, which would crash any system), I'd rule out the psu and focus on the mobo. If the mobo fan controllers feed off of the same small little power rail on the mobo that the video card and the sound card do, then you've found your culprit.

Sorry to keep rambling, this is the last thing I swear... Modern voltage regulators have circuitry designed into them to shut down under high temperatures and/or high current situations so that they don't burn out. As soon as they cool down, or the current demand is no longer outside of spec, they begin functioning again. Maybe the time it takes you to unplug the psu and reconnect it allows the little chip to cool. (If anyone out there is an engineer and would like to read up on it, see this)

Ian