CPU fan not spinning properly

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Ehimen

Okay, so me and a friend bought several new components to build ourselves a new PC each. We put together mine first with little difficulty. Due to financial issues, I couldn't buy everything in one go. Here's what I purchased:

  • ASUS M2N-E SLI Nvidia nForce 500 SLI MCP Socket AM2
  • AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ (2.8GHz) Socket AM2
  • Antec Sonata III Piano Black Quiet Mid Tower Case
  • Kingston 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400

Now we put it together with little problems. When I booted it up, I borrowed my friend's GPU and plugged it into a monitor.Nothing appears on the monitor, the orange idol light is on. The case's power light doesn't seem to come on (it is plugged in correctly, I think). The case fan spin. The GPU fan spins. The CPU fan spins for about 2 seconds and then stops, but judders every second or so, as if something was getting in it's way (even though nothing is).

Firstly, is this something to worry about? I know I don't have a harddrive plugged in (yet), could this be the cause? I had a quick check in the manual for DIMM layouts, and tried several configurations but nothing changed.

Thanks for all help/suggestions in advance,
-Em
 
Yes, it is a MAJOR problem if your CPU's heatsink fan is not spinning. Make sure you have the CPU fan cable connected to the motherboard properly.



Not having the HDD plugged in wouldn't cause this...
 
Are you out of power? How many watts is your PSU?

It could also be a fan controller issue from your motherboard. I forget exactly how to look at these, but look in your BIOS and there should be something about fan control.
 
I don't think he can get into the BIOS because he said "nothing appears on the monitor".

However, if you can manage to get into the BIOS you can view your fan controller settings by going to the "Power" tab and looking under the "Hardware Monitor".

I'd suggest trying a different PSU first...
 
Ehimen said:
Thanks for the suggestion, but I have double-checked the connection, and it's fine.
Click to expand...

Do you have a 4 or 6 pin power connector near the CPU? If you do, this needs to be plugged in from the power supply
 
Thanks for the suggestions everyone. Help is greatly appreciated. My PC is round my friend's right now, so I can't change anything right at this moment.

I doubt it's a lack of power issue as I only have 2 devices connected - the case fan (which functions 100% correctly) and the CPU fan (and the GPU on several attempts).

I think I'm going to try another PSU and see if anything behaves differently.

Tmagic, my motherboard itself has a 4-pin CPU_FAN port, whereas the CPU fan itself is only 3-pin, although they are knocked so it can only fit in one orientation. I know the CPU fan is getting power, as it spins for the first 3 seconds or so, then jolts every 1 second as if it is trying to start up again. This, coupled with the fact I've double-checked the connection, discourages me from the belief it's something to do with the connection itself.

Not too knowledgable in the area, but could my problem be anything to do with POSTs? It's hard to tell as I get no visual signal at any point.

The LED and Switch connections on the motherboard seem rather tempromental too. The power switch seems to work. However, the power LED doesn't, and it's hard too tell with the reset button and the speaker. I could possibly getting error beeps and not knowing it. Would this point towards motherboard errors?

Thanks again,
-Em
 
I don't believe it's a lack of power either, but an unstable PSU.

Assuming you are 100% certain you have everything connected and installed properly, if the system experiences the same issues with a different PSU I would suspect the motherboard, yes.
 
I wasn't speaking about the CPU fan connector. The 4-pin CPU fan connector will accept a 3-pin fan with no problems. I was talking about a 4 or 6 pin molex connector used to supply extra voltage/current to the CPU
 
Helo, I have the same motherboard and had the same problem. First off make sure the CPU is getting power thats what I forgot to do on mine the first time I had experinced this. Im not home right now, Programming class lol but noone ever does anything in this class xD but when I get home I can post how it should all look when everything is in. Sometimes its the smallest thing like forgeting to move a jumper to master or slave.
 

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Yes Mekaonija,
that is the molex connector I'm talking about. Sometimes it comes in a 6 pin type too...
 
Now, Zenosincks, you were incorrect to make the assumption that all connections were okay. On the other hand, you would've been correct to assume I'm a complete *****.

Thank you, both Tmagic and Mekaonija. Like I said, my friend has my computer currently, but after discovering I completely missed the ATX12V connection, I rang him to try and rectify acts of stupidy on my part.

On boot, the CPU fan spins fine. However, I get 3 beeps (the 20-pin LED/switch connectors are working, yay!) Any ideas what this could mean or ideas as to where I could find out? Could it be something as simple as no video device discovered or no harddrive?

Running out of different ways to show appreciate to you all, so merci,
-Em
 
AWARD BIOS beep codes

Below are Award BIOS Beep codes that can occur. However, because of the wide variety of different computer manufacturers with this BIOS, the beep codes may vary.

Beep Code:

1 long, 2 short Indicates a video error has occurred and the BIOS cannot initialize the video screen to display any additional information.
Any other beep(s) RAM problem.

If any other correctable hardware issues, the BIOS will display a message.

Found that from here http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm#05

Beep Code:

No Beeps Short, No power, Bad CPU/MB, Loose Peripherals
One Beep Everything is normal and Computer POSTed fine
Two Beeps POST/CMOS Error
One Long Beep, One Short Beep Motherboard Problem
One Long Beep, Two Short Beeps Video Problem
One Long Beep, Three Short Beeps Video Problem
Three Long Beeps Keyboard Error
Repeated Long Beeps Memory Error
Continuous Hi-Lo Beeps CPU Overheating

and found that one from here http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1223

I would wait until you get a hard drive in there though before trying to fully diagnose the problem. Good luck ;D
 
Thanks, Meka.

I decided to get off my **** and look around for beep codes myself instead of lumbering the problem on you guys. I found a decent page about the mobo that didn't include the words "Add to Shopping Cart." After double checking with my friend, the beeps were 1 long, 3 short. According to http://www.bioscentral.com/beepcodes/awardbeep.htm, this sequence means "No video card or bad video RAM." Seeing as I don't have a GPU hooked up, I'm guessing it's the first. So everything is working as it should for the moment.

Thank you everyone for the help. I can't wait to get my new PC working. TechSpot is a great site, keep it up! I'm sure I'll be back in a few weeks when I do get this card and some more (simple, yet undecipherable by the likes of me) errors occur.

-Em
 
Meh, I assume a lot of things. I suppose sometimes I just put too much faith in humanity :(.

Good luck with your system, let us know how everything turns out :D.
 
Good work Ehimen,
the power supply connector to the video card is another often missed connection. I'm sure novice PC builders will continue to miss these, but we are always here to help. That 6-pin connection had me stumped for about 10 minutes once. The CPU fan would briefly turn and the case leds would flash. The 6-pin connector was hidden by the large CPU heatsink/fan assembly
 
You think thats bad, when I was building my current pc with the brother of his motherboard, the M2N-E, I never had a power connector to my processor on any motherboard I had seen before, I stared at it for hours wondering what was wrong. I was so lost on why it would only turn on for a few seconds and then give up and power down. I had to get on a bus with my computer for a 20 minute ride and then I had to walk another 20 minutes to the place I got my computer parts from, then waited another 30 minutes once I got there for my computer to warm up before playing with its insides. After it finally was warm enough they open it and the first thing they saw was that power connection wasn't their so after 5 seconds of them opening it the problem was gone. Not to mention this was the dead of winter and it was like -25oc and it was snowing and slushy outside T_T NEVER AGAIN OHH GOD NEVER AGAIN!!! (Probably why I suspected this issue so fast, that stupid connection is now burned in my mind so I don't ever have to do that again)
 
Hahah, sounds like fun to me, Meka. Although my story's not quite as dramatic as that, I'm pretty sure I won't be forgetting that connection again.

Quick update:
I went round my friend's last night, and tried his GPU (with the power connected =)). Got to BIOS no problems and even the power LED works now, so I'm fairly happy (although the amount of work I have to do over this weekend is discouraging that feeling). But anyway, just waiting on a GPU of my own, then I'll rip out the HDD(s) and DVD drives out of this machine and throw myself into a wall of OS installation errors. Yay! Can't wait.

Thanks everyone!
 
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