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My fan won't shut off. Ever. The computer heats up, but it never overheats and turns off. The last time it did was a year ago, and hasn't overheated since. Why is the fan always on but never seems to cool the computer down? I'm thinking about getting a cooling pad, but my fear is that the fan still won't shut off because whatever senses the temperature has whacked out and thinks that the fan still needs to be running. I've called Gateway and they suggested unplugging things from the USBs that I don't use, like my ipod and digital camera, and they told me that maybe taking out the battery would help, but that didn't work. The CPU usage is around 20% or less most of the time, unless I'm running an anti-virus scan or I get an application error like AIM or internet explorer, but it goes back down after I close said programs. Could it be all of the processes I have running in start up? I have almost 30 but I should have half that many. I have 40-50 processes running after start up. Is that normal?

What exactly are you talking about? I don't seem to understand.

You say your fan never shuts off, which fan? Do you mean it never turns off while your system is on? Because they aren't supposed to. Or do you mean it won't power down after your PC is turned off? Cause that's a whole different issue.

Or is it the problem is it's running too high and you want it to slow down? Please clarify.

There is only one fan, and it isn't supposed to be on 24/7; only when the computer gets hot enough to need to be cooled down.

THere's your problem. If there's only one fan, it's no doubt the CPU fan. You need case fans to blow in cold air and exhaust hot air.

I'm assuming it is a laptop since you mentioned battery, but with the lack of details about your computer, we have make a lot of assumptions.

Yes, laptops typically have idle times where the fan will spin very low or shut off completely. How often and how long this occurs depends on the laptop, the processor, power management and running processes.

If you have a ton of processes running, it doesn't really matter if your CPU is running at 5% or whatever low value it may be. Chances are the laptop is choking on dust and dirt clogged up in the CPU heatsink/fan assembly. I (only if you're comfortable taking it apart) would disassemble the laptop so the CPU heatsink/fan assembly can be cleaned out and do so. You may also be able to take a can of pressurized air and blow out the dust through the vents in the bottom/back/side of the notebook... Its a good idea to turn it off first, however.

Depending on the age of the laptop, you may be able to download and install a very nice power management utility http://www.pbus-167.com/chc.htm . This will show you temperatures, fan speeds and more (depending on your laptop's support for such a program, of course) and allow you to change some settings, including CPU speed etc... Might be kind of fun for you to play with.

Laptops have only one fan to cool it down. After several hours of nonuse, the fan is still running because the damn thing won't go into stand by or hibernation when I tell it to. If I'm not using it, shouldn't it chill? A laptop isn't supposed to have more than one fan. Where would the others go? There's no room.

Please read your post, you said computer the entire time. Anyways now that the mixup is cleared up, try what the guy above you said.

I got a cooling pad last night and plugged it into my USB port on my laptop and it's running. It's smooth and quiet and it definitely cools the computer down. The fan actually quieted a bit and is blowing out cool air instead of hot air. The thing is, it never actually shuts off though. Even after the cooling pad. It will quiet down, but it won't completely shut off like a fan is supposed to. It's not blowing hot air out, the laptop is being cooled, but the fan is still on. Is this a problem? I think it is.

I have merged your new thread into this one.

That way, the guys who have replied can see what`s going on.

Please don`t open any more threads for this particular subject. Thanks.

Regards Howard