[A8N-SLI] Chip fan stopped spinning + no post, no beep

[Brother_Hood]

Heya, folks!

Great I came across here, looks like a smart community. I've often stopped by for a read but now that I'm at my wits very end, I decided to join in and share my despair. Hope it can be cast a light on this issue. So here's my story:

I was more than glad when a close friend of mine gave me his brother's "old" gaming machine from 2006. He said when he realized how many years I've been working on my old machines (PIII @866Mhz + 512 SDRAM and the other one P4 @1.8Ghz + 1 GB DDR), he strongly felt that this had to change. And here's what he suprised me with:

ASUS A8N-SLI/S
AMD Athlon X2 3800+
2 x Samsung 512 MB DDR PC3200
nVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT + a 7800 GTX he didn't need anymore
Hitachi 320 GB SATA
500W FSP Group PSU

I'd been longing for such a powerful system for years but could have never afforded it. This was a truly magical moment for me, I almost couldn't stopped giving him thanks. It worked like a charm from the very beginning with each of the video cards, however I quickly decided that I'd be happier with the 7800 GTX. 😉 I also added a Samsung 1 GB DDR PC2700 because Windows 7 was a little slowly at times, but after that it was lightning-fast. I was so exciting to do video editing and all the wonderful things I'd always dreamed of. Unfortunately, it turned out that my younger brother would use our new wonder-machine most of the time for his gaming experience. But that was OK as our family uses to share everything, which I absolutely agree with. However, one morning my brother approached me because the system wouldn't boot anymore. As a matter of routine I firstly checked if everything was connected correctly. Nothing was touched and when I heard no beep and got only a black screen, I quickly concluded that we had some serious problems. All fans and drives were running and the mainboard LED was on.

Well, too make a long story short, I already did virtually everything I could in order to determine which part causes the error and it can't be anything of the hardware components except for the mainboard and CPU of course. Stupidly, I only afterwards noticed that the chip fan wasn't spinning. I made sure that it's properly connected to the power pins and tried to clean it a bit with a tiny screwdriver, yet it still wouldn't move at all. Well, I'm a bit confused now to say the least.

Shouldn't the system boot even without a chip fan? My worry is that the chip fan stopped working while the system was in use every day without anyone taking notice and as a result, the northbridge were overheated and the board got fried. With all that gaming (NBA 2K11) almost every day nonstop for several hours, I could imagine that it possibly could have happened that way.

So what do you think? Is it worth buying a new chip fan set or is it more likely that my cherished mainboard is toast? And can a chip fan stop working without getting any onscreen message?

How come that so often in life, all of a sudden you get the privilige to taste true loveliness and just as quick it is taken away from you?

 

[pacmanandre]

If the computer was working fine all along and suddenly stops working, probably something got fried. But I would try removing the CPU, ram, battery and putting them all back in as well as resetting the CMOS and then see what happens. If nothing happens afterwards, then you might have t get a new chipset and motherboard but lets wait and see what others might have to say about the problem.

 

[Brother_Hood]

Thank you very much for your response (this forum is very fast regarding response time btw).

I have to apologize, I should have pointed out what I already tried in detail:

- Removed the CPU, the system wouldn't even start anymore.

- Removed the RAM completely, no beep, no post, no nothing. Installed different 100% working RAMs seperately in DIMM B1 (as adviced in the manual), still no change.

- Removed the battery for several minutes and of course resetted the CMOS multiple times.

I also googled many hours but after getting the impression that I tried everything that's been suggested, I decided the only chance I have left is ask somebody personally. Unfortunately, I do not know quite many computer specialists (let alone I have the money to pay one), so I headed here.

 

[hpdeskjet]

It's also possible your PSU died.

 

[Brother_Hood]

Forgot to mention that, too. Well, I assumed that my statement

[...]I already did virtually everything I could in order to determine which part causes the error and it can't be anything of the hardware components except for the mainboard and CPU[...]

would imply that I did all the routine stuff, like checking every hardware component by replacing it with an equivalent one. By doing this I ruled out every part except for the mainboard and CPU. I did test another PSU I have (also a gracious gift from a friend), it's a 480W Advance. Although its voltage is slightly less than the original FSP, I think it should also be able to do the job. It has ATX12V 4-pin and a 20-pin-4-pin combo main connector. A friend of mine is running a way better system also with below 500W.

But what I'm still most curious about is why the chip fan stopped spinning and if that's the reason for the system boot to fail.

Thanks for your answers anyway.

 

[jitpublisher]

The chipset fan not running provides nothing conclusive in its self, it may not have worked for quite some time, you just never noticed it. If so, over time the added heat might have caused damage to chipset. Processors very, very seldom go bad. Would be very unusual. However, motherboards can and do sometimes just up and quit one day for no apparent reason. If you have ruled out all other possibilities, it very well could be the board its self has a problem.
PS, I thought there would have been some type of warning n the BIOS if the fan had stopped working though.

 

[Brother_Hood]

Well, I didn't see no warning but as I said before it wasn't me sittin' in front of the screen most of the time. Now that you confirmed that my theory about an overheat damage due to the not working chipfan is reasonable, I'm afraid that's pretty much what happened. Therefore I thought it wouldn't be worth to buy a new chipfan, so I was looking for a replacement board and eventually looked up at an online-auction website where I found a used but well-conditioned A8N5X, which has almost the same specifications (minus the SLI support). Thankfully I was able to negotiate a good price and I'm currently awaiting the delivery. Hopefully, everything will be fine again then.

Thanks a bunch for your many answers thus far. Of course I will give feedback as soon as I will have installed the new board.