CPU Fan (and PC!) Not Working

Pashtari

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Aug 28, 2003
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18,510
Hi everyone,

I hope someone can help me. My computer has died. For some months it had been crashing and proving a pain to get going again. Sometimes it would boot and sometimes it wouldn't. Sometimes when it failed to boot you could hold down the power button and it would power down. Other times you could hold down the button forever but the only way it would power down would be to turn it off at the socket. Symptoms when it failed to boot included the memory check counting over and over, then it would finally move on until a 'Verifying DMA Pool Data' freeze occurred. These are some of the symptoms I can remember, but I hope they might give a clue as to the problem.

The latest position is that the computer has finally given up. There is a blank display, no 'beeps' and although the hard drive spins, nothing happens. One problem I found was that the CPU fan had siezed, so I've replaced it with a new one. Trouble is that the new fan (which I've confirmed on another PC to be OK) doesn't spin at all. Nor does it work if I try plugging it into another position on the motherboard. I've replaced the old power supply with a new 300W one, but still no improvement.

The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA - 5SMM and the CPU is an AMD 500 Mhz.

If the CPU has burned out, could it cause the symptoms I describe? Would it prevent the motherboard from 'beeping'?Or is the motherboard likely to be at fault, bearing in mind there is no power to the CPU fan. Or could the RAM cause these problems? I don't want to spend a fortune on unnecessary parts, so it would be useful if someone could point me in the right direction.

Many thanks,


John
 
First off ( this may not mean much) is this a Socket 7 Board (eg. K6-2, K6-3)? I notice you used the word "socket" so it probably wouldn't be a SlotA Athlon board unless your reffering to the "slot" as a "socket" by mistake.

Secondly, I think this is either a Power Supply issue or a cooling issue. Make sure that your Power supply cable is plugged into the motherboard. Also, You should check the part of your motherboard that has all of the "LED" connectors, switches, and PC speaker connectors. They will be thin twisted cables of 2 or more colors. Make sure that the one labled something like "Power SW" is plugged into the correct pins on the motherboard. ALso, if the motherboard isn't labeled, check your motherboard manual. If your cables are labeled on then you can check them all by tracing them all until you find the one that is connected to the Power switch on the case. If all is well here, then your power supply may have burned up, and just may need replacing. Instability issues can result by not enough power from the power supply. But I think there is a pretty good chance, that you never did have proper cooling. If that is the case, you probably need a new CPU, they should be no more than $30 for an older motherboard like this. Hopefully if it was a coolling issue it didn't take out the motherboard as well, but I doubt it would.

My OS features preemptive multitasking, a fully interactive command line, & support for 640K of RAM!
 
Many thanks for the advice. Rather than throw good money after bad I've decided to replace the motherboard & CPU.

Thanks again,

John