Question Fan in my Asrock Z77 Pro3 is stalling, fan or motherboard issue?

[Rodion15]

The CPU fan in my desktop began artifacting. Every few minutes it stalls to 0RPM. It stalls for a split, then spikes to 3349RPM for 4 seconds or so then goes normal speed for a few minutes or so (sort of random: can be normal for 1 minute or 40 minutes or 10 minutes), see picture.

I tried cleaning the fan to no avail, as the fan+heatsink assembly was 5 years old, I replaced it. Now the fan is not spiking but it's stuck at high speed all the time, 3034RPM avg...between 2980 and 3089 RPM.

I made sure to clean the cpu surface properly with ISO alcohol (these fan+heatsink pack come with its own thermal pads so you don't need to apply any paste yourself)

So either the new fan isn't good or the motherboad is faulty. The motherboard is 9 years old but is a nice one.

I'd appreciate any opinions.

Motherboard: Asrock Z77 Pro3 M
Intel Core i5 3450 (socket LGA 1150)

https://imgur.com/tzJlHqH

View: https://i.imgur.com/tzJlHqH.png

 

[Lutfij]

I made sure to clean the cpu surface properly with ISO alcohol (these fan+heatsink pack come with its own thermal pads so you don't need to apply any paste yourself)
What cooler did you replace the stock cooler with?

What BIOS version are you on for your motherboard?

 

[Rodion15]

I made sure to clean the cpu surface properly with ISO alcohol (these fan+heatsink pack come with its own thermal pads so you don't need to apply any paste yourself)
What cooler did you replace the stock cooler with?

What BIOS version are you on for your motherboard?

New fan Intel i3/i5/i7 LGA115x CPU Heatsink and Fan E97379-003
Old fan Intel E97378-001

the new fan I got from amazon and was part of a CPU+fan (the box is a CPU box that had been opened and put sticker on).

BIOS P2.10, 12/07/2013
SMBIOS Version 2.7
..not sure what's the difference between BIOS and SMBIOS?

Seems to be OK according to Asrock site:

ASRock > Z77 Pro3

100% All Solid Capacitor Design; Digi Power Design; Supports Dual Channel DDR3 2800+(OC); 1 PCIe 3.0 x16, Supports AMD Quad CrossFireX™ and CrossFireX™; PCIE Gigabit LAN; Supports Intel HD Graphics with Built-in Visuals; Graphics Output Options : D-Sub, HDMI; Combo Cooler Option (C.C.O.); 7.1 CH...

www.asrock.com

Thank you

 

[Lutfij]

See if you're able to flash to BIOS version 2.20, and that alleviates the issue. Once you've verified that the BIOS has been successfully updated, clear the CMOS and then try and power up the system.

Just for the sake of relevance, can you elaborate on this:
The CPU fan in my desktop began artifacting
fans don't artifact, displays do.

 

[Rodion15]

See if you're able to flash to BIOS version 2.20, and that alleviates the issue. Once you've verified that the BIOS has been successfully updated, clear the CMOS and then try and power up the system.

Just for the sake of relevance, can you elaborate on this:
The CPU fan in my desktop began artifacting
fans don't artifact, displays do.

No change. I flashed the bios to 2.20 > started the PC > shut down > cleared CMOS with the jumper.

My doubt is if the new fan may be faulty? as it's doing something different: the old one was stalling then spiking to 3349RPM then using normal RPM most of the time; this one is stuck at 3034RPM. I guess I won't be able to return the heatsink+fan as the thermal pads got messed up. So I'll get a new motherboard.

Good troubleshooting though.