None of my fans turn on!

[GraphicsDude]

Once upon a time, everything was working fine...

Then one day ALL my fans, (GPU and two chassis fans) just stopped.

My CPU is the only thing keeping cool because it has only a heatsink but the graphics card especially is blowing it's nut and the computer shuts down Very quickly.

All my fans are plugged directly into the PSU for power, even in BIOS and startup they don't move at all! But they used to start as soon as the computer was turned on

The last thing I was doing was trying various temperature monitoring programs (which were great when the fans all worked by the way.)
I installed the generic ASUS temperature monitor program that came with the motherboard, Speedfan, an evaluation version of Everest, and HWmonitor. Then I uninstalled Speedfan because they wanted money.

At some point during this I started getting the "Test Mode" thing in all the corners of my screen in windows. I tried removing them with a command "bcdedit /set testsigning off" I never found out if this worked because my fans all stopped working around this point and my system (specifically the graphics card) overheats in a matter of seconds.

I keep checking through the BIOS there's nothing there that should cause these problems.
I just need my fans to turn on!!

Help?

 

[Superhal]

probably the motherboard or psu went bad, but if it's a bad setting, try:

1. clearing cmos
2. using a boot disk.

 

[GraphicsDude]

Thanks, is clearing the cmos the same as resetting the BIOS defaults? because I did that.

Importantly I did find that the same 4 pinned power sockets typically used for hard drives etc, work fine on the fans. Is using them likely to cause a problem? None of my fans need speed control or anything...

The proper fan power cables don't provide power even before startup, would that mean it's definitely the PSU?
If so does anyone know if that's fixable or if a new PSU's in order?
What could cause this?

[My PSU is a "Be Quiet!" um... 700W I think]

 

[Conumdrum]

IF the fans are still connected directly to the PSU, disconnect the fans and plug them in one at a time. You might have a bad molex connector. Also, any other molex connectors from the PSU you can try?

And why would you even run the PC if none of the case fans come on for more than enought time to test it?

How old is the PSU? What PSU is it?

 

[bilbat]

If you have a system backup point somewhere BEFORE installing the fan & temp s'ware tests, revert your system to it. If not - unfortunately, you just learned an invaluable lesson about setting restore points BEFORE testing system-level programs.

My guess is something you tried, or some combination thereof, installed something (dll, system component, who knows?) that is conflicting and/or hijacking your BIOS' control of your fans. It simply seems awfully suspicious (to quote the great Yogi Berra: "That's too coincidental to be a coincidence!") that all your fans went away at the same time, unless they use a common regulator, and it's blown...

One thing you might try is installing QuickStartup [ http://www.glarysoft.com/quick-startup/ ] and seeing if you can disable anything that looks to be a component that you tested. You can do this from a couple places in windoze, too, w/o the program, but it's not as easy.

Good luck...

 

[V3NOM]

err "Be Quiet" sounds like some chinese brand i wouldn't be surprised if one of the rails just blew and that rail had the fans and graphics on it... now before somene says "if the rail providing power to hte graphics card is out, the graphics card wouldn't work" however thisi s not correct, the pci e or agp slot provides a limited amount of power... i would try with a different power supply and see if it works then.

 

[Superhal]

The proper fan power cables don't provide power even before startup, would that mean it's definitely the PSU?
If so does anyone know if that's fixable or if a new PSU's in order?
What could cause this?

i'm going to have to say motherboard on this. for everything else to work except the fans is too specific to be psu. when the psu goes bad, usually nothing works.

Why a motherboard goes bad, i dunno. it could be that it was overloaded, dust, or faulty construction. my last mobo went bad a part at a time. first the lower pci, then the next pci, then the next pci. the usb ports went out one by one. when the AGP slot went out, i just threw it out.

motherboard repair is very difficult, usually involving solder, electrical spec charts, and voltage testers. i would just go for an upgrade, as the risk of making it worse is too high.

 

[V3NOM]

well i figured since most power supplies have multiple 12v rails, that one of the rails supplies power ONLY to the FANS not to the OTHER COMPONENTS.

 

[GraphicsDude]

Thanks guys for all the feedback, here's a link to the psu I've got, it certainly doesn't LOOK cheap or poor quality but I've got to admit I wouldn't know how to tell...
http://www.be-quiet.net/be-quiet.net/index.php?StoryID=214

My motherboard is a brand new ASUS Striker II Formula (nForce 780i) and the psu is under a year old, so I really hope it's something software related.

I've checked all my connections one by one with different fans, and restored my computer to the point I created before all this, to no avail. So I'm going to try Bilbat's suggestions in the hope it's not hardware.

If it is the psu hardware, I'll just keep using the non-fan 'molex' sockets from my psu.
If it's the motherboard breaking down in sections like Superhal's I'll wait till something else goes.

 

[bilbat]

Can't even count the number of times I've run into problems with incomplete uninstalls of software. One of the problems with the last few revisions of windoze is that every d*&%$d thing you install wants to run some piece of itself at startup, and, pretty soon, after booting, if you do a 'three finger salute' and look at the processes tab, you've got a hundred and twenty threads running, and only know what twenty of 'em DO! Then, you have umpteem programmers who don't really know how to use installshield, and an uninstall leaves behind a dozen directories, two dozen registry entries, and three dozen dll's. One real giveaway is the number of icons you have in the right side of the taskbar. I finally got down to three - sound control, remove hardware, and a utility I use to schedule my daily shut-down time. I don't NEED to have a 'stub' to change: my screen resolution, mouse settings, monitor color balance, etc., ad nauseam. I don't IM, so I don't WANT an icon telling me "I'm not logged into" messenger. I don't NEED ten apps monitoring their websites to tell me an upgrade is available, nor do I want a piece of Nero, QuickTime, iTunes, etc. hanging around, hoping I might run them...

This is a major, on-going problem - and requires contant vigilance. Each POC that runs not only hi-jacks the thread scheduler to take up time you'd RATHER have devoted to the app YOU"RE ACTUALLY RUNNING, but assigns itself a chunk of memory, some system resources, and so on, 'till the GHz you paid for is whittled away to a crawl...

The reason I suggest QuickStartup is that it looks in several places that you'd have to go and manually check to eliminate this garbage. It might not get EVERY BIT of the trash, but does allow you to efficiently get rid of the majority.

 

[iluvgillgill]

^ i dont think what you posted have ANYTHING related to the thread!

 

[GraphicsDude]

Well, perhaps nothing to do with it, but AMEN to the general point of it

And I Have now gone through my processes in task manager, used QuickStart and CCleaner (an awesome program by the way for getting rid some of the stuff bilbat mentioned,)
Does anyone know a good program for getting rid of, more specifically, the .dlls and system files that aren't used and might potentially be the culprits high-jacking my BIOS fan control?

Apologies in advance if it turns out all this is due to a blown circuit on my psu, but it's worth me checking one of those temperature/fan programs hasn't messed with my pooter.

 

[bilbat]

You might try:

www.gregorybraun.com/DLLShow.html

or:

www.freedownloadsplace.com/Products/15931/Process-Explorer

to get info on who belongs to what dll...

The point of my last post was not to simply rant, but to amplify what I said in my previous post; if you've been installing/testing s'ware that can grab system level control of h'ware, like memset, speedfan, video card 'tuners', & the like, and, suddenly, control of the item goes away - the two MAY BE related.

Say we run a program that stores a number of parameters that set some registers to control x, y, &z, in a registry key. Then, we do a semi-uninstall, and it deletes that registry key, but FAILS to delete its program directory, and the entry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
that starts it up at boot time. If its a well-written, well-behaved program, it 'sees' the missing registry key, gives us a nice error message, and summarily exits. However, if not, maybeeee - it writes a zero to every register it's made to control - who knows?

That's the point of my rant - these days - with everyone trying to get a piece of that start-up action - who knows???

 

[V3NOM]

^get a registry cleaner and stop crying then...

 

[GraphicsDude]

I've well and truely gone through my registry and miscellanious files, to no avail.
I completely agree with bilbat, that it should NOT be the responsibility of users to clean up the mess programmers leave behind on their systems.

But on this occasion it looks like it's almost certainly a blown rail in my psu. Since the fans and everything else are working fine using other (HDD) molex connectors, I think I'll just leave it as is... until the next thing blows up.

Thanks to everybody for their advice

 

[V3NOM]

get a program from auslogics or something that cleans the registry for you..