# System fan failure error



## citizensoldier7 (Mar 31, 2007)

Hi all. Sorry if this is in the wrong section.

I have one of the Compaq sr1950nx machines. Windows XP media center, AMD athalon 9800 2.4 ghz 1024 RAM that Ive owned for about 6 mo's now. Recently, upon startup, but NOT every time, I've been recieving a "Warning: the system fan has failed. have system serviced or press f2 to continue" So a person a little more knowedgable suggested that this might in fact be the CPU fan failing and if so to replace it or the CPU will go boom. She advised me to remove the side panel and to verify if this was the case. Well the cpu fan that sits on a big heatsink was spinning just fine as were the PSU fan and case fan. I checked the CPU temp in BIOS and it was normal (125-130 f). Of course the machine wasn't being taxed too hard at the time so who knows and on that particular start up the WARNING message did not come through. Any ideas? :4-dontkno 

JP


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## speedster123 (Oct 18, 2006)

Leave the side off and check if it happens again. In your bios, is there anything that resembles a "cool and quite" option? Any fan controls?


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## citizensoldier7 (Mar 31, 2007)

I didnt see any. I will have to take a look again when I get home from the salt mine. It just gave rpm and temp. Loose wire?


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## citizensoldier7 (Mar 31, 2007)

Sorry bout the delay.

So anyway, I keep getting the system fan failure message but all fans are running and it doesn't happen apon every startup. The cpu temps seem to be in the normal range (125-135). There is no quiet and cool option that I can see in the BIOS. :4-dontkno


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## Tumbleweed36 (May 14, 2005)

Have you blown all the dust bunnies out of all the fans and the heatsink?


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## justpassingby (Mar 11, 2007)

Yep, a can of compressed air could do you good.
Also while the computer is off and the power plug removed, try unplugging and replugging the fan power cable to the motherboard.


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## citizensoldier7 (Mar 31, 2007)

Thanks, I'll get me some of that air in a can stuff. And as far as messing with the power plug for the fan, Is this the cpu, case or psu fan? The warning specifically mentions the "system fan". Or does that matter? Also do I have to disconnect the power or can I do it plugged in while standing in a bucket of water? :laugh: 

JP


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## Tumbleweed36 (May 14, 2005)

You need to follow the good advice that justpassingby gave you. Turn it off, unplug it, ground yourself to the case, and then work on it.


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## justpassingby (Mar 11, 2007)

As Tumbleweed36 said, the safe advice is to ground yourself to the case, which means that once you have unpluged the power cable (that's step 1), you should touch a metal part of the computer case to discharge any static electricity you could have. Other solution is to buy a grounding strap, but I don't believe you'll find one in the local computer shop at the street corner.

If you have more than one fan in your case, try to unplug and replug all of them (don't switch the plugs, just replug them where they were plugged. you said it was working fine for 6 months, right ?). Don't touch the PSU fan if it has no external power cable nor try to open your PSU, those things have enough power to kill you. Other fan power cables won't harm you :grin:


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## mike13094 (May 17, 2007)

I noticed this thread as I was surfing for a solution for an HP mediacenter PC, when I saw your problem. I registered to help you because I figured its time to help someone else for a change I had the same thing happen, It's simple. You need to connect a 3 pin chassi fan(no specific fan just a 3 prong 90mm fan):wave: to the motherboard which is just to the right side of the cpu fan power supply. Thats it man, Good luck and I'm about 95% sure thats your problem. If not then your original fan that was filling that spot is dead or disconnected. Sorry for the bad grammer guys, but I'm in a hurry. See ya later


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## citizensoldier7 (Mar 31, 2007)

Well I've done everything suggested here and still get the error. Ive even done the dance with HP tech support and they just told me to reset the default settings in BIOS which didnt do anything. Just to make myself understand soemthing here, what exactly is the SYSTEM fan? There are three in the case. One on the CPU, one on the case and the PSU's fan all of which work. well they spin anyway. Maybe Ill disconnect the case fan and start it up just to see what happens. Ive ordered a new PSU for the machine so I can install a GPU. Maybe its the PSU fan?


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## justpassingby (Mar 11, 2007)

The system fan is the fan that's hooked to the sys_fan power plug on the motherboard (mobo layout graph inside). Usually it's just a case fan. It's not the PSU fan.

I suppose it's the case fan that's hooked there. Try to unplug/replug it and see what happens. Maybe it's the fan speed sensor that's damaged but if this is a case fan then it's no big deal. You can see whether it's spinning or not and even if it stops spinning that won't make the computer crash.

edit : Here are the hardware specs and support center for the SR1950NX.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

I've got a fan on my dell's mobo fan header with a fanmate 2 on it and at boot it reports a fan failure but the fan runs fine. I think it's a descrepancy factor between the wattage the mobo header is putting out and the signal the tach wire is giving back. in otherwords, if it's putting out 18 watts, it's expecting a 2500 RPM tach signal back, not a 0 RPM or 1000 RPM signal, which it is getting. So i'd say in your case it's probably a sensor/tach wire issue.


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## citizensoldier7 (Mar 31, 2007)

Wow, thanks guys.


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## tmorris8445 (Apr 14, 2010)

justpassingby said:


> Yep, a can of compressed air could do you good.
> Also while the computer is off and the power plug removed, try unplugging and replugging the fan power cable to the motherboard.


I am having the same problem, except mine occurs every time. I tried unplugging from the mother board. That works for the next boot then problem returns.


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## justpassingby (Mar 11, 2007)

@ tmorris8445 : Hello, and welcome to TSF !

This thread is nearly 3 years old, let's not revive it. Please start a new thread here :
http://www.techsupportforum.com/f15/

Mention the brand and model of your computer, the history of the problem (when did it start, what's the last thing you did with the computer) and the exact error message.


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