Case fan doing some funny business...

Shredergenetix

Honorable
Nov 12, 2013
10
0
10,510
Hello all, this is my first post here on toms hardware but have been referring to this site for a very long time, now its my turn to ask help for a problem I cant figure out.

So basically I recently built a new computer in late June everything was great. Recently however the top case fan of my cooler master haf x 942 does this strange thing when it likes to click, upon observation the best way to describe what happens is it seems that the fan stops, turns in reverse (I may be wrong thats just by looking through the grill at the top) then proceeds to turn in full at the correct direction. I have no idea whats causing this to occur. I notice it mostly on light work on my computer; browsing, youtube etc... It does not happen under load when I am playing a game for example.

I Have a total of 6 system fans, the Front, Side, Rear, and Top fans that come with the case, and two fans on the h100i. I am using a push/pull with the h100i and top fan for the best ventilation, is it possible that the fan is for example going idle, and the h100i fans cause it to spin in the wrong direction? I have read a bit that when a fan clicks it could be the mobo giving it the voltage it needs to start up could it be that? There is nothing around the fan for it to be hitting such as a wire, and none of the other fans do it.

Full Specs are as follows
Case: CoolerMaster Haf X
Motherboard: ASUS 97 Deluxe
Processor: Intel Core i7 4770k @ 4.5 Ghz
Cooler: Corsiar H100i
PSU: Corsiar HX1050
RAM: G.Skill 16gb 2133mhz DDR3
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 @ 1050/1600
Hard Disk: Seagate 1.5tb HDD, 1.0 TB HDD & 240gb intel 320 SSD
 
Solution
What you are seeing is an optical illusion. It's most frequently observed on car rims at speed. If you change speeds, you can see the rim pattern either go forwards, stand still or even backwards. Your fan is changing speeds. If the fan is pwm, there can and often will be 'clicking' as that's the on/off way a pulse modulated fan works. If the fan is 3-pin analog type, its starting to fail, the bearings are shot/dried out

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
What you are seeing is an optical illusion. It's most frequently observed on car rims at speed. If you change speeds, you can see the rim pattern either go forwards, stand still or even backwards. Your fan is changing speeds. If the fan is pwm, there can and often will be 'clicking' as that's the on/off way a pulse modulated fan works. If the fan is 3-pin analog type, its starting to fail, the bearings are shot/dried out
 
Solution

Shredergenetix

Honorable
Nov 12, 2013
10
0
10,510
How can I tell the difference between a pwm fan and a 3-pin analog?

EDIT: a quick google search tells me that a pwm fan is a 4 pin connector which this fan is, so it is just clicking for voltage changes, thank you for the speedy reply