Antec 900 fans stopped working?

[omermaras]

hi folks,

I built my first PC from scratch, and even managed to put everything into my Antec 900 case, and all was fine for months. But after I have left it at the service for some (memory) problem, I saw that the 200 mm and the upper 120 mm fan are not working. I realized this when I tried to play games on it, and the sound of the front bottom fan (the only one of the 2 front and 1 upper fans that is working at the moment) became louder and louder with every second, and I got scared to burn up something and rebooted and cannot play many of my games.

What could be the cause of the single fan "speeding up"?? Should/can I put the other fans into action? How? What could be wrong? Any cables I have to reconnect/check??

Help please!!! I'm quite novice in the cables of the pc!!

O.M.

 

[englandr753]

You need to go through and recheck all of your wiring. It sounds like something has come unplugged as far as the fans that aren't running now. What kind of power supply did you installed on your pc?

If you used a low grade psu that could single handedly be the problem for the speed up issue.

Give a total list of your components as well. Someone may recognize the motherboard and went through the same issue...

 

[omermaras]

thanks a lot. you were right - the cables were disconnected.

now it's ok, but the real problem which pointed me to check the fans was actually - when I start some of my games, a fan (I couldn't find out which, but I think it is NOT the front or upper fans, but either the cpu or back fan) speeds up and gets louder and louder (just like the revving up of fighter planes) and I get scared and quit the game. What could be the cause for this and how could I solve it?

 

[UnworthyBean]

You should leave your fans as they are, When you start a game your CPU will be under load and the fan will kick in just to keep it nice and cool.

If you really want to stop it, Then you'll have to change it in your bios, But I would leave it just to keep your components cool.

 

[omermaras]

oh! so there is no problem!! good to know that.
however, I'm not so sure, but I seem to remember that it was much much quieter when I played games last year (I had a pause of 14 months or so when I didn't touch any game, due to business). That's actually also the reason why I realized the noise this time (because in the past there was none).
I'm using the default settings of my bios, by the way

 

[jsc]

You should leave your fans as they are, ...

No.

Unless the OP has some kind of fan controller, he has a problem. Antec 900 fans have a drive style molex connector with only the ground and 12 volt lines wired on them. Each fan has a three position switch (LOW, MED, and HIGH) for speed control. So they are supposed to run at a constant speed.

The only thermostatically controlled fan is normally the CPU fan. Pop the side off the case and you will be able to tell. Use CoreTemp to check out your system temps. If the system used to be pretty quiet and it no longer is, you have developed a cooling problem

 

[omermaras]

jsc: thanks, man! I wasn't at ease with letting things as they are, because something kept nagging..
so what do you suggest how to solve this?? keep coretemp running with "enable overtemperature protection" to switch the pc automatic off, and start any of the "noisy" games, to see if the CPU fan is the culprit?
and if so, what should I do? change my Intel CPU fan?? (I checked it yesterday and cleaned the dust on it, but the noise still continued after that. the grey stuff under the fan is almost gone, though - should there be still some of it? is this what cools the CPU??)

what to do to get things back to normal??

 

[englandr753]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100007



Remove the heatsink and thoroughly clean the surface of the cpu and the base of the heatsink and reapply an thin even layer of thermal paste. If you have removed the heatsink before you should have reapplied the thermal paste then. You can't expect the thermal paste to reseat itself without a new application of thermal paste especially if its hard and set from prior use.

 

[omermaras]

i see. and i will try, but something else before that - my GPU temp is also quite high:

http://www.imagebam.com/image/f7c66747178320

and with game on

http://www.imagebam.com/image/f0742947182686

could there be any other reason??

 

[englandr753]

Your cpu is in the failure zone tempurature wise. At least don't game right now until you get the thermal paste and reapply. Your GPU is a bit high too.

You may be able to use precision tool to increase your gpu fan to 100%:

http://www.evga.com/PRecision/

What case do you have and how many fans? I think you have some cooling issues with your case.

What brand and what model of power supply do you have?

You definitely have some issues here so give us your complete hardware configuration and the case you are using and the number of fans installed and their location in the case...

 

[englandr753]

Ok, I overlooked your title to your post. Do you have a case full of fans? The antec 900 is not a case that has airflow issues if you have all the fans on. Use the low/med/ high settings on your fans to crank them up to high for now until you get a grip on the thermal paste issue.

 

[omermaras]

I'm a translator vocationally, and didn't play any game on this PC for about 14 months (had some ongoing translation projects all the time), and a couple of months ago, a seagate 1 TB HDD had some issues, so it went to service and back. and i left the case with all intestines at a local pc repair shop, where they actually found out about this malfunctioning HDD (i had a blue screen problem, and thought it RAM-related).
anyway, we unplugged the top 200mm fan and the upper front 120mm fan, so i'm working with front bottom fan and rear fan at low. bottom front fan is in front of my 3 internal HDDs.
I realized that I cannot set my asus maximus formula bios setting to its preset "crazy" (6800) overclock setting - it doesn't boot with this setting anymore, while when I assembled the pc last year, I've been running it nonstop (day and night) at crazy for a whole year maybe...
anyway, so you say i should run it with all 4 fans working (which I'm doing now - i plugged the top and upper front fans again, but all are at low for the time being - i like it quiet).
you think this cooling problem can be resolved with reapplying thermal paste on CPU and GPU?? but isn't my temp too high anyway for any thermal paste (decreasing max. 3-5 degrees, i heard??) in any case?? if you recommend applying thermal paste, what would you recommend (I'm not dexterious enough to dare apply some, but I'll give it a shot nevertheless, I think)

 

[englandr753]

The GPU is quite hot as well and could be from low airflow in your case. Get all of you fans running and bump the speed up if necessary.

Only put the thermal paste on your cpu. I think once you increase the airflow your gpu will be fine too. As I stated before with the link above in my previous post download precision tools to increase the speed of the fan on your gpu.

The thermal paste will decrease the temp much more than 3-5 degrees when you have a cooling issue like you do. The 3-4 degree drop is when you have no issues and use a better thermal paste. This should help a lot...