Cooling Fan Not Working

[Sean B. Veteran]

Last month I noticed my cooling fan on the back of my chassis was barely spinning, finally ordered a new one and installed it today. It’s still barely spinning. When I first boot, it runs full blast as it should but then stops after 15 or 20 seconds. I downloaded Speedfan to attempt to manually control it manually but I’m assuming the Dell BIOS is preventing that. It would spin full blast at 70% for 10 seconds and then stop fully even when the setting was set to 70%. So I uninstalled Speedfan, and now it’s not running at all. I noticed that Speedfan’s files were still in ProgramFiles(86X) and the Speedfan icon was still on the start bar, and when I launch it it still opens but is only detecting my GPU fan now. I’m thinking Speedfan is the culprit all along. Thoughts? 

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

There should be an option for that in BIOS. I dunno how cracked down it is, but. There should be an option to set the fan speed.

 

What Dell brand do you have?

[Sean B. Veteran]

13 hours ago, Mindovermaster said:

There should be an option for that in BIOS. I dunno how cracked down it is, but. There should be an option to set the fan speed.

 

What Dell brand do you have?

No option in the BIOS unfortunately. It’s a Dell Inspiron 3656. I’ve checked for a BIOS update, have the latest installed. Double checked the BIOS for an option and there’s nothing.

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

Some fans, on different devices, DO stop spinning when under a light load. GFX cards usually do that. Only speeds up during a game or something intense.

 

I know some motherboards do this also. But by your description, that doesn't seem to be the answer.

 

Is the fan, old or new, have PWM, at all? Those are normally 4-pin, where normal fans are 3-pin.

[Sean B. Veteran]

22 hours ago, Mindovermaster said:

Some fans, on different devices, DO stop spinning when under a light load. GFX cards usually do that. Only speeds up during a game or something intense.

 

I know some motherboards do this also. But by your description, that doesn't seem to be the answer.

 

Is the fan, old or new, have PWM, at all? Those are normally 4-pin, where normal fans are 3-pin.

It’s a brand new fan, the old one started making a loud knocking noise so I replaced it when it began acting like I’ve described. It’s a 4-pin. 

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

Did the knocking noise stop after you replaced the new fan? Knocking noise could be anything in your case.

 

Looked up your manual, and you do have 4 pins for the chassis fan. Are you sure it is snuggly in? I know, it sounds stupid, but the littlest thing could have knocked it off.

[Tikimotel]

Could be the new fan draws too little power, so the Dell bios doesn't detect it as attached and cuts power to the header. (a typical Noctua fan draws about half the amps of the Dell OEM fan...)

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

41 minutes ago, Tikimotel said:

Could be the new fan draws too little power, so the Dell bios doesn't detect it as attached and cuts power to the header. (a typical Noctua fan draws about half the amps of the Dell OEM fan...)

I don't think that would be a problem. BUT in this case, it can be anything.