Dell 960 Cpu fan permanently at max speed?

[airborne]

When the pc starts up there is a stop error. "Alert! Cpu fan fail" or something of that sort. The Cpu fan runs at normal speed at that point, you press F1 to ignore the error and as the computer boots into windows the fan speed starts climbing and then stays at max speed for as long as you use the computer/until the computer is shutdown again. The computer is otherwise fine.

Blew out all the dust, wasn't much and that didn't help. What could the problem be, there is a heat sensor in the front of the case in the pathway the cpu fan blows but the error is for the fan not the sensor?

Pc is a older core2duo Dell 960 mini tower. Any tips to troubleshoot this?

 

[Rickster]

Im guessing the thermal paste isnt efficient anymore therefore the temps are high. Then its telling the PC to raise the fan speed in effort to cool it.

What are the CPU temps?

 

[airborne]

Im guessing the thermal paste isnt efficient anymore therefore the temps are high. Then its telling the PC to raise the fan speed in effort to cool it.

What are the CPU temps?

Highly doubt that, the bios error wouldn't have been cpu fan failure in that case, it would just run very hot(which it doesn't appear to be doing)

 

[ariz04]

Lol...love reading some of the "solutions" to this issue

I'm not an expert on this either, but it is either the on board thermometer is messed up or that your fan is not connected correctly or both.

That fan running at max speed is just a fail safe mechanism coz your motherboard is either not reading the temps or it not "seeing" the fan connected while supplying power to it.

Check if the fan is connected correctly and see if you have another 3/4 pin slot on your motherboard that you can test the fan out on.

 

[CataclysmZA]

Pc is a older core2duo Dell 960 mini tower. Any tips to troubleshoot this?

Replace the fan. It'll save you a couple of hours of frustration. Sleeve bearing fans tend to last no longer than three years or so before they start having some serious issues.

Also, take a video the next time you boot up and freeze on the frame that displays the error. It may be that you actually see an "Overclocking fail! Press F1 to resort to defaults." error, in which case your CMOS battery probably needs to be replaced as well.