CPU fan on the Fritz

Kevinf63

I think my stock CPU fan for my AMD Phenom II x4 955 3.2GHZ (not overclocked) might be acting up. After applying it under pressure through a Everest Stress/stability Test, it came up as 100% CPU usage (well of course its a stress test) but the CPU fan read as running at speeds of More than 8000 RPM. I think thats either a serious miscalculation or a serious problem. Any ideas? All my games CTD after between 5 mins - 2 hours play with no explanation.

Solitaire

Either the CPU fan is dying or the heatsink is coming away from the CPU and not cooling it, resulting in abnormal temps and insane fan RPM as it tries to cool a CPU that is no longer in full contact with its heatsink! :eek:

And I'm pretty sure some models of those wee 60-70mm stock fans on things can max out near that speed at 100% load

Open the case and watch the fan while testing - if the fan stops, you have your culprit. Otherwise, reapply thermal paste and reseat cooler, then try again. Alternatively you could use this as an excuse to upgrade your cooler...

Kevinf63

Solitaire wrote: »

Either the CPU fan is dying or the heatsink is coming away from the CPU and not cooling it, resulting in abnormal temps and insane fan RPM as it tries to cool a CPU that is no longer in full contact with its heatsink! :eek:

And I'm pretty sure some models of those wee 60-70mm stock fans on things can max out near that speed at 100% load

Open the case and watch the fan while testing - if the fan stops, you have your culprit. Otherwise, reapply thermal paste and reseat cooler, then try again. Alternatively you could use this as an excuse to upgrade your cooler...

Let's hope! I'll test it for definite on Friday, as I don't have much time at the moment. I noticed that it idles at about 1300 in Bios and if you do anything even slightly intensive the RPM it goes to 3000 then if stressed it it sky rockets and literally goes off the charts!

On another program kinda like Speedfan called Sensorview, it shows sky rocketing RPM and CPU usage and temp now this is the scary part it says it's running at over 100 degrees! However Everest says 30-45. confusing??? I will get a new cooler If its the prob any ideas on thermal paste? (make/brand/good cheap stuff etc.) or is it all the same?

Kevinf63

Heres the result of a 15 mins (approx) stress test I did on Everest. Scary stuff! 37,000 RPM? surely not? Would I not hear it shake/explode at those speeds? :eek: This is getting beyond ridiculous! My favourite pic is the chart!

@Solitaire enlighten me....

Solitaire

37,000RPM??!?!? :eek:

Can I have a fan like yours? :pac:

On a more serious note, I think its new CPU cooler time, the fan control is borked and the cooler isn't cooling right if you're crashing!

Kevinf63

Solitaire wrote: »

37,000RPM??!?!? :eek:

Can I have a fan like yours? :pac:

You can take it! I insist! It's like the Bugatti Veyron of CPU fans...

Solitaire wrote: »

On a more serious note, I think its new CPU cooler time!

Any spare cash you can give me? :P I'm broke at the mo. Will a Hyper 212 plus and Arctic Silver 5 do the trick?

EDIT: If the fan controls are wrecked would that not affect The new fan as well? I'm really sketchy about this fan. I'll know for certain on Friday. So it's suppose to stop spinning under stress/gaming? I noticed a while back that sometimes when I place my hand over the roof fan I can feel very hot flowing out it while other times it will be cold. (during gameplay)

Solitaire

I'm talking about the PWM controller inside the fan, I sure as hell hope its not the fan controller on the mobo or its new mobo time! :eek:

If anything I'd get a bumper pack of gunk and a mate's known-good AM2/3 cooler and see if that goes mental too. If it does...

Kevinf63

Solitaire wrote: »

I'm talking about the PWM controller inside the fan, I sure as hell hope its not the fan controller on the mobo or its new mobo time! :eek:

I think I found the source of the problem. I had speedfan on the system a while ago, but I found it too complicated so I removed it... However it wasn't completely removed from the registry.

I then installed Everest and another program called Sensorview (like Speedfan) which I think then conflicted with each other. Competing for the same temp and fan speed results. This led to the erratic (30,000 RPM) chart readings. So I uninstalled all of the above. And after removing all those applications together, I rebooted used CCleaner to remove the old registry entries and other files (7 NSA passes).

Just to make sure it wasn't still going to act up, I flashed the BIOS. So that the Auto settings where not all screwed up from all the different fan configs. And I think I fixed it. After reinstalling Everest and doing a stress test it was now giving back normal readings along the lines of 3000-4000 RPM which seemed right to me! Thank god it wasn't the Mobo!

I'll be back next week to confirm for definite if its fixed for Good! Thanks for all the help Solitaire! :cool:

Solitaire

Just hope your temps are okay now, that's the important thing!

Kevinf63

Solitaire wrote: »

Just hope your temps are okay now, that's the important thing!

Hey I'm back just here to say that it's all okay apart from...

•GFX fan doesn't seem to cool that great as much now which is a bit depressing since it used to be brilliant (never over 60 degrees at 50-60% speed) considering it's a HD5850 . My card also once had a load spike one day for no reason. Fans went 90! Without games or anything just idle...?

•Every now and again my system will slow down To a snails pace, once again with no reason yet found for about 20 seconds and then it will go back to normal. I would really like to get to the bottom of this.

Besides that, everything else is great. 312 FPS average in Source games like HL2 and Counterstrike source etc. And an average of 70 FPS for Bad Company 2. I have it v-synced though cause I'm only seeing 60FPS of that anyway on my screen.

Any suggestions would be great thanks,

Kevin F.