[redsniper]

So yeah, last night I woke up to this strange noise. It turned out to be that Windows 'donk' noise playing over and over again, which is the alarm for Asusprob (my mobo's temperature/fan/voltage monitoring software).

In a daze I went over to my computer and noticed that the power supply fan wasn't spinning, or at least wasn't being detected by asusprob. Too sleepy to deal with it at the time, I turned my computer off.

Now I've turned it back on and there are two strange things. One, my GPU fan is running constantly. I know because it's quite noisy and usually doesn't spin, only under intense games and such will it start spinning. A few minutes ago it was spinning faster then slower back and forth, it sounded like a car engine revving. Two, the speed of the PSU fan as reported by asusprob seems to be changing as the sound of the GPU fan changes. Now, I'm pretty sure I didn't plug the GPU fan into the PSU monitoring plug since it would have read zero most of the time up until now.

I have a 430W PSU. Could it be that it can't keep up with the demands of my system when the GPU fan is spinning? The only thing I can think of that would make the GPU fan spin more often is that I changed the drivers recently in an attempt to get Far Cry working. Specs are: Asus A8N-E, Athlon 64 3000, 1GB PC3200, Radeon X1900 (some letters follow, XT I think). Should I just err on the side of caution and get a new power supply?

[vyper]

You may need moar powar(!). I'm at about half the speed of that entire system and I'm running a 450W supply.

[Hippo]

I have a desk fan pointed at mine because the gpu cooling ability is naught.

[castor]

Maybe the PSU fan semi-broke, excess heat now causing the GPU fan to "pump"?

[redsniper]

CPU and mobo temperatures don't seem any hotter than usual. If I decide to get a new PSU do you think a 550W Truepower II would be good? Or should I get even more than that?

[ZmaN]

550 seems good, sicne tahts an antec PSU (IIRC).

[redsniper]

Alright, what's the difference between a truepower II and a truepower trio? It looks like the trio has 3 12v rails and I guess the TP II has 2 (logic FTW). I'll go look at some reviews, see if there are any horror stories and such, but I'd like to hear whatever input you guys have too.

[CP5670]

That sounds like a particularly unstable 12V line, which is what all the fans (among other things) use. Check the voltage readings in ASUS Probe. They aren't very accurate but may give some idea of what's going on. What brand is that power supply? It sounds like you need to replace it.

CPU and mobo temperatures don't seem any hotter than usual. If I decide to get a new PSU do you think a 550W Truepower II would be good? Or should I get even more than that?

Well, the Antec brand is questionable these days. Any of the 500W or higher Enhance units on ewiz are known to be good and are unbeatable for their prices.

For reference, I have a similar but somewhat more powerful system and the actual power draw of the components is only about 230W on full load, so you may have a defective or low quality power supply rather than a weak one.

[redsniper]

Well, my current PSU is a Truepower II 430W and it hasn't caused trouble in the 13 months that I've used it. Just to be clear, this is the fan built in to the PSU itself, not connected to one of the Molex plugs. Also, the voltages look rock solid in asus probe.

Here's a picture just for the heck of it:

[redsniper]

eh, nevermind. What asus probe calls power fan is really the chipset fan. It had a loose screw so the revving noise was that fan not the GPU fan. I tightened it up with an improvised screwdriver my roommate made from the lid to a root beer bottle and now it neither makes annoying noises nor changes speed erratically.

[Dark RevenantX]

When I looked at your thread title, I thought the thread was about crazed computer nerds.

[Sandwich]

I think my brother gets the prize for weird computer fan behavior. He turned his computer on one day and heard absolutely nothing. Then the screen lit up, and the computer passed POST and began booting into Windows. All to the tune of absolute silence (except for HDD chatter).

Now, this was more than slightly bizarre because he has a fan for his CPU, a number of case fans, a GPU fan, and the PSU fan, all of which usually spin constantly. This time, none of them were spinning at all. And it's not like they were all connected to the same controller, either - the GPU fan is independent, the case fans are connected to the PSU's power lines (the same ones that were powering the perfectly-operating HDD, I might add), the PSU fan was controlled by its own internal thingy, and the CPU fan was controlled by the motherboard.

None of which were spinning, yet the computer was working perfectly.

Obviously, we didn't leave it on like that for long, so as not to burn out the CPU. But still... bizarre.

[ZmaN]

dang it thats so awesome!

[Descenterace]

* Descenterace switches all his fans off, just for the hell of it.

Mmmm... nope, CPU still at room temperature. 

[Gortef]

When I looked at your thread title, I thought the thread was about crazed computer nerds.

It was the same here

Good to hear that your fan problem was solved though

[Colonol Dekker]

When I looked at your thread title, I thought the thread was about crazed computer nerds.

Same here, but to solve your problem, first get your base unit, then fill a bath with water..............