Firstly I shall say that I'm using an Antec TruePower 430W PSU. Just the other day I noticed that all my case fans (all connected to fan-only connectors btw) had stopped spinning (in the middle of a game of UT2004 no less!) and the monitor program I use (Asus Probe) was reporting that the power fan was running at about 15 thousand RPM! After a reboot I noticed that the reading fluctuated between 0 and 15000 RPM. The BIOS reported the same results as well. After opening my case I actually realised that one case fan was spinning, but was spinning very slowly (it's a different make to all the rest, so I guess it takes less power to get it to actually turn). I also get frequent pauses on the POST screen and when entering the BIOS. I also get another pause when I try to go to the hardware monitoring section of the BIOS (I can see the power fan speed from this section). I've had the computer for about a year now and everything has worked fine mostly as it is for that time. Anyway after that little bit of background information for the problem I have atm, I'll get on to the electronics question. Are the sensors that detect the speed of the fan inside the PSU and the temperature sensor required for the fan-only connections related somehow? This would perhaps explain the problem I'm having and if so it would seem quite likely that this/these sensor(s) have failed in some way. Oh and not really a proper electronics question, but it will save me creating another thread if someone can answer this. Right I've just found this hidden away on Antec's website and it seems it could be related to why I'm having the problems I have now. The PSU has two such connectors and I have 2 fans connected to one and 3 to the other! Do you think this message means 3 fans max for each connector or 3 fans shared between the two connectors? Thanks.
3 fans total. It all get connected to the same plug on the front of the PSU. So it wouldnt matter if you have 6 connectors, only 3 fans. However you may be able to push that a bit with fans that dont use much current. I would say keep it below 750 mA total. The fan only line doesnt really run the fans fast enough in my system. My cpu temp dropped from over 60C to 45C when I hooked the 2 exhaust fans behind my CPU to a regular 12v instead of the fan only connector.
Yes I have tried that and I get the same results unfortunately. I guess 5 fans was pushing it a bit then! 4 of the fans are fairly powerful ones when run at full speed, but I'm not so sure about the other one (it came with my case). I'm not quite sure how much current they're all drawing, so I'm not too sure if it's below 750mA or not. From what I remember, 4 of the fans are YS-TECH 80mm (4 pin) ones. The specs I've found for them don't appear to have anything about how much current they draw, but maybe somebody can work out something from the rest. - Speed - 3000RPM - Output - 45.2CFM - Decibels - 34.5dBA Anyway I'll make sure to do something about this then when I get it all fixed. Yeah I had noticed that the fans don't really spin that fast. On a normal day my CPU runs at about 55°C max under load and although that may be a bit high I'm told the CPU I use runs fairly hot anyway (I have an A3500 64 processor with the stock cooler). Running all the fans at full speed only made a small difference to the CPU temp I found, but a fairly big difference to the case temp. Overall, I'd probably prefer a quieter pc than a noisy one with slightly lower temps. So does anyone have a clue on the question about the sensors inside the PSU that I asked in my original post?
Do all your fans have thermal control? If so, try some that are just straight 2-pin (power and ground). If anything else, just take it back to stock condition and work from there. If there were specific connectors for these fans on the motherboard, see if it has a voltage regulator somewhere close by, and try checking it's output if there is one.
From what I know none of the case fans have any built in thermal control at all. From that quote from Antec's website I posted in my original post, it seems that the two systems interfere, but I don't think that's the case here as my computer has worked fine as it is for a long while. Something like that I guess would cause some problems instantly. I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say take everything back to stock condition, but I've never modified any of my fans (or any components in my machine for that matter) so I guess everything is already at stock condition if that's what you mean. I don't think there's any options that could relate to this that I may have changed in the BIOS either, so I think that is all ok as well. There's nothing on the mobo that has anything to do with the fans I use (they all use 4 pin connectors). If you didn't already know the power supply itself regulates the fan speed to anything connected to the fan-only connectors. I guess it does this by changing the voltage going to them. I have no idea how I could check the voltage going to the fans from the fan-only connectors and even then I'm not really sure what would constitute as a good or bad result anyway if the voltage is supposed to vary.
Just to re-iterate my previous question. Are the sensors that detect the speed of the fan inside the PSU and the temperature sensor required for the fan-only connections related somehow? Everything has been helpful so far, but I was originally looking for an answer more like "yes, both of these things use the same sensor, so it would seem likely that the PSU is at fault". Obviously I don't have as much electronics knowledge as most of the people that regularly post in this section, so that was why I came here to ask that question. I've been thinking about the option of sending the PSU back to Antec for a long while, but I live in the UK and their European base is in The Netherlands. From a bit of research I've found that postage to there will be approximately £30, so I'd ideally like to make sure the PSU is defiantly at fault before I decide to send it back. The majority of the evidence I've gathered so far has pointed towards the PSU being at fault, but this is one of theories that I've come up with that I've yet to back up with any real info. Anyway like I said everyone has been a great help so far, but if someone here is familiar with the innards of a PSU (perhaps Antec's PSUs as I believe this series of PSU is slightly different with the fan-only connectors) and could perhaps answer this question I'd be even more happy.
The Antec psu controls any external fans on the 'fan-only' connectors from its own internal sensor, they all get the same controlled supply. You've been overloading it quite considerably with 5 fans, I reckon the 4 ys-techs are about 250mA each to give 45cfm, you've probably blown the switcher transistor. The temperature sensor and the speed monitor are different things, the temperature decides what PWM duty cycle the control will put out, the resulting speed depends on how the fan reacts to that duty cycle so varies from fan to fan.
Thanks! That was just the kind of answer I was looking for. I'll look at taking out some of the fans when I get it all fixed. I might try taking out perhaps 1 front one, 1 exhaust one and maybe the side one as well. I'll see if I can get the RMA number request sent off tonight and hopefully I'll be back up and running soon.
