Cooling Fans

[mcktheknf]

I found one of the company's old computers (Pentium lll) and took it apart. I blew the dirt and spiders out of it and it runs like a champ. It has 2- fans. A bigger fan at the back of the machine and a small one on the motherboard/processor? The smaller fan that is mounted on the board is running, but the bigger one and the back of the machine is not. Is the larger fan suppose to run all the time, or does it only run when the computer gets hot?

Update: I noticed when I blew the fans with air that the large one didn't spin. So, after asking the question I went back out and looked a little bit closer. The fan is definitely tight when trying to turn it. Will it hurt the machine to run it or should put a new fan in it before I do anymore to it?

 

[Rit]

Keep in mind we do have a 'cooling' section that this can go into. But most fans are on all the time. This prevents it from getting hot in the first place, rather getting hot and then requiring more cooling to get it back down to normal.

 

[diduknowthat]

You'll want to replace the fan. If the computer is designed to run off of 2 fans and the larger one is dead, you'll lose the wind tunnel affect which helps cooling.

 

[mcktheknf]

Great. Thanks for the help.