Noob Fan Question

B

buddyhackit9

New Member
Hi everyone, I am very new at this, but my cpu has been running loud and rough for a while. It has shut off on it own before and had problems re-booting. I think the problem is the fan, but not sure if it is the cpu fan or the processor fan.

Should I just change them both? What should I look for to make sure I get a compatible fan?

I have an AMD Athlon XP. The processor fan says AMD right on it and an OKIA-420ATX switching power supply. Do you change out the whole power supply or just open it up and change the fan portion only?

One last thing: My cpu has a ton of dust in it and wonder if simply cleaning it up could fix the problem, but judging by how loud it was, I doubt it.

Any help for a newbie is appreciated! Thanks.
 
if its got a tonn of dust id say thats a good place to start, your fans might have been speeding up to try to cool it , but it eventually over heated...id get some compressed air and blow that sucker out
 
Looking at it further, the CPU fan definitely is chugging away and is very loud. It is trying to go around, but if it does, it only lasts for a second or two and then stops again. The CPU also starts to turn on and then shuts off on its own as the chugging starts.

If you change the CPU fan is this just the fan itself and you leave the power supply box that it is also housed in or is it one complete unit?

Thanks.
 
Are you talking about your Power Supply fan or your Processor fan on top of the heatsink on the motherboard?
 
Yeah, sorry. I am talking about the PSU fan. Didn't realize what it was called. Another question: if you have an under spec PSU and try it, will it do any harm or just not power the cpu? I am thinking that I still have my old computer and could swap the PSU to see if it fixes the problem. I haven't had a chance yet to see what the specs are on it.
 
Yea you could try the other one if it has the right connections, if its to weak it will either wont boot or restart often. You can replace the fan, done it a few times. But you have to be carefull of what you touch, they hold a charge unpluged for a while and can shock the crap out of ya.
 
buddyhackit9 said:
Yeah, sorry. I am talking about the PSU fan. Didn't realize what it was called. Another question: if you have an under spec PSU and try it, will it do any harm or just not power the cpu? I am thinking that I still have my old computer and could swap the PSU to see if it fixes the problem. I haven't had a chance yet to see what the specs are on it.
Click to expand...

You cannot fry anything by providing inadequate power, it merely will not operate, or, will operate only temporarily. Try it, see what happens.
 
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