Motherboard fan won't spin

D

davisphive

Geek Trainee
Everything else works fine but there is tiny fan on my motherboard. Not the CPU one it's really small and has the MSI logo on it...near the PCI express port for my graphics card. When I try to start my computer up it "revs" 2 or three times like it's trying to start and then just stops.

What exactly is this fan for and is it important?

Any help would be great!
 
Oops, it's the north bridge chip cooling fan. Some main boards have such a fan. I think it is not work properly, if so fan should spin until power off. If you have a air blower or something, try to clean up, dust can be caused, but a little possibility to happened that.

I can see two notch of the fan, may be removable. If so remove it and find the working voltage, on the device or main board power connecting place state that. Give an external power, is that fan spinning continuously?

 
Yeah it does have some screws on it and I have blown out the dust but it just refuses to spin at all. I thought about removing it and seeing what was going on underneath it but I didn't want to mess around with anything unless I knew it was absolutely necessary.

How important is that fan?
 
Really important, it can burn the chip. Better to replace it. If you are not familiar with those stuff ask someone specialized to do it for you.
 
I couldn't tell you off-hand, but it's possible that fan is temperature-controlled. I'd pop into BIOS and check under something like "PC Health Management" and see if there's an option to set the threshold the fan kicks in at.

But, yeah, if it's not working, get that replaced pronto. If something has a fan and/or heatsink on it, it's usually not just for show.
It's pretty easy to do, but it can be a real pain if the motherboard is in the case since you need to access the retention pins on the back of the motherboard.
 
I don't think that this fan temperature-controlled one. Any way better to check on BIOS. As Big B my suggestion is that go for a new one.
 
Checked the bios and there were no temp settings. It did register the fan's existance as "system fan" and just said it's RPMs were zero. I have been looking around the net for a suitable replacement my only problem is that all of the replacements are too big and wouldn't fit under my graphics card.

Guess I'll just keep looking, wish I could find MSI replacement parts.

Anyway thanks for all your help
 
try MSI forums or you may have luck with Sidewinder

the fan is probably dead so you need a replacement fan

It's not a standard 3/4cm fan that you find on some heatsinks personally i'd replace the fan with a vantec iceberq they are very quiet, however you may need to remove part of the PCIe slot card retaining clip to get this low profile fan to fit alternatively you could try finding a lower profile fan or you could RMA the board back to MSI or return the board to your supplier

BTW: where in the world are you ? (country)

don't forget to lubricate the new fan, personall i'd use either vasaline or WD40
 
Funny you should mention that cooler. I slapped that on my DFI NF4 Ultra-D, which requires a fairly low-profile cooler given the position of the NF4 chip. Does a great job for me.
 
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