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[Marty Chinn]

So earlier this week my g/f's computer just turns off out of nowhere. It turns out it overheated and shut down as a safety from the CMOS. When I went to go check it out, it looked like the case fan wasn't spinning at all. After a couple tries, it would start to spin, but now it's just not spinning at all. So at first I thought it was just the fan dying and went to go replace it which was no easy task as the size wasn't standard. Finally I found one, but it's not spinning either which makes me think it could be the motherboard. But before I go through the hassle of trying to send in the whole motherboard and possibly the case too, I was hoping that maybe someone with experience here might know of what might be the problem or can confirm that it is probably the motherboard. The computer system is made of the following components:

Shuttle SN85G4 Case/Motherboard/Power Supply
AMD 64 3000 CPU
512 megs of Mushkin RAM
ATI 9800 Pro
160 gig Maxtor HDD
Pioneer 16x Dual Layer DVD-R

The system itself will turn on, boot up and everything work. It's just not getting cooled down enough and gets shut down. The system does not have a CPU fan as it's got those heat pipe things which relies on the case fan to cool off. The only thing that appears wrong is the case fan won't spin and is reported to be spinning at 0 rpm in the cmos. I bought a ZM-OP1 optional fan which looks like its for a VGA card attachment, but it had the right size fan and I would imagine should be a reasonable replacement. Information on that product can be found at www.zalmanusa.com. The size of the fan is 80 x 80 x 15 and not the standard 25 mm thickness.

I hope I didn't forget anything and tried to supply as much info as I can. Since it's a shuttle case, I would imagine I would have to send the whole case in to tech support and probably remove all the components. I'm trying to avoid having to do that. The system is less than a year old and under warrenty, but the down time involved would be a pain. It'd be great if I could just somehow fix it and get it up and running again. Any help would be greatly appreciated by not only me but my g/f as well. Thanks.

 

[Jeffahn]

I've never heard of a cooling system like that. I just have a small desk fan and half open case to help cool down my machine on hot days. It also helps to have a cool ambient temp aswell to take the strain off the PC parts.

...

 

[NohWun]

How about plugging the fan directly into the power supply?
Maybe use a fanmate if it runs too noisily that way.

 

[Marty Chinn]

How about plugging the fan directly into the power supply?
Maybe use a fanmate if it runs too noisily that way.

The fan has one of those 3 pin connectors and not the standard 4 pin power connector. Plus I'd probably have to buy a power connector splitter as these small cases usually only have enough plugs to fit everything. I didn't see any open available plugs.

 

[fart]

if the fuse blew on the motherboard fan power connect you'll need an 80mm fan that takes a 4 pin standard psu molex or a 3 to 4 pin adapter (you can get either of these for like a billion percent markup at fry's). if you need a 4 pin splitter get one of those too. you'll lose the fancy pants voltage regulation that the bios does to the fan power out but whatever. that should do it.

 

[Danj]

I hope I didn't forget anything and tried to supply as much info as I can. Since it's a shuttle case, I would imagine I would have to send the whole case in to tech support and probably remove all the components. I'm trying to avoid having to do that. The system is less than a year old and under warrenty, but the down time involved would be a pain. It'd be great if I could just somehow fix it and get it up and running again. Any help would be greatly appreciated by not only me but my g/f as well. Thanks.

From what you describe, it does sound as if there's a problem with the motherboard. Perhaps the heat problem caused by the fan not spinning caused component(s) on the board to overheat? It wouldn't be unusual to discover that a board is not working properly just because one of those tiny little surface mount components has melted, and it wouldn't necessarily be obvious unless you looked for it.

Unfortunately, with it being a Shuttle, you are correct in that you'd have to send the whole thing off to them, what with it being a custom case/motherboard combination. Before doing that though, I'd suggest putting the original fan back in (the one that failed), and they should replace that for you as well.

 

[fart]

oh, right, warranties. if you want to go that route be prepared to live without a computer for a while.

 

[Marty Chinn]

Cool, thank guys. You've confirmed pretty much my thoughts on the situation. My computer is up and running, and my g/f also has a laptop so the downtime might not be so bad. Now I just gotta decide if I just do the hack and buy some cable converters, or repair it while its still under warrenty since its only like 7 months old. Thanks again for the help.