Let’s just say it is they BIOS for example.. I have the BIOS file for the original version it had (A08) would running that utility allow me to downgrade back to the A08 bios if needed. I just feel stupid because of what I did, and now I don’t know, like i said, if I killed the fans with the blower, or if it was the bios update.

Have you run the system diagnostic to see if it throws a fan error? The BIOS upgrade shouldn't have affected the fans but you never know. 

Spam F12 after powering on to get into the Boot Menu and select the diagnostic. 

I definitely will do that, If I had I taken the proper care instead of the quick approach this wouldn’t have happened,  

I already have some fans in my eBay cart, I will go buy them. 

You should be able to run the diagnostic enough to see if the fans are working as they get tested early on in the diagnostic. If they aren't, then shut it down before finishing the long memory tests. 

Hard to know for sure. I doubt it would be a Windows error so I'd be leaning more towards the BIOS but the test will show that the fans are working at least.  

The fans will only spool up when the GPU/CPU reach certain temps so there will be periods when they won't be spinning, are you sure they aren't just idle or at very low revs? These older components don't run hot like more recent ones.

So if I run the diagnostic test and the fans spool up, it would be fair to assume that bios and the fans are alright and it might be some sort of controller within windows that’s causing them to not run?

I have verified they aren’t running. I took the back cover off and watched it run propped up for about 15minutes.

I use CPU-Z he monitor and MSI afterburner to watch temps.. cpu was staying around 85c and gpu was hitting about 78c on average.

before this all happened (me taking the blower to the fans because I thought it would be a good idea.. like a match to gasoline I guess) cpu was about 45c idle, and gpu was running about 33-38c idle (as I had the nvidia physx and 3D set to use gpu primarily). 

I should have just repasted the dies and just put the fans back in, there was really no reason for me to touch them.. but then there is the bios update I did.. I did the update, it restarted and was working like normal, and that’s when I decided to tear into the cooling system.. and I just don’t remember what the fans were doing before I shut it down again to take the heat sinks off.

So… I decided to flash the bios back to A08 since I was able to get the file, it was 100% successful after a little scare where it abruptly shut off and didn’t restart and then the power button didn’t immediately turn it back on. I popped out the cmos battery for about a minute and put it back in, and everything was normal, and running successfully back on A08, still no fans, so I think I ruled out bios, and I have a set of fans (cpu/gpu) coming from eBay.. should be here by march 6th (China origin, but they have factory Dell stickers for what it’s worth). I took a pic of my system monitoring stuff, at idle, currently, not bad, staying cool enough so far..

 That’s kind of where I’m at right now. I think I just killed the fans.. im pretty ashamed to admit it too, especially how I did it. 🤦🏼‍

I truly appreciate everyone’s knowledge on this, and other posts I have made in the past. I will update the post once I get the new fans in. But for now, all is well as long as I don’t use it for much

@RsParrish82 yeah looks like you did kill the fans then. You'll know for sure once the replacements arrive. 

Good luck and let us know. 

Fantastic news! My new fans showed up today and I installed them as soon as I got home. And they worked perfectly!

thanks to all who replied!