Dell Dimension 4700 CPU Cooling Fan

When you say there are no diagnostic lights do you mean none are lit up?There should be light on the back of the system as per HERE <ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

Also do you have a 4700 or 4700C?

Do you hear any beeps? What is the color and condition of the powerbutton light.

My guess at the moment is the motherbord. It can be a componte that is als loading down the system.

If your comfortable working inside your system you can open it up and remove all your ram sticks, remove all the cards and disconnect the power going to the drives.

Power on the system. Again look at the powerbutton light the diagnostic lights and listen for the fans to spin up. If the cpu fan is still racing then th motherboard or processor is gone.

It is the 4700. The lights on the back of the system are not lit up. I will try removing any additional power consumption sources and see where it goes from there. Thanks

I have a Dimension 4600, from what's been say said in this discssion, I'm sure that it's set up the same as a 4700. I have a quick question related to the 2 lights below he diagnostic lights in back. All 4 Diagnostic lights are green idicating that conitions are normal.  The 2 lights below that are on,One is green, one is amber, the amber light is coatantly blinking, Is this an indication of a problem or error or is this normal?

MK 

I have a Dimension 4600, from what's been say said in this discssion, I'm sure that it's set up the same as a 4700. I have a quick question related to the 2 lights below he diagnostic lights in back. All 4 Diagnostic lights are green idicating that conitions are normal.  The 2 lights below that are on,One is green, one is amber, the amber light is coatantly blinking, Is this an indication of a problem or error or is this normal? MK

What you are seeing is the Network Interface connection lights, and that is normal the green light means the connection is active and the blinking light means there is network traffic

I also have a Dimension 4700 (not a 4700C) and when I turn it on, the cpu fan takes off immediately and the computer never boots.  The power button light is yellow and there are no beeps.  Occasionaly, the PC will actually boot, but after a short time the fan will take off again and the computer will stop working.

I was curious if bilmathis ever had a resolution. 

I also have a Dimension 4700 (not a 4700C) and when I turn it on, the cpu fan takes off immediately and the computer never boots.  The power button light is yellow and there are no beeps.  Occasionaly, the PC will actually boot, but after a short time the fan will take off again and the computer will stop working. I was curious if bilmathis ever had a resolution.

I have replaced the CPU fan, then reset the BIOS and the PC worked for about a week before I had to reset the BIOS again. Now the system cannot boot from the hard drive. I will be trouble shooting power issues later.

No Complete resolution yet.

Larry - my situation just happened tonight.

I had just clicked on a quicktime movie and the 4700 just shut down.

All that is left is the blinking yellow light on the front. When I take the power cord out and hold down the power button, then reconnect the cord and try to start again, the top extractor fan runs for a split second, then dies, but there is no noise at all. The CPU fan (lower fan) doesn't move at all.

Any ideas what I can do, what I could look for here?

Many thanks

as far as the cpu overheating... I recently upgraded my 4700 2.8Ghz to a P4 670 3.8 Ghz. The fan was running crazy. Since the cpu cooling fan was drawing air in from outside to cool, I bought a 120mm 124cfm fan to exhaust... and hopefully pull more air in. It worked ok but it was still running a little bit high and the fan was noisy ssssoooooo.... I reversed the cpu cooling fan to exhaust and reversed the 120 to intake and my temp dropped by 10 C and I can barely hear the cpu fan oh and  BTW as I write this the 120 is shut down and the cpu isn't audible and the temp is running at about what my lowest temp was before... I really think that the airflow from the cpu fan should be blowing out!

@Drew M: Did you ever find a solution for this problem?  My 4700 is experiencing the same symptoms as yours was.

Yes.  I first replaced the motherboard.  That did not fix it.  Then I replaced the CPU.  That did not fix it.  Then I put the old CPU back in and replaced the power supply.  That fixed it and the PC is still working today.  I found the power supply on eBay.  I do think that the motherboard was fried and that I had to replace that anyway, but even after replacing the motherboard, it still acted the same.  You may want to start with the power supply.  I did not start there because the system was getting power, it just would not boot.

I have a Dell 4600 Pentium 4, 2.8 ghz machine we use at home that my son purchased from Ebay. It came without a hard drive and he installed one he got for $5. The unit didn't have a CPU fan (I think that is optional) and I didn't see anyplace to plug on in. It does have a large CPU heat sink. The computer has two fans. One at the rear of the case for intake basically to cool everything. and one in the power supply for exhaust. These are not sufficient to cool the CPU and s video card.

The hard drive started to go bad and I replaced it with a 320 G Western Digital IDE drive. It could urn SATA and I had one, but I didn't have the power cables and I read you have to jumper the drive for slower speed and it isn't worthwhile in this machine.

While reinstalling XP with the new drive the unit shut down due to a thermal events several times. The CPU was cooking hot to touch. It was fairly clean and cleaning what little lint was in there didn't help.

I made a cardboard bracket to go on the heat sink all glued up with superglue and mounted a fan from an old power supply over the CPU heat sink on the bracket. After gluing up it is rigid like a piece of plywood or plastic. This fan runs all the time with no thermal control. The CPU is only slightly warm to the touch now and this works great.

The machine is also quite a bit faster now. I don't know if it is due to the cooler temperature or the new hard drive, but it is actually quite fast now for browsing the internet or lite work like spread sheets and word processing. I am quite impressed.

This experience caused me to get into my Dell Laptop and clean out the CPU heat sink / radiator. A thin film of lint or dust came out of the fins and this is also quite impressive. The fan used to run all the time. Now the fan only runs for a few seconds and shuts off.

Keep um cool. It makes a difference.

Gary

I'm trying to troubleshoot my niece's 4700...same issue.  It was having intermittent issues.  As I worked with it, it began to overheat, then quit completely.  It won't power up at all now.  Amber light on the front, no diag lights in back.  I've tested the main power supply and it tests okay, but the processor power plug doesn't light up on a tester.  Does anyone know if I still need to replace the whole power supply?  Thanks