"Fan - The fan failed to respond correctly" error occurs at almost every startup

It's possible that a fan's thermistor (temperature sensor) has failed. That could account for the error and for fan(s) running fast even under light load.

Run Dell Diagnostics:
Immediately after pressing the power button to turn on the laptop (or after clicking the Reboot command), press F12 repeatedly to enter the One Time Boot Menu, select Diagnostics and press Enter. The Dell Diagnostics will test all your hardware.

Hi @filbert !

Thank you for your answer. So I did the Diagnositcs, and there is no error. But when I go to the logs, we can see that every day, and sometimes more than once in a day, I have the error : "Thermal fan 2 stopped" or the error "Fan : The fan failed to respond correctly".

Try blowing out the vents with canned air. If you have run full system diagnostics from F12 and the same error is displayed then you are probably looking at a bad fan. If the fan is not working then I have to assume the system is shutting down as the CPU will overheat.

Hi @AdrianG001 !

Thank you for your answer ! But I don't think there is a lot of dust around the fan. In fact, Dell has changed my fan 2 months ago, and a few days later the problem was back, and is still present. So I don't know it's very strange, and Dell does nothing.

My laptop has never been turned off for overheating currently.

I don't know if you have other leads !

@Ekiatech I'm having the same issue. Do you have a problem where your fan runs at the highest setting for long periods at certain points when the laptop is turned on?

I think the issue started when I updated the BIOS at one point, so my feeling is it could be related to the way the BIOS interacts with the machine. I might install an earlier version of the BIOS to see if that improves things at all.

@jasmith93​ 

Helllo i am also facing the same issue with my brand new m15 r7, did you somehow manage to get the issue fixed?

same issue, brand new inspirion 15

My fan on an Inspiron 15 5000 has been intermittently running in pulses. Then it will stop making the noise. I did a support-assisted scan which found no problems.

Today on startup I got a critical error message “the fan failed to respond correctly. Parentheses (previous fan) fan malfunction.

I ordered a replacement fan from dell which will be delivered in about a week or so. My laptop still works. It is three years old. I hope I don’t fry it still using it.

I ordered a new fan from Dell. I will see once I get it if that will solve the issue. Tricky to order it. I had to put in service code and at first did not see where to order the parts. WHen parts showed up to order at first they were the wrong parts, CPUs and memory. FInally a fan I could order popped up and I ordered it for 10 dollars. Good luck to all reading this posts reseaching your fan problem. 

Hello everyone,

I met a same issue with the Dell Vostro 3480, each time turn on the laptop then i will recieved the message " Fan- the fan failed to respond corectly. (Previous fan) Fan malfuntion."

I have checked the my laptop follow the step DELL guide on website but it not improve the message still apperance when i turn on the laptop. I checked the diagnostics online sometime show the fan process failure and sometime passed. And now on the Dell Power Management i  can not change the status on the fan although i ticked on "Quiet" then fan still run very fast and noise. I have chnged by the new one of fan then the error message still come after each time i turn on my laptop. Noted further that my laptop has never been turned off by overheating it still operation normal. But i really uneasy when i met the error message. I think the Bios previous have an error when i update, if anyoneesle have a resoultion please share with me. Thank you so much!