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My eternal dim 8400 fan debacle noise oh noise
Since purchasing this computer I have been assaulted with the fluctuating, whining, high pitched emanating, whistling fan from a dimension of pure torment.
This fan will start to whine if the CPU usage goes over 20 to 50 % but it would appear only if the cpu usage drops down lower again (this of course being an extremely common occurrence with computers). So for example if the cpu usage is at max 100% consistently then the fan wont whine, but if it drops down or fluctuates to a lower percentage then the fan will emit this extremely irritating high pitched whine. Also interesting to note is that while at 100% the fan does not noticeably speed up by any degree only revving up for a second when not of any real use.
I have had the motherboard replaced which did help ( in the sense that the original motherboard had the fan whining persistently even under 0% cpu usage) but has not in any way solved the problem.
I have had 2 fan replacements, a heat sink replacement and after my computer being in a service depot for 2 weeks they only replaced a hard drive which had nothing wrong with it (I had previously tested the drives) and sent the whining thing back to me not repaired. also have tried using artic silver 5 thermal paste, no use.
I can not find a solution to this and I may seem that dell don’t know what it is either, to be honest I may think that it is a badly engineered motherboard, especially in conjunction with that worthless smart fan technology, bad move.
Anyone else have any idea in what direction I should look for this problems origin, im getting kind of sick of the service calls and changing the fan.
NicoS
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January 26th, 2005 16:00
I am sure this will be fixed eventually, but dealing with Dell support has shown an exercise in testing your patience. The exact thing you describe (fan only slows down in FAN diagnostic) is exactly what I experience.
Have seen lots of postings around here, and the learning curve & feedback to support is probably very slow :-(
nadalife
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January 26th, 2005 18:00
hi nicos
im getting a reading of 68.0 degrees celcius. but since this never seems to change i doubt that it is a valid reading from the thermal sensor. i have been trying for some time now to find a program that can read the thermal sensor on the 8400 motherboard but they all fail.
also i have had my fan changed 3 times and this has done nothing. having my motherboard changed did reduce the noise from my fan but has not in anyway solved it. i live in ireland so this i a global problem it would appear.we also have to rely on the indian tech support :).
what i would advise is to use a better thermal interface material than what dell uses, there thermal paste comes pre applied to the underneath of the heatsink ( all technicans i have had did not clean off the old paste before adding new heatsink ------this can cause more thermal resistance between the cpu and heatsink causing the cpu core to heat up more because there is too much paste there--so make them do it) .try something like artic silver 5 thermal paste and use isopropyll alcohol to clean off the old paste beforehand.
NicoS
19 Posts
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January 26th, 2005 18:00
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,12158281~mode=flat~start=60
The support person I gave the information to has not responded yet to me. They have send me 2 ? FAN's so far, now they send me a heatsink but dont think it will solve my problem.
BMWBOB
58 Posts
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January 26th, 2005 19:00
NicoS
19 Posts
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January 27th, 2005 16:00
I am afraid there is no tool to read thermal sensor after reading the URL yesterday. Changing the FAN did not help me either, today I got a new heatsink but dont expect much of it. First I must get some thermal paste somewhere, but I noticed that my current heatsink does not actually use much. (I will use your cleaning tip though)
Will try it later but think it must be something else (CPU?) because I get high fan speeds from the second I turn on my PC. Maybe the thermal adjustment is not correct or CPU sends incorrect signal triggering FAN to go mad, I dont know. Only thing I concluded is FAN diagnostics is able to lower the speed.
Well if the heatsink does not work Dell told me they pick it up and replace other parts, but they dont have any idea what it can be. Hope some day this will end because who wants a leaf blower in his room ;-)
nadalife
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January 27th, 2005 17:00
i saw that post abour a month ago, i then tested my ram with mem86 over a whole night to see if there was any problem.
not one problem so i dont think that is the case for me.
may be for other people.
RoHe
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January 27th, 2005 17:00
Ron
Message Edited by RoHe on 01-27-2005 11:53 AM
RoHe
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January 27th, 2005 17:00
Read the last post by SierraBrad in this thread:
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=dim_other&message.id=213336#M213336
IT'S A RAM PROBLEM!!
I thought I'd seen this fix posted on the forum.
Ron
nadalife
20 Posts
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January 27th, 2005 18:00
thanks for the info i will try again.
but i doubt it will have any affect as i have reaseated them a few times trying to solve this issue, also once when my motherboard was changed.
also mate do you have an lcd, and if so do you notice any slight yellowish colour tint to white.
RoHe
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January 27th, 2005 21:00
Don't have LCD. Still using old-fashioned 1996 Sony monitor. Any software controls for color correction, custom color, brightness etc come with your ATI card? nvidia 6800 pci-e lets me change all of those and more through software on Display control panel (>settings tab>advanced button>geforce tab).
Ron