Chassis Fan Not Detected

More often than not, when I start my desktop (HP Pavilion 22, bought brand new 2014) the following message appears onscreen. I have not done any work on upgrades or such but it still says,

Processor Type: AMD A4-5000 APU with Radeon (TM) HD Graphics

Processor Speed: 1500MHz

L1/L2 Cache Size: 64KBx4 / 2048KB

Memory Size: 4096MB DDR3 / 1600 MHz / Single Channel

Channel A: XMM1 0 MB / XMM2 4096MB

BIOS Revision/Date: v80.07 03/17/2014

512- Rear Chassis fan not detected.

Any suggestions please?

 

So it is an intermittent problem, right? And it only recently started?

First, if you don't know already, you need to inspect your computer to see if (1) there is a rear chassis fan and (2) is it spinning? My "guess" is you have one there but the bearings are starting wear and intermittently (perhaps after the system has cooled down overnight?) the fan either refuses to spin up when the system is booted, or is just taking its time to get up to full speed.

So upon visual inspection, you need to determine if any fan there is spinning up as required. If you can see it is not, or appears to be running very slow, the fan should probably be replaced. This is easily done with 4 screws.

If there is a fan and it spins up to speed every time but you still get the error, then the fan is failing to send its status to the motherboard, or the motherboard sensor for that fan has failed. You could replace the fan and see if it is the fan. Alternatively, you can go into the BIOS Setup Menu and disable that warning. But you then need to keep an eye on your temps, which you should be doing anyway.

If there is no fan there, then some how the BIOS Setup menu got changed and you need to look in the BIOS for that warning, and disable it.

 

Thanks for your reply Digerati. Unfortunately my pc is a touchscreen one with the hard drive integrated into it behind the screen so without taking it apart I wouldn't be able or confident enough to do these checks. In the time I have had it I haven't overused the pc or left it on long enough to overheat or anything. I have mentioned it at the store I got it at and they say if it was the fan then the pc would have to go away to their workshop for up to 7 days and they may well return it to Factory Settings and we all know what problems that can cause trying to remember where everything is/was ? Would you disable the BIOS warning as a last resort?

 

Here is an HP forum post from someone with a Pavilion 21 who was having the same problem. The solutions are:

If the fan isn't spinning: Replace it.

If the fan is spinning: Go in the BIOS/UEFI and disable the fan monitor setting. The caveat here is that you'll have monitor the fan yourself in case it dies. These AiO machines don't have particularly good airflow through the chassis, so adequate cooling is very important for them.

 

Well, since you are hesitant open the case for a visual inspection, I recommend you first, check your temps. You can use Speccy to check all temps. Or for just the CPU, I use and recommend Core Temp to monitor CPU temps in real time. If your CPU is too high (I don't like them sitting above 60°C for more than a couple seconds), then you probably will need to have the computer repaired.

If you temps sit comfortably below that, then you can disable the warning in the BIOS Setup Menu - then keep an eye on those temps.

That said, if this computer is still under warranty, I would have them fix it.