PC Crashes, Case fan disconnected??

Hello all. My PC has been crashing recently. When it does i get feint vertical lines down the screen, everything freezes and i cant do anything. It wont shut down so i have to resort to switching off the power, then when i try to reboot i get continous beeping and it wont boot. I have to turn the power off for about half an hour until it will reboot.

At first I thought it was my hard drive, because i've had problems with it in the past so I reformatted it and still the same problem occurs.

Then someone suggested that it could be over-heating and could be a fan problem. So i took a look and the fan over my processor is running fine but i also have one at the back of the case and that one isn't connected and hasn't been since i bought the PC.

I would imagine that this fan should be working but i'm unsure where to connect it. The only two it would fit are under my PCI slots one is balck and one is red. It has three pins. I have taken a photo and circled the where i think it shoud go.

Any help would be brilliant. Thank you.

 

can you post the photo? it should be plugged into a 3 pin connector on your mobo, also check your power supply fan. And downlaod everest to monitor your temps, if anything is over 60C except for a video card under load you have heat problems

http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

Run some games and other power hungry programs and post an everest log for us to look through

 

sorry i forgot to post the photo, the url is:

http://thetigers.envy.nu/PIC_0068.jpg

 

"A Hotlinking Error Has Occured!


We have detected a hotlinking error. Hotlinking is when you link to images or NON html files on envy.nu from another host. Hotlinking is not allowed for our FREE Accounts. Hotlinking is allowed for our paid accounts. Your account can be upgraded in the user section when you have logged in."

broken link.

 

These connections are called SPDIF (in) and SPDIF (out). When I've looked these up it says they are used for digital audio. So my fan shouldn't be plug in the should it??

Its the only place on the motherboard that it will fit though.

 

no, it sounds liek your mobo only supports a cpu fan, what you could do is get an adaptor that will let you hook it directly toa 4 fin connector on the power suupply.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812105007

 

Where would i connect the 4 pin connector though? There is no where on my motherboard a 4pin connection would go??

Thanks for your patience, I'm not the best at the internal workings of a PC and your help is much apprieciated.

 

You can find 4 pin connectors comming front your power supply, theres called "Molex's". These 4 pin connectors power most of the additional components that are included in a system. E.G CD-ROM Drive

http://www.msprojectstart.org/molex connect.jpg - Theres a picture of one if you're still unsure

Try splitt3rs suggestion aswell and install Everest. That way you can monitor your system temperatue to see if thats whats causing the problem.

 

Thanks for all your help guys. I had another look in the manual and there is actually a sys_fan connection on the motherboard. I must have been blind not to spot it first time round. Now its running I'm going to see how it goes and also install everest to double check.

I bought the PC from a home shopping catalogue, its rather strange how the fan wasn't connected then. I'll let you know how I get on.

Once again thank you for your help.

 

You're Welcome Just glad to hear that you've got the fan back up and running. Post Everest temperatures if you're unsure if they are safe of not

 

Here is a report of temperatures from everest.

Temperatures:
Motherboard 25 °C (77 °F)
CPU 31 °C (88 °F)
Maxtor 4R080J0 29 °C (84 °F)

Cooling Fans:
CPU 2596 RPM
Chassis 2961 RPM

 

Ahh, all perfectly safe and considerably low temps Are you still getting the vertical lines?

 

It hasn't crashed for two days now touch wood. I've been on PC 2 sessions, both for about an hour and has run fine. Usually it would have crashed a couple of times by now.

Hopefully all is fine now. Fingers crossed anyway. At least if it does start crashing again I'll know it's not down to my hard-drive because it's been reformatted or my fan temperatures because they are now working fine.

If it does start to crash do you think it could be video card?

 

Hmm, possibly but unlikely that it would prevent you fron starting up for half an hour. How powerful is your power supply? It could be if you've got a high spec graphics card it's just taking up too much juice

 

Nah, graphics card is onboard motherboard so it wont be using that much power i would imagine.

I'll leave it as it is for now while it's working fine, any more problems then i'll know where to come for help.

Thanks alot
McCool

 

Glad to of a helped

 

My PC has started crashing again.

So I now know, its not heat related and its not hard-drive related. So what could it be?

The Vertical lines are still there? Any ideas???

 

Hmmm, It does sound a bit like it's a Gfx card related issue. However, I'm still a little stumpped on why it would prevent you from starting back up. Normally the only faliure that would stop you from booting up would be bad memory However I'm unsure why it works perfectly half an hour later! I suppose it's possible that your memory could be getting too hot, but it's pretty unlikely.

Have you installed any new drivers recently for your graphics card or anything else?