The revenge of Dell!

I have a Dell Dimension 8250, with a P4, 3.06ghz CPU with 1 GB of RDRAM. The machine is about 2 years old.

Here's my problem.....as with most of the Dell computers, they put the most god awful, noisy, cheap and annoying CPU fan attached to the back of the computer that pulls air through a cheap plastic shroud across the CPU to cool it. It drives you nuts if you sit within 15-20 feet of it, so I wanted to upgrade the fan to a higher quality, quieter one so I would actually enjoy my computer. I was going deaf and a little dumb.

The Dell guys said, "Tough luck.....we hear this a lot, we know it's cheap and noisy, but it's the only one we sell and if you try and replace it with a good one, we'll void the last 2 years of your warranty." Sweet folks, eh?

So I bought a high quality German 92mm ultra low noise/high air flow Papst exhaust fan and tried to install it. Unfortunately, the Dell fan used a 3 prong connector on the motherboard, which none of the new high quality fans I purchased (Panaflow, Zalman or Papst) would fit, as it is a Dell proprietary Mobo.

I bought a 4 pin male/female pass through power connector and hooked the fan directly to an unused 4 pin power source from an unused drive bay. Worked perfectly, runs quietly and efficiently and I love it.

Problem is whenever I boot up my computer, I get an error message that states..."Alert! Previous fan failure. Strike the F1 key to continue, F2 to run the set up utility." Then nothing happens until I hit F1, and everything proceeds perfectly, boots normally and works like a charm. I guess the Mobo misses the original power connection from the original lousy fan and thinks I'm about to melt my CPU.

How can I get rid of this erroneous error message? I started down that road with the Dell techs, but it quickly became clear that they were trying to get me to admit that I had "tampered" with their baby, so they could kill my warranty. They were no help.....big surprise.

Is there a way I can "turn off" this constantly recurring error message? The fan is working perfectly, but since I bypassed the original Mobo connection, the 'puter thinks there's a problem. There isn't.

Please help! It's a real annoyance. Sorry for the long note, but if any of you've had to deal with Dell recently, you understand my state of mind!

Thank you for any help you can provide.

Texasbobby

 

my dell fan is really quiet. only sounds loud under 100% cpu load. and that only happens in games where i can turn the sound up.
i used to run a program that uses your idle cpu to find aliens or whatnot, but after i moved my computer into my room i had to disable that.

 

a 3 pin fan connector is pretty common. most fans come with dual plugs now that you can connect to a 3 or 2 pin plug

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...frcode=0&propertycode=&propertycodevalue=3176

 

I have a half dozen Dell machines, from entry level to servers, in service anywhere from 9 months to 2 years. All use the shroud / fan setup, and all are so quiet you have to look at the power button light to tell that any of them are even turned on.

 

The Doug,

You're truly fortunate....I finally gave up after Dell sent me 3 different replacement "standard fans"....all the same style, all the same manufacturer and all the same B-52 noise level. Wish I'd had your luck.

Thanks,

Texasbobby

 

try maybe just plugging a case fan into the plug, and putting it somewhere?

 

How important is that green plastic shroud?

I think I took mine out and never put it back after an upgrade. Can't remember why.
My Dell has been on for over a year, non stop no problems. So is that green piece important?

 

Hi,

That green plastic shroud is important and should be in place to properly cool the cpu.

Go into bios there should be a setting for cpu fan speed or failure, turn it off, save and exit.

I have worked on many dell's and never noticed them being that loud.

Rick

 

Hia,

I think I found the solution for your problem..
I've been having fan problems too for quite some time on my Dell Dimension 8200. I called Dell support and they told me I could get a new fan for 95 euros..
I didn't order it but went looking for another 92mm fan. Yesterday I found one working and too cheap (50 euro cents )
I attached it to the power supply (not on the mobo) and it was works amazingly good except for that freakin' Fan Failure message..
At Dell support they told me to reset my BIOS, but that didn't solve the problem.
So I Googled around a little and found a message that said: Disable the 'Report Keyboard Errors' in your BIOS... I tried that one and it works

The message still shows up but you don't get the annoying beep and you don't have to press any keys, it just continues booting up.

I hope this helps you.
Kind regards,

Nadejda

 

I expect you could solve this quite easily using a spare fan cable, a multimeter and a resistor from your local electronics shop.

Are you confident with basic electronics?

 

Heres how to get around the problem...

Cut the 3 wires off the fan and throw the fan in the trash.
Keep the black motherboard connector with 3 wires
Wire the black and white ones together.
Leave the red one unconnected.
Plug the thing back into the motherboard.
Install aftermarket fan.

Problem solved!

Tim Brockwell
Wired up cafe
Pasadena MD

 

Just go the BIOS and turn off Report Keyboard Errors. This fixed the problem of having an External SATA HD on my Dell 8400 and it should fix the fan complaint as well.

BTW, what have you ended up with for the fan? My 8400 has a nosuy fan as well and I want to explore replacing it. Feedback is appreciated.

Neil