ti4200 video fan not on

[hsiacc]

I recently noticed that the fan on my BFG Ti4200 64mb APG8x sometimes
does not turn on. First that came to mind is a broken fan. I shut the
computer down, took the card out, cleaned it, then put it back. The fan
came on. I thought maybe it's on when cool and somehow heat stops it.
Then I started seeing the correlation between a reboot /startup (fan
always come on) and an unsuspend (fan off). Immediately after
unsuspend, the fan will come on for a few seconds then turns off. So
something is signaling it to shut off. The fan has no connection to the
motherboard, only to a 2 pin connector to the video card. Any
suggestions?

Computer is a SOYO SY-KT600DRAGON +V1.0 w/ AMD XP 2000 running Windows
2000.


andy

 

[Davy]

Could be the fan itself, I had a similar problem with the Northbridg
fan on my Gigabyte mobo... that would run and stop

I stripped mine down and applied a blob of high temperature oil t
it's bearings which cured the problem, but you do need to be carefu
to do this, if it is the fan then the only sure way is
replacement

I checked mine on a small 12V power supply or battery as mine was
marked 12V, making sure you get the polarities the correct way round
the voltage rating is usually marked on the fan and that it i
dis-connected from the card/mobo
But do bear in mind when doing this the fan is not blowing heat whic
may affect it's bearings, mine certainly 'spluttered' doing this

Having said that it could be the fan servo, or more correctly the fa
switching circuitry on the card/mobo since that there is only 2 wire
there is no servo speed control

If you take this repair route you do need to be very careful, in man
cases you'll need to remove the sticker on the back of the fan
remoce the plastic retaining clip and away the blades comes, you mus
ensure this clip is replaced & recovered afterwards, making sur
not to bend or distort the blades themselves

One sure thing is to try a different card, I am saying all thi
assuming that the computer runs ok otherwise and understanding tha
it's a fan fault only, if not then I would suspect some other faul
which may not be fan related

Dav

 

[hsiacc]

I don't think it's the fan itself. If I reboot the computer the fan
starts up and keeps going. The fan only stops when I come out of
suspend. That is to say it spins up while the computer is coming out of
suspend, then the fan stops after a few seconds.

There is no power connection to the mobo itself; fan is plugged into
the card itself. All this leads me to believe that something is telling
the fan to stop. Whether that's something on the video card or mobo I
don't know. I've tried a few combinations of power management in the
BIOS like S1/S3, blank screen v. vert/hor sync v. something else and
nothing seems to matter. I will perhaps try to e-mail Soyo, but
considering they never sent my rebate after promising for months, I
don't think they really card much about customers.

 

[Dave H.]

I don't think it's the fan itself. If I reboot the computer the fan
starts up and keeps going. The fan only stops when I come out of
suspend. That is to say it spins up while the computer is coming out of
suspend, then the fan stops after a few seconds.

There is no power connection to the mobo itself; fan is plugged into
the card itself. All this leads me to believe that something is telling
the fan to stop. Whether that's something on the video card or mobo I
don't know. I've tried a few combinations of power management in the
BIOS like S1/S3, blank screen v. vert/hor sync v. something else and
nothing seems to matter. I will perhaps try to e-mail Soyo, but
considering they never sent my rebate after promising for months, I
don't think they really card much about customers.

Had the same problem with a Ti4600, the fan was not starting up after the pc
resumed from suspend-to-ram S3 state in an AOpen NForce2 motherboard. Fooled
around with the bios without success. Swapped in another Geforce 4 Ti4200
and it is working fine. The Ti4600 fan suspends and resumes ok in a
different motherboard.

My card got hot, but only crashed in games. Perhaps you could just reboot
before playing any games.

Dave H.
======

 

[hsiacc]

I don't play games and it's never crashed on me. You're probably
wondering why I have a Ti4200 if I don't play games, but at the time it
was a good price and seemed like a good idea. I run with the case open
and monitor the CPU temp closely all the time. This is probably been
going on from the start and I just never put my hand over the fan to
check.

 

[hsiacc]

As it turns out, it was the graphics driver. Some months ago I switched
to the Omega drivers. The BFG tech support recommended reinstalling the
drivers (they didn't know I was not running nvidia official drivers),
so I thought I'd try the Nvidia ones, and now the fan stays on.