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When Fans Don't Cool You Off author: Scaryfast I never considered myself to be a "geek," but in reading a few of the stories here I have begun to realize that yes, I am a geek. Like many stories here I have found new fan placements to keep my system cooler, I've had hard drives die on me, I've basically done some pretty stupid stuff that would shock all the readers here (literally--they've shocked me *ouch*). About 8 months ago I had a Pentium 166 with two hard drives: a 2.1 GB and a 5.7 GB. One day the CPU fan started to act up on me . . . it was getting really annoying. Since I had my case cover off I was able to stick my hand in and touch the fan to make it stop making loud squealing and vibrating noises. It worked . . . for a while. A couple times I would be asleep, my system buzzing away, and the fan would start to act up again. I discovered that if I gently tapped the tower on the top it would stop. I congratulated myself and got into the habit of doing this every time. One day the fan decided not to give up and I found myself angry. To quote that dude in Jurassic Park: Lost World: "Technology and violence . . . NOT good bedfellows." I hit it a little too hard and there came a really nasty noise I can't even begin to recreate in words. It was booting up at the time, too, so it didn't even get to Windows. After a while I determined that my 5.7 GB drive had died--I had knocked the heads loose and they were grating on the disks. I sent it back to get replaced (new one came in a week or so from Western Digital) and all was fine, since I had been using my 2.1 GB in its place. But no sooner had my 5.7 come back when the 2.1 died, too :( It was beyond warranty so I dissected it; wow, nasty gouges! Anyways, a word of advice: don't touch your case at ALL when it is running! I have another story. I think I was drunk (nice excuse) and I had a CPU fan that used a 2-pin-style power connector for plugging into motherboards. All my other fans used the standard hard drive power supply cables and I decided once to connect the fan to a mobo fan supply. BAD idea. There was a spark, my system shut down (I didn't mention that Windows was running at the time), and I was scared. After a while I got up the nerve and turned the system on--it worked fine! I was VERY happy, especially since it was a brand new AMD K6-2 400 and motherboard I had just put in it. Now for fan placements . . . I found that if you have a spare 9-pin and 25-pin serial expansion slot cover (you know, regular expansion slot cover, with cut-outs for serial or parallel ports), a CPU fan's corner will fit in the 25-pin hole. And if you bend the cover to follow the curve of the fan, you can put a screw in the one hole and it is held snug. Along with a few adjustments, like bending small parts of the metal and using some electrical tape, I had a very neat little fan. When I bent the cover end (where the screw connects it) I could have it screw into an open or used slot and have the fan vertical to blow air across my video card and other cards in slots. It's hard to explain--I wish I had film for my camera so I could include pics. I showed a friend of mine and the next day I was over and saw that he had made roughly the same thing, although mine looked a little more professional :P All I can say is I am glad I did most of my learning on older systems like that, because Monday or Tuesday, my AMD Athlon 650 and motherboard should be arriving at my house and I don't want to do anything to risk the welfare of either. If anyone out there feels generous, there's a few things I need! I have:
I know, I'm pretty selfish. I have a nice, speedy processor and parts some others don't have, but I worked long and hard to pay for the stuff I do have. I am thinking of donating my 400 MHz to my mom, though, to replace her slow as molasses Compaq 266 (slower than my dad's 166--a LOT slower). Wow, I sure can go on, can't I? Anyways, ciao, people.
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