CPU Cooling Woes - Help

Story is, my stock AMD CPU fan died on my good old Athlon 64 4000, so I replaced the entire with some 15 bucks cheap CPU heatsink/Fan, which was stated to be compatible with the Athlon 64 series.

However, whenever I boot, I would get the message "Warning, CPU Fan Fail or Speed Too Low, Press F1 to bypass." So I do, and it's a little annoying but PC works fine once booted, even if left on for 2-3 days.

However, whenever I try to play any sort of graphic intensive games, such as Oblivion or Fable, everything would work fine for maybe 15 minutes or so, and then my sound would get massively distorted. This starts around the 15 minute mark, and the distortion gets progressively worse until all sound effects become distorted rumbles.

I have no idea what causes this, I checked the temperatures on the GFX card and CPU under load, both seems pretty normal. Is this a problem caused by the CPU fan? Or maybe my video card is dying? Thanks in advance for replies.

What are your Specs?

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Originally Posted by Seedler

Story is, my stock AMD CPU fan died on my good old Athlon 64 4000, so I replaced the entire with some 15 bucks cheap CPU heatsink/Fan, which was stated to be compatible with the Athlon 64 series.

However, whenever I boot, I would get the message "Warning, CPU Fan Fail or Speed Too Low, Press F1 to bypass." So I do, and it's a little annoying but PC works fine once booted, even if left on for 2-3 days.

However, whenever I try to play any sort of graphic intensive games, such as Oblivion or Fable, everything would work fine for maybe 15 minutes or so, and then my sound would get massively distorted. This starts around the 15 minute mark, and the distortion gets progressively worse until all sound effects become distorted rumbles.

I have no idea what causes this, I checked the temperatures on the GFX card and CPU under load, both seems pretty normal. Is this a problem caused by the CPU fan? Or maybe my video card is dying? Thanks in advance for replies.

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In my sig.

I assume that neither the fan warning nor the sound issue was present before the heatsink swap.
Is the new heatsink fan plugged into the same fan header as before?
If not, switch back to the other fan header, if so, you can probably disable that warning in BIOS.

Is the new cooler similar in design to the original?
If you're using onboard sound, is the sound chip getting more/less airflow than before?
How confident are you in the mount of the new sink?
Good thermal paste contact?
Proper retaining tension?

Since your problems began with the install of the new sink, it would be logical to look there first for the solution.

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Originally Posted by clocker

I assume that neither the fan warning nor the sound issue was present before the heatsink swap.
Is the new heatsink fan plugged into the same fan header as before?
If not, switch back to the other fan header, if so, you can probably disable that warning in BIOS.

Is the new cooler similar in design to the original?
If you're using onboard sound, is the sound chip getting more/less airflow than before?
How confident are you in the mount of the new sink?
Good thermal paste contact?
Proper retaining tension?

Since your problems began with the install of the new sink, it would be logical to look there first for the solution.

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Thanks clocker.

The problem existed with the old heatsink, I would get the warning message, have the same sound issue, difference is that the old fan didn't spin anymore and the new one does spin.

The new fan is plugged into the same fan header as before.

New cooler is a little larger than the old one, otherwise identical in design.

I don't know where the onboard sound is, so I can't check for the air flow. But I have 2 case fans and the side open, so this shouldn't be a problem.

The heatsink was mounted pretty easily, I rubbed off the old thermal paste with some rubbing alcohol and applied new thermal paste.

What's proper retaining tension?

Thanks again clocker, you're the best :no1:

Ah, so both problems were preexisting...that makes a difference.

Since the fan warning message seems more of an irritant than a real problem, it can probably be ignored for the nonce.

The sound issue is the one to worry about.
The easiest diagnostic path would be to toss a soundcard in and see what happened.
Bypass the motherboard sound and eliminate that as the cause.
If the problem persists, either your board or CPU is going...maybe both.

If you haven't access to a soundcard- and really, any cheapshit card (as long as it's known to be working) would suffice for the test- you might explore if there is a revised/updated BIOS available that may address the issue or even upgraded sound drivers released lately.

It may seem like a scattershot approach but that's the problem with electronics...outside of bulging leaking caps on the board (worth a look, BTW), there's little physical evidence of damage so you basically just have to guess, albeit in a logical progression, to try and isolate the culprit.

Good luck.

Thanks again, I've found the problem. The CPU Fan died, along with the CHIP fan. So that's the fan on the motherboard right? I'm pretty sure that's what causing the sound issue. I cleaned the dust off, but the sound issue persists. I searched a bit and there doesn't seem to be a replacement fan for it.

Oh well, I guess it's time to save up for an upgrade anyway.

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Originally Posted by Seedler

I searched a bit and there doesn't seem to be a replacement fan for it.

Oh well, I guess it's time to save up for an upgrade anyway.

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Although an upgrade from the AMD platform would probably be best, I'm sure a suitable chipset fan could be located and strapped on.