Acer TC-705 i7 CPU Fan is not spinning. Is it due to Graphics Card which is faulty that's causing?

Victor77
Victor77 Member Posts: 22 Troubleshooter

I joined the Forum in 2023 but as my Acer TC-705 i7-4790 is out of action, I am having great difficulty in accessing the Forum. My WinXP system is rejected and my Win7 system the same (clock is wrong!).

I would like to ask a question about the original Graphics Card. My CPU Fan is not spinning (even though the fan itself does work when supplied with a small voltage across two of the four pins in the white plug). I have been told by an engineer that my Graphics Card is faulty and that is causing the Fan problem.

Please could a member write to me at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@madasafish.com as to how I can access the Forum.

Thank you.

[Edited the content to hide personal information]

Answers

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 36,035 Trailblazer

    Uh, you posted to the forum, so you can access it. :) If the CPU fan isn't working I can't see any reason that would have anything to do with a GPU card. Was the tech confused about CPU vs GPU? Does your system have an actual graphics card installed, or does it just use the graphics on the motherboard?

    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • Victor77
    Victor77 Member Posts: 22 Troubleshooter

    Dear Billsey, thank you very much for kindly answering my query. I am sorry but I had difficulty in accessing the Forum after originally getting messages "Error code: SSL_ERROR_PROTOCOL_VERSION_ALERT" on my WinXP desktop Acer 7700GX.

    On my Win7 Acer 7600GT, I am able to read your message. Many thanks.

    I live in West London and I noticed a computer repairs service facility in Golders Green, NW11 who charge £35 to diagnose a computer fault. A friend helped carry the machine over to there. I am nearly 80 now! The engineer told me a few days later that my Graphics Card was the cause of the fan not spinning. I am not using the on-board graphics which I presume are of a lesser specification.

    Before I took the Acer TC-705 i7-4790 over to the engineer, I disconnected from the motherboard the small white plug on the CPU Fan and applied a small external voltage of 6v to the red and black pins (not entirely easy to do) directly to the side of the plug where there are very small openings and I saw the fan responded so I reported this to the engineer that it seems that the fan itself is working.

    The engineer suggested ordering a replacement Graphics Card - a Radeon R7-240. I looked this up on the Web and there are a couple of comments from Acer users that this requires a 400w or greater PSU. The Acer TC-705 i7-4790 comes with a 300w only PSU. Furthermore, it exactly fits in between structural parts of the computer so I imagine one has to be very careful in finding a replacement that fits OK.

    The R7-240 is available from Amazon for about £40 and the engineer said that this Graphics Card is the one that comes with the Acer. I don't know if that is so as the engineer has my machine. He said that to fit the R7-240 and check it all out would also cost another £99. This would mean an expense of £174 to date apart from train fares for my friend altogether about £200. This is twice what I paid for the Acer in 2023.

    I have decided to collect my Acer tomorrow from the engineer's home without him doing anything more.

    I will try to find someone local to investigate further as it is a nice machine and much less complicated than my two old Acers so I am surprised that it has gone wrong.

    As the fan is not spinning, I am nervous that the CPU will overheat but I wonder if the on-board graphics work (if it really is a graphics card problem) can be tried (do you have to alter this in the BIOS?}

    Prior to the fan problem, I had a software problem when my Outlook.com account changed into the Russian language (I think it was). Then I got a message that my C: Drive was faulty and after waiting 7 hours of attempted software repairs by the Acer, I got a message that it cannot be repaired. Whether or not these things have caused my fan problem I don't know. I thought that even without a C: Drive being connected that the fan starts spinning when you turn on the computer?

    Thank you again for any suggestions/help.

    Regards, Victor Sunday 27th April 2025 11.28am (London)

  • Victor77
    Victor77 Member Posts: 22 Troubleshooter

    Dear Billsey, I have twice attempted to reply to you but I do not know whether my message has got through? Regards, Victor 27th April 2025.

  • Victor77
    Victor77 Member Posts: 22 Troubleshooter

    Dear Billsey,

    I see that one of my messages got through. Update: I have just taken back my Acer TC-705 i7-4790 from the engineer in NW11 having paid £35 for a diagnosis. I was surprised that he said that the Graphics Card is faulty as there was no sign of a stressed screen display nor any burning smell etc. I have an old Asus 512Mb PCI Express 16 graphics card which I could try to see if the CPU Fan starts spinning again.

    I have now taken my Acer to a friend's shop in Ealing close to home as he has a friend who looks after the shop's computers and CCTV, etc. to see if he could also help me.

    There is a Web-advertised TC-705 (with added SSD and upgraded Graphics) for a very reasonable price available for collection and I have attempted five times to purchase it with agreement of the seller with myself and a friend (to carry it) to travel to Gravesend (2 hours trains) to collect it but so far my e-mails via E-Bay have not been replied to yet.

    Whilst the TC-705 Fan is not spinning, I am worried that the CPU would heat up too much however I do have a small hoover gadget that also blows out cold air which I could rig up temporarily whilst a new diagnosis is being sought.

    ACER REPAIRS: I have been told by a computer IT firm that Acer were not very helpful to supply spares and I presume they do not want to hear from non computer-savvy octogenerians like me.

    Thanks for any further comments.

    Regards, Victor77 London, UK. 2.48pm.

  • Victor77
    Victor77 Member Posts: 22 Troubleshooter

    Dear Billsey,

    UPDATE: I notice that the Graphics Card supplied with my Acer TC-705 i704790 is indeed the R7-240 that the NW11 engineer mentioned was faulty and thus, he believes, is preventing the CPU Fan from spinning.

    Strangely, this is the card that is mentioned on the Web or the Forum as requiring a 400w or greater PSU. Nonetheless, the engineer was right in saying that this is the supplied Graphics Card with my TC-705 i7-4790.

    REMOVAL of R7-240: I wonder if you or any Forum member who actually still runs a TC-705 i704790 could answer the following questions:

    1. when both the Graphics Card and the on-board graphics are available (and undamaged), how do you choose which one or the other you want to be working? Is there an entry in the Bios that needs to be selected? When I purchased the TC-705 i7-4790 in 2023, I assumed that the dedicated Graphics Card prevailed and didn't attempt to change anything in the Bios.
    2. if you simply remove the R7-240, does the on-board graphics take over? and please what is the rating of the on-board graphics?
    3. I notice a black plastic lever next to the R7-240 Graphics Card. Does this get pressed down or lifted up? I don't want it to get broken! Also, how do you actually take out the R7-240 from its socket on the motherboard? Are there screws to undo on one of the metal parts or does it come out of a natural push-in placement?

    Thank you for any expert help.

    Regards, Victor 77 29th April 2025 11.05am. (London, UK).

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 36,035 Trailblazer

    Sorry for the slow response, I ended up getting busier than normal the last few days. Just pull the GPU card out, remembering there is a plastic latch that holds it in place, and use the onboard video port for diagnosis. The system, during initial boot, disables the onboard graphics if it detects a GPU card installed. So, if the GPU card isn't physically there it won't disable the onboard GPU and will instead allow that port to work. With the GPU card removed and a monitor connected to the HDMI port on the back of the computer, try turning it on to see if anything works. If the fan still doesn't spin up and the system doesn't give any beeps then we know the issue wasn't the graphics card and we'll have to dive deeper into the diagnostic process. If the fan does spin up and you either get one short beep after a bit or a sequence of long and short beeps, but nothing on the monitor then either the display circuit is having issues (one short beep at the end of POST typically means POST didn't find any errors and is going to go ahead and load the OS) or there is an issue identified during POST. For the latter we will want to listen to the beep pattern to look up the error it found. Needless to say, if you do get a display and the system gets through POST successfully the next step is the OS load, and if there's an error it should display that for you.

    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • Victor77
    Victor77 Member Posts: 22 Troubleshooter

    Dear Billsey,

    Thank you very much for your kind and learned observations.

    Since I last posted on the Forum, my friend (who helped carry the Acer TC-705 i7-4790 to NW11) introduced me to another friend of his who having read my posting on the Forum very kindly offered to take my TC-705 away for testing, etc. pro-bono. This gentleman has over 30 years experience with computers and works as a university computer technician - hopefully he will be able to sort out what's wrong.

    It will be interesting to see whether simply removing the R7-240 Graphics Card and allowing the onboard graphics to come into play causes my CPU Fan to spin again. I wonder what the onboard Graphics specification is? I presume it is a fair bit lower?

    I mentioned to the technician when I spoke to him over the 'phone that I am worried that the CPU without any coooling might get overheated and become damaged. He mentioned that there is a "throttle" facility on some computers that may prevent this. In any event, I do have a freestanding mini-fan that can sit inside the computer which may help a bit.

    When my computer was last working with a display it indicated that a repair was necessary but after 7 hours, then indicated that the computer cannot be repaired. I take it therefore that there was a software fault as well. I took out the WD Green 2Tb hard drive and placed it in a Fideco Sata Caddy and let the two partitions get tested for defects and after some automatic adjustments (including using Chkdsk /f on each drive partition), the two partitions do appear to be OK but of course, using the caddy.

    The technician is collecting my TC-705 on Monday evening 5th May when he will be visiting Ealing again.

    I will report further after this.

    Thank you again, Victor 30th April 2025 11.07am (London, UK).

  • camila89
    camila89 Member Posts: 23 Networker

    A CPU fan sometimes doesn't spin due to low power from the PSU. Also, if it's faulty or some dust has settled in it, then it stops spinning. To fix this problem, check if the wire from the fan is connected to CPU_FAN on your motherboard. You can also open the BIOS to check if the motherboard detects the fan. Another solution is to clean the fan and the dust that is interrupting the fan. Lastly, check the power supply.

  • Victor77
    Victor77 Member Posts: 22 Troubleshooter

    Dear Camila89

    Thank you very much for kindly posting re. my fan problem with my Acer TC-705 i7-4790.

    As far as I can see, the fan itself is in good physical condition and clean and I know that it can spin because I disconnected the 4-pin small white plug that goes into the socket on the motherboard and connected an external voltage of about 6v DC to the plug using the red and black pins only (not so easy to do) to see what would happen and the fan started spinning. I believe that the actual voltage it uses is likely 12v but I wanted to be cautious.

    I have not attempted to access the Bios as the fan is not cooling the CPU.

    I think that the 300w PSU is working.

    I don't quite know how all this trouble started. It seemed to follow my Outlook.com changing into Russian over Easter, then a System Restore not working and finally the automatic repairing of my software (for 7 hours!) also failing to work.

    As mentioned, an experienced computer technician will be collecting my Acer on Monday evening to carry out tests and hopefully restore my Acer and also try to use my existing 2Tb WD Green drive (2 partitions of 1Tb each) which appears to be in good order according to tests of both partitions by me on a Sata Caddy.

    I will let you know how I get on.

    Regards, Victor 30/4/2025 5.08pm (London time)

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 36,035 Trailblazer

    The technician was correct in regards to high CPU temperatures. When the temp exceeds 100C the CPU will just turn off to mitigate the chance for damage, so it's really hard to damage one only with temperature. A non-working fan by itself will only cause high temperatures, so that isn't a worry at least. The cause of the fan problem though can be an issue. As suggested it could actually be a power supply problem, though more often it's the fan itself. Since you were able to get the fan to spin using a voltage source I lean toward either a power supply, motherboard or BIOS issue. The errors you saw about needing a repair was likely Windows complaining about corrupted files, not something pointing at hardware. It's hard to corrupts files with just a power supply issue and more likely with a motherboard problem.

    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • Victor77
    Victor77 Member Posts: 22 Troubleshooter

    Thanks very much for your further posting Billsey. I am glad to know that CPUs have some protection. In any event, I will offer the technician my mini-fan gadget. At home, I run both my two much older Acer computers 7700GX (using WinXP and OE6) and 7600GT (using Win7) with the sides of their cases off and then I blow large but quiet freestanding Panasonic fans onto the hot area.

    If the Acer PSU is faulty, I would be happy to order a new (400w this time and a quiet make) but I am worried that the space where the existing PSU is fitted is very tight with various structures hemming it in whereas on the old Acer Veriton machines there is ample room around the PSU I think. I would be prepared to purchase both an R7-240 Graphics Card and a new PSU but I am less inclined to have a new motherboard fitted. In such a case, I would likely scrap the TC-705 and keep it for spare parts.

    Can you or another TC-705 owner tell me what Bios settings exist for Graphics and the Fan?

    I have used the Bios in my 7600GT many times (pressing Delete) checking drives (master and/or slave etc) and priority and I know that the computer won't work if the settings and/or IDE Pins are mixed up.

    Regards, Victor 30th April 2025 11.15pm (London, UK).