Booting to XP stops cooling fans 2

[Gloryhound]

I have an IBM netvista, When it boots into DOS or I go to the BIOS the fans plugged into the mainboard keep spinning fine. As Soon as I let it boot into windows XP the fans spin down and stop. I waited to see if it was a heat issue, but the heat sink was getting almost too hot to touch and the fans were still stationary. I ran virus scans and used Stinger.. Found and removed Mblast virus. Otherwise the system was clean. Anyone else seen this problem? Ideas? Suggestions?

 

[bcastner]

Check your BIOS settings for fan control. You might want to select always on.

 

[Gloryhound]

Thanks .. unfortunately I have only two options in the bios for the fan control.. one is "quiet" and the other is "legacy" The discription for quiet is good, however the legacy description does not mention weather fan speed is controlled or not. Is it possible this is a PSU issue??

Enableing "quiet" mode keeps one fan spinning after boot up. This is a chassie fan. The CPU still stops and won't come back on even when the CPU is almost too hot to touch.

In "Legacy" mode both fans stop and won't startup.

What this tells me is this: The problem is likely hardware oriented and has little to do with the OS. My next two suspects are Mainboard or powersupply.

 

[bcastner]

It is at its heart I still believe a BIOS issue. IBM has upgraded that particular service several times. You should, for example, have more choices.

Google "ibm (insert your Netvista model name here) fan control"
Example returned link:

http://forums.pcworld.co.nz/archive/index.php/t-51990.html

There are third-party utilities that may help. I have used this on non-Dell systems:

http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/index.html

 

[Gloryhound]

Checked those and they led me to try something. I booted the box up and got a defrag running then added a dvd to play then fired up the virus scanner. It just kept getting hotter. So I tried something else. I tried the screws on the heat sink to make sure it was secure enough, and sure enough I was able to turn the screws about half a turn, but the fan came on right away. Seems the heatsink wasn't seated well enough.

Thank you for your suggestions Bcastner, they led me down the right path even though the solution was no one I expected.