Fan ran too fast, now it's dead!

[JPCoolin]

Hello all, hope someone can help me here.

 

I bought a Fujitsu Esprimo e3510 second-hand a couple of years ago, very cheap, mostly for recording music.

Since having it, the case fan has always run intermittently fast.

A few days ago, it blue-screened on booting; 4 days after that, it's dead.

It would do a power test when the psu was connected - for one second the lights come on and the fan spins up. Now not even that.

 

I've looked over the connections, cards, psu, re-seated the RAM but still nothing.

I suspect I've fried the CPU. Is it worth me re-seating that with thermal paste (like I should have done) ? Or shall I assume it melted and replace?

[Gaz]

If you want to solve it, then yes its worth reseating the CPU and re-applying the thermal compound. I would also replace the fan the pwm controller could be knackered or it could need a bios update for the fan control.

[m25man]

This model suffers from "Bad Capacitor Syndrome" and this is almost certainly your problem.

 

Have a look carefully at all the caps on the MoBo if any are bulged then give up.

[JPCoolin]

Thanks for your help guys.

 

First thing I did was look over the board for bad caps, including the PSU. Nothing untoward there.

 

I've re-seated the CPU with new paste (which it seriously needed) and still no life.

 

Since the thing only cost me £30 to start with, I can either replace it with a similar desktop or spend £10 on a second-hand replacement CPU. It's a dual core 2.4Ghz, nothing fancy by today's desktop standards.

 

The fact that it no longer even does the initial spin & light up on connecting the power cord bothers me though... would a melted CPU stop that check going ahead? I've never had a PC that needed to do that prior to being turned on.

Before I go off buying CPUs or PCs, I'm going to look over that PSU one last time for fuses or burnt resistors.

 

In the meantime, thanks again.

 

jp

[JPCoolin]

I was right, it was the power supply! Tried a different power supply and it booted, without the fan working overtime.

 

It's a SFF desktop though so I still have to fix the original psu to get the covers back on.

[Zourous]

Hi JPCoolin, We've had the exact same problem with the model E3521 which I bet uses the same PSU. It took me ages to work out it was the PSU despite having 35 of these in our school. Up to the present time we've had 10 of these fail in the same way. Luckily they are still under warranty so we've received replacements, but only until August this year.

[JPCoolin]

Hi Zouros, yeah I saw your thread on the subject for which I'm thankful. Cheers duder!

 

I'm pleased there's a symptom/problem & solution posted up now. And it's fortunate these e3510 desktops will take a generic PSU, unlike the old corporate Compaqs etc I've junked in the past.

 

My intention now is to teach myself a bit of electronics and make the repair, though I'm guessing by the way it failed it'll nothing more complex than a capacitor to replace.

[Zourous]

My intention now is to teach myself a bit of electronics and make the repair, though I'm guessing by the way it failed it'll nothing more complex than a capacitor to replace.

 

Rather you than me, I don't mind messing with other parts in a PC, but I bet it could be quite dangerous messing with a PSU, I certainly wouldn't do it.