Fan issue. Please help!

[xion824]

Ok, here's the issue I'm having. I just bought a Dell E521 system for every day use. I replaced the CPU fan, which is just a 120mm fan that blows across the heatsink from the side. Problem is, the original fan uses a 4-wire, 5-slot connector to connect it to the motherboard, whereas the new fan has a 3-pin connector, and a 4-pin pass-through molex connector. Because of this, I get a message stating "Alert! CPU 0 fan failure". Does anyone know of an adapter I can use to get the fan to run to the 5-slot connector on the motherboard? According to Dell, there is no way to disable the warning message during POST. Please help!

[Bucko]

What was wrong with the old fan?
Have you thought of plugging it back in and using it elsewhere for cooling in the case? The PC will think it's cooling the CPU and you can keep the other fan you put on.

[Spawn-Inc]

What was wrong with the old fan?
Have you thought of plugging it back in and using it elsewhere for cooling in the case? The PC will think it's cooling the CPU and you can keep the other fan you put on.

that sounds like your best bet. did you just replace the stock 120mm with another 120mm fan, if so why?

[xion824]

There was nothing wrong with the old fan. Just wanted to add an LED fan that pushes better airflow to be the on colling the CPU. It's a weird setup for CPU cooling. I could plug the other fan in, but there is really no place for it to go. Kinda tight in these little Dell cases. I just can't help making changes to my systems.

[.Maleficus.]

Ok, so let me see if I can figure this out. The old had, a 5 pin connector, right? And the new one has a 3 pin connector, and an adapter to make it molex? Right? And because you can make it a molex, you aren't plugging it directly into the motherboard like the old one was? If I understand right, then the error is from the motherboard not detecting a fan plugged into it. If you know that the fan is spinning, and working, then you don't really have anything to worry about, because it will still work, but the message is concerning you still, right? Does the new fan fit anywhere on the old connector? Like, remove the molex adapter, and plug the 3 pin connector onto 3 of the mobo pins> Usually motherboards have a little rectangular piece of plastic that runs up 3 of the pins. See if you have that. If you do, look on the 3 pin connector on the fan you bought. There should be 2 raised lips on one side of it. Match those up with the rectangular plastic on the mobo and Bob's your uncle. Sorry if I have the wrong idea though, that's the best I could come up with.

And welcome to the forums!

[Outlaw]

I don't know alot about this area, probably enough to break it so this is probably more of a question then a suggestion. Couldn't you just jump the connectors that say if the fan is running/plugged in with a resistor? All it needs to do is say there is something there, right?

[Redundant]

Couldn't you just jump the connectors that say if the fan is running/plugged in with a resistor? All it needs to do is say there is something there, right?
That would probably mess something up: that pin on the motherboard is also used to tell what the RPM's of the fans are in addition to whether they are there or not.

[Outlaw]

Makes sense. I got nothing then. :) Good Luck.

[Mobius01010]

Why not just live with the error message and tell BIOS to halt on no errors? I had a usb keyboard on a non usb keyboard mobo, and got an error everytime I hit power. I just hit f1 and forgot about it. Never gave me an issue; worked fine in BIOS.