We have a fan down! I repeat, we have a fan down!

[nockergeek]

So, last night, I'm starting up a Stratholme run on WoW with a bunch of friends. We're just inside the instance, working on the very first group of mobs when all of a sudden,  I hear a strange noise coming from my computer. Sounds like a fan going out, as the motor revs up loudly, then starts making an oscillating noise, then finally stops. While it does this, my graphics suddenly get very choppy(to the point of being on a half-second repeat in some cases) when there's a lot going on, which has never been a problem before. I log off to check the problem.

I give the system a quick overview:
- CPU fan? Check.
- 2 front fans? Check.
- Side fan? Check.
- 2 rear fans? Check.
- Power supply fan? Check.
- Video card fan? ...

My video card fan was not spinning up. Powered down the system, opened it up, checked the card. Didn't feel terribly warm, and it didn't seem to be physically jammed, although the fan didn't turn as freely as I would expect (but it might not be a loose-spinning fan). Closed him back up, powered on, and logged back into WoW. Checked the fan again (thank God for case windows). Nope, not spinning up. I would imagine that this fan runs all the time, and not just once the card starts to get warm, and considering that I can't get it to start spinning again, it's a problem. Probably a dead/fried motor. Why it went, I don't know.

So, my Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro, the card I had for the last two years or so, has died. Doubly ironic, as I just bought a 2-month gamecard for WoW (because of the whole credit card issue). Can't play WoW without a fully-functional card. Such is life.

Comments

[nightambre.livejournal.com]

Hey, we'll see what we got here as far as parts go. I'll IM you when Jon gets home and we go over our inventory and see what you might like? We can even samday/two day ship it for you.