Sometimes I'd hear a coil whine which kept getting lower in pitch until poof blue screen on a PC.
Tried everything, thought it was VRM instability and basically lived with it for 2 years.
Other day I hear the whine again and rip the PC apart and find a cooling fan stalled and whistling. Nudge the fan it works, no whistle.
Investigated and Zalman Fanmate-2 speed controller is a piece of garbage.
Uses a linear 7805 regulator, no capacitors anywhere.
So what happened is the 7805 would oscillate and the fan would whistle, I think sending bogus high freq. tach signal to motherboard and then it blue screens.
Turfed the Zalman and the PC is stable like a rock.
Unbelievable, after 2 years of this.
Who'd thing a fan tach can crash a PC?
Link to a guy's teardown of the Zalman Fanmate-2. Yes it's a garbage design.
Gigabyte GA-Z97X Gaming GT motherboard bluescreen
Tried everything, thought it was VRM instability and basically lived with it for 2 years.
Other day I hear the whine again and rip the PC apart and find a cooling fan stalled and whistling. Nudge the fan it works, no whistle.
Investigated and Zalman Fanmate-2 speed controller is a piece of garbage.
Uses a linear 7805 regulator, no capacitors anywhere.
So what happened is the 7805 would oscillate and the fan would whistle, I think sending bogus high freq. tach signal to motherboard and then it blue screens.
Turfed the Zalman and the PC is stable like a rock.
Unbelievable, after 2 years of this.
Who'd thing a fan tach can crash a PC?
Link to a guy's teardown of the Zalman Fanmate-2. Yes it's a garbage design.
Gigabyte GA-Z97X Gaming GT motherboard bluescreen
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