My motherboard fan won’t spin, and it’s having trouble recognizing hardware. I want to replace it, but I have some questions first. Here are the relevant specs as I understand them
Pentium 4 processor
Radeon 9800 pro video card
1024 megs Ram
I just want to get something that works. Will whatever the cheapest motherboard is work with that hardware? Is there something specific I should look for, or are there compatibility issues or something? I’m completely new to this. Thanks for the help!
If the fan isn’t spinning, it’s possible that the resultant overheating could be causing the other problems. If price matters at all, I’d try replacing the fan first.
You may also want to check your power supply. If it’s weak or going bad, it won’t supply power to peripheral devises and hardware, which may be causing your hardware recognition issues. Also, the lack of power will certainly stop the mobo fan from spinning.
If you do determine that the motherboard is the problem, you’ll need to know what type of Pentium 4 you have (assuming you don’t want to replace the CPU), since there were several different socket types used for the P4. This site has several pages of charts that you can check, based on the number on your CPU (I have a couple of P4s sitting on my desk right now, and the model number is stamped on the top (the metal part), fourth line down. If your heat sink is glued to the CPU, or there is some heat conductive compound between the heat sink and CPU (as opposed to a graphite or similar pad) then it may not be so easy to find. The socket type, is, IIRC, also usually stamped on the socket itself, although you’ll probably need to remove the heat sink to see that too.
Giving the model number of your current motherboard would be another way of figuring it out.
I’ve been out of the hardware game for a few years. Is this the CPU fan we’re talking about, or a case fan, or something new?
Presumably they’re talking about the chipset fans, which some motherboards have.
Oh, hadn’t heard of those either.
Okay, thanks for all the advice. I realized I was in way over my head, so I just brought the computer into the tech store to ask for help.
It turns out that my old motherboard works fine after I replaced the fan. Thanks for saving me 50 bucks, Quercus! Once I updated the chipset and onboard sound drivers, the hardware recognition problems went away. All is well again, and I’m really excited to finally get to finish this Rome: Total War campaign.
It’s a fan next to the cpu heatsink/fan, separate from it. I don’t know what it’s supposed to keep cool, but I guess it’s kind of important.
That’d be the chipset, additional circuitry to enhance the CPU. It may contain video hardware, RAID hardware, sound hardware, really any kind of hardware built into the mobo. In recent years, these chips have gotten powerful enough and burn hot enough to need cooling of their own.
/Pumps forearm like Brett Favre after throwing a touchdown. Starts doing Homer Simpson victory dance…
I mean, you’re welcome. Consider it an early Solstice present.
(And a demonstration of the value of a SDMB membership.)
Or, in the case of mine, a “set” of one chip <insert Gallagher observation here>. It also possesses a fan that sounds like a small sawmill. I’ve gotten used to it, but ASUS somehow managed to make the tiny little chipset fan louder than the CPU fan and graphics card fan put together. Poking around, I found that other people with the board (A8N series) were carping about how loud the chipset fan was. Later revisions of the board had a passive cooler on the chipset, so maybe they heard all the carping, although the board designers didn’t seem to have heard the fan.
A8N owner here. Those fans are annoying and I have seen many of them come through my shop failing. For this very reason I will not buy components with prorietary integrated fans. I would rather see hefty heat sinks and add an extra case fan or two. Esp since the cases I buy for build work all support 120mm fans 
.