ebr 14947 Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 Okay, about an hour ago my dev machine started doing something very strange. Every 10 seconds on a set cycle the CPU fan spikes up to 3100rpm for about a second and then comes back down. Nothing is causing a CPU spike to correspond to this. The overall CPU utilization is Watching task manager both sorted by CPU and the graphs show no CPU utilization spikes. Using Open Hardware Monitor, the CPU temp and utilization are remaining steady as well. Just the fan is going from a norm of 800rpm to 3100 on this 10-second schedule. I've re-started the machine. I didn't install anything new. MB Server isn't even running atm . I'm stumped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techywarrior 688 Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 Could simply be that the fan controller is dead/dying. If you can, using any mb monitor software, check to make sure that voltage on the 5v rail isn't fluctuating. (that would be worse then the fan controller tho) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14947 Posted February 12, 2015 Author Share Posted February 12, 2015 I see two voltage numbers: CPU VCore and VBat (the battery, I guess) The VBat is steady at 3.248 The other one is fluctuating a bit between 0.864 and about .990 but it is not fluctuating as much as nor in the same cycle as the fan which is very consistent at every ~10 seconds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14947 Posted February 12, 2015 Author Share Posted February 12, 2015 Another data point. I brought up the server and put the CPU under load by playing a 1080 item from the ATV app (causing transcoding). The fan is keeping the 10 second cycle but it just moved the range up. While ffmpeg is going it is spiking between 1200 and 4200rpm. Stop the playback and I'm back to the 800-3200 range. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techywarrior 688 Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 Not sure what else to recommend to look at. Could just be the fan controller. Yea, the voltage range would have to be fluctuating more wildly then what you reported. But wanted you to look because the fan speed is directly related to the voltage applied to it. There are two things I could suggest if you wanted to try them. 1. Plug the CPU fan into one of the system fan headers. Go into the BIOS and see if you can change the settings for the case temps (some BIOS don't let you change them and even if they do you may not be able to change the range enough to handle the CPU temps) 2. Plug the CPU fan into a system fan header and let it run constantly at 100% speed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14947 Posted February 12, 2015 Author Share Posted February 12, 2015 And the CPU fan controller would be a part of the mobo, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techywarrior 688 Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 And the CPU fan controller would be a part of the mobo, right? Mostly, I think some of the newer Intel CPUs have a controller built into them but that may only be for the integrated ones. It's pretty hard to diagnose anything by guessing though so don't do anything too drastic without someone else at least concurring with me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Baron 64 Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 If it is a physical issue, then replacing the fan should be worth considering. You could take a look at the PC's BIOS also, does the BIOS include a fan performance profile? You could also check the BIOS release notes, perhaps this is a known issue and a BIOS update will resolve the issue. Finally, does the issue occur outside of the OS? If you boot into the system's BIOS and you seeing the sane spikes? That could help define if the issue is caused by the OS or is elsewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14947 Posted February 12, 2015 Author Share Posted February 12, 2015 Put the machine to sleep for about an hour, woke it back up and now it isn't doing it anymore. Funny thing is, there was just now a process running at 12% CPU but the fan is steady at 800 (which is normal). I guess I'll just keep an eye on it. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speechles 1920 Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 (edited) I get the same issue at times where oddly the CPU spikes and fans whir up in a pattern you can hear, and it gets annoying. Usually its a stuck ffmpeg process, not related to anything going on in scheduled tasks. I know if you drown your internet connection with traffic (think Usenet,torrents, etc) and copy new items into the library, Mediabrowser chokes scanning for metadata and causes the scan task to hang. When you manually click the sqaure button to stop it, it is showing "stopping" but it never changes. It just stays in this stopping state. Leaving it in this condition, rather than restart Mediabrowser entirely (which takes it a good 25 mins to scan in my full collection of media on a restart) causes weird behavior for me. The next day before I watch anything, I always kill it off manually and restart. Unless during the night the fans whir up in a pattern like you said, restarting Mediabrowser always solves the issue. I am on latest Dev release, usually, sometimes I lag behind a few as updating requires restart... Edited February 12, 2015 by speechles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Koleckai Silvestri 1150 Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 On the physical level and the idea that you're not using liquid cooling, did you crack the case and check dust levels on the cooler fins? They can get clogged between the radiator and the fan itself. Living in a desert with high winds, I have to check radiators at least once a month. Constant battle against the Mojave dust. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14947 Posted February 13, 2015 Author Share Posted February 13, 2015 I get the same issue at times where oddly the CPU spikes and fans whir up in a pattern you can hear, and it gets annoying. Usually its a stuck ffmpeg process, not related to anything going on in scheduled tasks. I know if you drown your internet connection with traffic (think Usenet,torrents, etc) and copy new items into the library, Mediabrowser chokes scanning for metadata and causes the scan task to hang. When you manually click the sqaure button to stop it, it is showing "stopping" but it never changes. It just stays in this stopping state. Leaving it in this condition, rather than restart Mediabrowser entirely (which takes it a good 25 mins to scan in my full collection of media on a restart) causes weird behavior for me. The next day before I watch anything, I always kill it off manually and restart. Unless during the night the fans whir up in a pattern like you said, restarting Mediabrowser always solves the issue. I am on latest Dev release, usually, sometimes I lag behind a few as updating requires restart... My CPU never spiked - only the fan was. It has completely quit and I did open the case and clear off some dust. Maybe that was it, but the temp was also not spiking while the fan was doing this. Hopefully, it is over whatever it was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fantaxp7 190 Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 If it is a physical issue, then replacing the fan should be worth considering. You could take a look at the PC's BIOS also, does the BIOS include a fan performance profile? You could also check the BIOS release notes, perhaps this is a known issue and a BIOS update will resolve the issue. Finally, does the issue occur outside of the OS? If you boot into the system's BIOS and you seeing the sane spikes? That could help define if the issue is caused by the OS or is elsewhere. This is basically what I was about to type. I was thinking odd Bios issue. Also if you had an extra cpu fan that could help to test. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14947 Posted February 13, 2015 Author Share Posted February 13, 2015 I'd be very surprised if it was a bios issue. The machine is 4 1/2 years old with nothing having changed on it. Must've been dirt on the fan or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abobader 2952 Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 Good day, No matters if the cases are build for dust proof, you need to keep clean them every 6 months or so for none dusty countries or area, I used to do complete clean for my servers and family pc every 3 months. Also these fans no matters what, will need a replacement from time to time to give best result for cooling their devices, even if no problem (regarding sound or a like). My best Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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