Fans must be manually spun to start

Windows 10 pro 1903

My case has 3 fans. For a while, occasionally when I stated my PC, I would hear fan noise. If I tapped on the case near the noisy fan, it stopped.

I figured I would have to eventually replace it.

But the noise has stopped, and I have a new fan problem in it's place. Now, for two of the three fans, to get them moving I have to spin them manually. Before that, I jiggle the wires and check the connections, and sometimes when I do that I will see a slight movement of the fan, but generally I will have to spin them by hand to Jump start" them.

I use the Core Temp utility, and I don't seem to have any temperature issues that might be affecting them, as well as no typically having high CPU usage.

So does this sound familiar?

The bearings are worn, or seizing up, buy some new quality fans.

It is usually possible to lift the label and a drop of oil on the bearings, but that will only be temporary.

CountMike said:

There is another possibility, Check your BIOS for fans settings, that may be set to too low starting speed, they usually start at 600 - 900RPM. Also may make a difference if they are set to Voltage (3pin) or PWM (4pin).

++Ditto!

Odds are that multiple fans will not have the same mechanical problem at the same time. JMO.

CountMike said:

There is another possibility, Check your BIOS for fans settings, that may be set to too low starting speed, they usually start at 600 - 900RPM. Also may make a difference if they are set to Voltage (3pin) or PWM (4pin).

On BIOS you can set how the fans operates.
4 wired fans has a minimal speed but 3 wires doesn't.
You can set a minimum start speed and from a set temperature it linear increases the speed.
Mine is set to 0% till the temperature is above 30ºC. At above 30º it began to speed (25%) and reach 100% at 70ºC.

I'm not sure how to go about this, so I took some images. I'm using a desktop, so no battery considerations necessary. High performance.

Attachment 249531Attachment 249532Attachment 249533Attachment 249534Attachment 249535Attachment 249536

kitpzyxmsir said:

I'm not sure how to go about this, so I took some images. I'm using a desktop, so no battery considerations necessary. High performance.

(snip)

.ico files are Windows icon graphics. I suspect that you didn't attach the correct files.

If a fan isn't defective, won't start up, but will spin after a manual push, that normally means that the voltage applied to the fan is below its minimum starting voltage. That may be redundant with other posts, but I hope that it's stated more clearly.

What are the fan profiles in the BIOS? You may need to go to a more aggressive setting, to get the voltage (speed) up. Some of the fan profiles can be set in the Hardware Health Event Monitoring Screen of your BIOS settings. (That's for an Asrock Z170 Pro4.)