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In some computers, when I put them to stand-by, they do not shut down their fan-based coolers. Even though they go stand-by (and can be waken up with the mouse), they just don't shut up.
I have no idea if the CPU is still consuming power, but it's cooler is, and also the case fan.
I'm sure the PC is in stand-by because a decorative light in its front blinks, which makes me believe the motherboard understands what stand-by means. Also, the CPU's fan in wired into the mobo, not directly to the power source. The network card shuts off (the LED goes off) and the hard disk spins down, but the fans are still on.
It's an old ASUS A7V8X-X with AMD Athlon XP 2000+, but it also happens to another, old, ASUS A7N266-VM with AMD Athlon XP 2200 (update: In which case it may be expected, as only the case fans, connected directly to the power supply, keep running). And it also happens to somebody else's PC with unknown specs, so it's not that my PCs hate me. I guess. Dunno.
Camilo Martin
Posted 2012-02-12T05:03:50.947
Reputation: 2 308
Hey, thank you very very much for such a high-quality reply, you're awesome (I didn't have the manuals, thanks for the links). I'm not using any fan-related software, the XP SP3 install on the A7V8X-X is relatively fresh, and updated. The A7N266-VM one actually runs Linux Mint Debian, fresh install this week. I did not ever install Windows on it, so I don't know if it would have a different behavior (should I image the partitions, install windows, check if it still happens, restore?) Oh, the latter has the case fan directly on the power supply.
– Camilo Martin – 2012-02-12T09:27:23.220Ok, I regret not checking it twice before - as you said, the CPU fan of the A7N266-VM does go off in standby (but not the case fan, which is connected to the power supply through one of those yellow-black-black-red connectors) - I do not know if there is hope for it to go off, or if I can connect its wires somewhere else (would I damage something if I made a parallel connection with the CPU's fan cables, which do go off properly? I have a rudimentary understanding of electronics).
– Camilo Martin – 2012-02-12T10:00:54.673You can easily get a Molex-to-fan adapter. You can find them on eBay for as little as $1 with free shipping or at your local computer shop. But first, did you try changing the suspend mode with the
– Synetech – 2012-02-12T17:43:33.537dumppoutility on the Windows one?I did not explain myself well - the case fan is connected to a molex with an adapter like this one (with a female and a male like in the picture). But it still does not power off in standby (while the CPU fan does). Regarding the A7V8X-X one, I used the
– Camilo Martin – 2012-02-15T01:06:41.213dumppoutility, and set it to a minimum of S3, and in the BIOS I've set "ACPI suspend to RAM" (under "Power") to "enabled". Results are most weird. Now if I go stand-by, the fans go off, and the stand-by indicator blinks as it should, but I can't wake it up. (continues)(continuing) And, I've already set the
Power->Power-Up Control->Wake/power up by PS/2 (Keyboard|Mouse)to "Space Bar" and "Double Click" respectively. Note that the mouse is USB, but the keyboard is PS/2. no amount of hitting both wakes up the thing. And if I simply press the power button, the computer "powers up" (fans spin, monitor powers up) but the screen keeps dark, and there's no HDD activity. – Camilo Martin – 2012-02-15T01:12:59.383Hmm, so the fan has a fan connector? I thought you were saying it has a Molex connector. If it has a fan connector, just connect it to the motherboard (I would be surprised if the board did not have at least one other fan connector), don’t convert it to Molex. – Synetech – 2012-02-15T01:13:28.477
No, it has a molex connector, sorry for the misunderstanding. It looks as in the image minus the fan connector (it has only the molex part, and the two wires go into the fan). And both boards have no other fan connector, which is frustrating (I've looked twice...). – Camilo Martin – 2012-02-15T01:15:48.723
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If it has a Molex connector, then the system cannot control it like it can with a fan connector (ie turning off just the fans), it can only cut the power to all Molex connectors by going into standby. Re Power-up control; those options are for turning the system on, not resuming from standby. You need to set the jumper called
– Synetech – 2012-02-15T01:21:21.240KBPWRto enable activating with a PS/2 keyboard and theUSBPWRjumpers to activate with a USB mouse/keyboard. Check pages 20-21 in the manual for instructions and location photos on pages 5 & 8.Thank you very much for the guidance, I though "wake" meant waking it up from stand-by. Regarding the stand-by on the A7N266-VM, it does not cut power from any molex, I've listened closely and surprising as it is, the HDDs keep spinning on stand-by (even if the CPU fan, which is more noticeable, does shut down). – Camilo Martin – 2012-02-15T01:27:00.097
Did you set the A7N266-VM to S3 as well? S1 and S3 are quite different. S1 mostly just idles the CPU (ie, fans, etc. remain on) while S3 actually powers down everything but the RAM. Your BIOS does not have an option to set the standby mode, so you need to do it in Windows with the
– Synetech – 2012-02-15T01:41:43.203dumppoutility.I've only set the one with Windows to S3, as the A7N266-VM uses a variant of Debian (Mint LMDE). Do you think it would work to use the
– Camilo Martin – 2012-02-15T01:46:55.657dumppoutility with a BartPE (Windows Live CD)?I don’t think that would work (it only affects the current session). I don’t use *nix, but did find a couple of things that might help. This page says that you need to disable
– Synetech – 2012-02-15T01:56:33.007quirk-s3-biosif the system freezes when coming out of standby. This page says to addacpi_sleep=s3_biosto the boot loader to use S3.Uh, and... just now I've noticed, both of the manual links are for the A7N266-VM :P ...but! Here's the manual for the A7V8X-X. I'm taking a look at both things, I'll report what I try and what happens.
– Camilo Martin – 2012-02-15T02:32:34.197Oops, you’re right. I mis-copied-and-pasted.
:-)I’ll update the link. It’s the same thing though,KBPWRandUSBPWRjumpers in nearly the same positions. > I'll report what I try and what happens. Great. Fingers crossed. – Synetech – 2012-02-15T02:37:07.903It sounds like you enabled S3 support by setting "ACPI suspend to RAM" to enabled. S1 is basically leftover junk from circa 1995 when power supplies didn't support standby, and doesn't really save any power. Unfortunately, if it doesn't wake back up properly that points to buggy bios. You might check for a bios update for your motherboard. – psusi – 2012-02-15T04:04:40.063
@Synetech Bad news :( The A7V8X-X still wakes up to a blank, black screen. The
USBPWRwas kinda useless (since a non-PS/2 mouse can't seem to wake the machine), but theKBPWRjumper works altough it wakes up to nothingness. I really don't know what the process is, for waking up. Should I think it's the bios, or Windows? – Camilo Martin – 2012-02-15T06:59:31.337@psusi There's a "beta version" (and I wouldn't expect a stable version anyway) of the BIOS on the ASUS website. Should I try and "install" it? (I've never updated a BIOS firmware before - if I do something wrong, will that juper that resets the CMOS help?)
– Camilo Martin – 2012-02-15T07:02:59.397@psusi and @Synetech Oh, and forgot to mention, I currently have
– Camilo Martin – 2012-02-16T01:12:31.500A7V8X-X BIOS 1012. Since the1013is for "supporting new CPUs", I could only hope eitherA7V8X-X Beta BIOS 1014.002has something fixed (it's not mentioned what's the change of this update on the site, it's roughly one year newer than mine), or that my BIOS is corrupted and I should flash it to fix it (not that it's something to hope for, actually...)It’s an old board, so there won’t be any further fixes. I generally use the latest BIOS regardless of if I have problems or not (sometimes the add features in addition to fixing bugs). Yes, you may as well consider flashing the BIOS to ensure it is good (you will also have the benefit of seeing if it is worn out or defective during the write process). In that case, you may as well flash the latest one. It is not really as scary as it sounds; just make sure that the system will remain on and not crash or reset for the few seconds that it is writing… – Synetech – 2012-02-16T01:19:23.663
…No, the clear CMOS jumper only resets the settings, it does not fix a bad flash, but bad flashes are actually fairly rare (you can even try again as long as you don’t reboot). You may want to first simply load the defaults in the BIOS because it sounds like a bunch of settings have been changed and several of them will affect most of the problems that you have been experiencing. Loading the defaults will be easier than verifying each one individually. – Synetech – 2012-02-16T01:21:24.457
@Synetech Ok, so I plan to do the following: reset the configurations to default (in the BIOS UI), burn a CD-RW with some version of DOS (does it matter which one? FreeDOS will do? Will it work even if not a floppy?), including
aflash.exein the ISO, and the beta BIOS image. Boot from that CD, and run the flashing program, reboot, re-configure the settings I should care about in the BIOS, boot into windows, and try stand-by. I really hope not to fry the board or something! It never happened to you, right? – Camilo Martin – 2012-02-17T01:26:43.883For the A7V8X-X, you can simply put the BIOS file on a floppy then press
– Synetech – 2012-02-17T01:35:22.233Alt+F2during it’s POST (it has a built-in flash utility). For the A7N266-VM, you need to boot into DOS with a floppy or CD (you can use any only DOS-compatible boot disk. (I use the boot command-prompt option of the Windows 98 CD.) I have flashed the BIOS on several motherboard, 1-3 times each, and never had a problem. They are designed to be flashable, so long as the power is not lost during the 10-20 second write process. As for settings, try just the defaults before changing anything.