WTF? This computer's CPU fan is powered on by only a HDMI monitor (streamable.com)

submitted 1 year ago by JustARegularNerd@aussie.zone to c/technology@beehaw.org

25 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I actually intended to post this to Reddit but I thought I would contribute content to here instead to get the ball rolling here and do my part.

Anyway, this is a Windows XP-era machine I have at work for testing, and I had just this monitor plugged into it and saw the CPU fan trying to spin. I spun it a bit myself and it just kept going. I disconnected the HDMI cable and it stopped.

The monitor is actually DisplayPort, with a passive adapter to HDMI which then goes to the HDMI cable connected to this PC. The GPU is just PCI-E. The computer has some old ~2007 AMD CPU in it. The GPU actually doesn't seem to work anyway, the PC posts normally but there's no image from either the GPU or onboard, but when putting either another GPU or no GPU, there's an image from the appropriate output.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] SoftestVoid@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago

HDMI and DP both provide a small amount of power. The motherboard must be designed in such a way that it can leak backwards and cause the fan to spin.