Mystery buttons on PC

[Eichhörnchen]

I'm going to post a photo soon, meanwhile...

@ RR, there's no data label anywhere on the casing (first thing I thought of, too) so I haven't been able to search for or ask about this particular machine.

@ DragonRider, thanks for that; the buttons are indeed present in your pic, second from the left and the last one (the two little led's and their symbols are shown in your photo as well).

[Eichhörnchen]

The big one in the middle well, even an idiot like me could guess what that was for

[Rockin Robbins]

Okay, that puppy is a Cooler Master Centurion 5 II mid-tower case. Your buttons from right to left are power button (the large one), reset button and front fan on/off for your blue LED 120mm front fan.



And that's a mystery. Why would you NOT want your front fan to be on all the time? Or why would you not use a 3-wire fan and let the motherboard control the throttle according to component temps?

[Eichhörnchen]

Thanks, RR you're a real pal for finding this picture... you might've just saved me from a lot of grief.

This is indeed the beast, and while there is a fan whirring quietly in the back, cooling the CPU, there is no glowing blue fan nor any kind of fan spinning around at the front as far as I can tell, but I'll need to make sure. The button which apparently should be turning it on and off (for whatever strange reason, as you say) seems to be doing nothing.

The PC is working just fine, but I guess this has to be gone into... your picture is going to be an enormous help when I email the dealer tomorrow, thank you

Thanks to you other three for your help, also ... I know exactly where I'm at now

[DragonRider]

Originally Posted by Eichhörnchen

Thanks, RR you're a real pal for finding this picture... you might've just saved me from a lot of grief.

This is indeed the beast, and while there is a fan whirring quietly in the back, cooling the CPU, there is no glowing blue fan nor any kind of fan spinning around at the front as far as I can tell, but I'll need to make sure. The button which apparently should be turning it on and off (for whatever strange reason, as you say) seems to be doing nothing.

The PC is working just fine, but I guess this has to be gone into... your picture is going to be an enormous help when I email the dealer tomorrow, thank you

Thanks to you other three for your help, also ... I know exactly where I'm at now

???? If the fan is there it will continue to spin the Button turns the blue lights on and off not the fan itself it may only control the rear fan in some cases

[Eichhörnchen]

Sorry, DragonRider... just me being dumb: of course you guys mean that this button just operates the fancy LEDs on the FAN (I'd thought you meant it turned off the little power and hard drive ones) I get it now.

I'm pretty sure I can hear a fan going at the front even if I can't see it; I don't much care if it lights up like a birthday cake so long as it goes around... maybe they fixed it to stay on all the while the power is on. Anyway, I shot them an email earlier so I'll wait and see what they say.

[Rockin Robbins]

Looked to me like the button turned the fan off and on and the fan is just your run of the mill 120mm lighted fan. They don't have separate wires for light and fan power.

Either way it's really stupid to put a fan on a switch. How do you know when you want it on? The motherboard knows and will throttle a fan to take care of the temperature, running it as slowly as it can at all times to get the job done.

If you are anti-Christmas tree, although I haven't seen a blue christmas tree since the 1980s, unlighted fans are cheap. Get a 3-wire one, plug it into one of the motherboard fan controllers, then connect the stupid switch to an air raid siren or something useful.