Possibly the dumbest question I will ever ask

[frau kaleun]

...until next week.

So I decided to open up my case and give the insides a good cleaning out and also to see if I could figure out why my floppy drive (yes I still have one so sue me ) wasn't able to read any floppies.

In the process of scaring away the dustbunnies I unmounted all the fans to give them a thorough cleaning. Only with the big square case fan that mounts over the vent on the back of the case, I forgot to pay attention to which side faced which way so after I cleaned it I couldn't remember which way it went when I started to put it back (it will mount facing either way).

Sadly I cannot find a diagram for the innards of this thing at the online support site, but everywhere I check indicates that 1) usually these go up with the manufacturer's label facing the inside of the case and 2) it's an exhaust fan, so when it's running the air should be blowing out the back of the case, not into the case.

However I have it back up with what appears to be the manufacturer's label facing the inside of the case, and it's running, but it's blowing air into the case and not out the back vent.

This IS supposed to be an exhaust fan, right? When it's running and I put my hand up to the back vent, I should feel a stream of air being blown OUT of the case, and not the other way 'round.

[Gerald]

You've a fan in the front that push the air, and at least one of the back side, where the excess heat goes out,right?

[jumpy]

hehe

yer, the fans at the rear of the case should be extractor fans - most fans have 2 direction arrows on them somewhere to show airflow direction and rotation of fan blades.
What you're looking for in case ventilation is constant airflow from the front of the case (sometimes with additional fans on the front, top or sides to push air into the box) to the rear.

[frau kaleun]

Well I'm turning this one around, I'm pretty sure that's how it was before... anyway that's will get the air blowing out the back which is what it should be doing.

Maybe you should change your Sig to say......
Angry Wombat Pirate say's Fan direction goes where?

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by privateer

Maybe you should change your Sig to say......
Angry Wombat Pirate say's Fan direction goes where?

It's a good thing I enjoy this sort of thing, as frustrating as it gets sometimes.

I am off work all next week and our holiday party was this afternoon and everyone was asking "so what are you doing on your extra time off?" and I'm saying "well, I'm gonna clean out the inside of my computer, try to figure out what's wrong with the floppy drive, and then switch my computer over to Windows 7 64-bit, upgrade my drivers, and reinstall all my programs!"

They all just nod and back away slowly.

The floppy has still got me stumped, I've eliminated the power supply and connecting cable as culprits - switched them both out and still nothing. It shows up as installed hardware that is working properly, there are no driver updates available, but when I click on Drive A I get a message telling me I need to put a disk in the drive. When I do, nothing happens. The drive doesn't read the disk. I think it may be shot.

The only thing I can think to try is to uninstall it and connect up the floppy drive from my old computer, which was still working when I took the thing apart a year ago. If that drive works then I'll know the newer one is dead.

I guess I'll replace it with something, but I don't know what. It's not like I really need it, I mean I had this rig for almost a year before I ever noticed a problem and that may have been the first time I ever popped a disk in there. I still think it's handy for small file transfers but given the availability of portable USB drives it is a bit of a dinosaur.


EDIT: Yep, the old drive works fine. New one must be kaput. Now I have to decide whether I put the old one in the case or find some newfangled thing to put in that drive bay...