I’m not very good with hardware .. I build machines, connect everything up, test and replace cover. 

 

Last night one of my servers dropped a drive and I had to open the case. I noticed this fan isn’t working, just wondering what purpose it serves? It does spin for a couple of seconds when the machine is booting up but then stops. The heat sink that surrounds it is quite warm. CPU fan is working fine. 

 

Does anyone have any clues? 

The mobo is a MSI X570. 

 

Very hard to see what it's attached to   but maybe cooling the North/South bridge chipset ?

What MB is it? Check the MB manual.

 

Chipset cooler according to the MSI website.

 

38 minutes ago, johng said:

Very hard to see what it's attached to   but maybe cooling the North/South bridge chipset ?

 

Yes.

I guessed the chipset fan before looking at the OP's photo.

 

This is why I hate mainboards with fans.

Always problems.

And, noisy.

 

I never buy mainboards with fans!!!!

 

 

So .. should chipset fans run or only when under load.

 

This is a server, so spends most of the time idling, which may be why it’s not running constantly. As I said it runs for a few seconds when booting, so demonstrates it works. 

I think it should run when the chipset gets above a certain temperature,

there maybe a setting in the BIOS to tweak the chipset fan operation.