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Hi, I recently cleaned out my Acer Predator Helios 300 (PH317-51), which had not been opened or cleaned since its original purchase 4 years ago in 2017. I removed dust from fans and heatsink, applied new thermal paste, and replaced stock thermal pads with higher quality ones. However, during reassembly, I plugged the fan connection to the motherboard in upside down by mistake, and even after reopening the machine and plugging them in the correct way, the fans are just completely non-responsive. My machine has a built-in software called PredatorSense that lets me control the fan speed and monitor CPU/GPU temps. The fans remain at 0 rpm even when set to max, and are dead silent at any temperature.
I don’t think the issue at heart is the fans themselves, because they were working fine beforehand, and I didn’t use any liquid to clean them. I first removed the heatsink from the motherboard, and then the fans from the heatsink. Then for cleaning, all I used was a can of compressed air (holding the fans with my finger so they don’t spin), and I used a small blunt edge to scrape off some grime in between fan blades, kind of like flossing. At any rate, even if the fans are faulty somehow, they should still spin (or try to), and you’d hear some noise or they’d be too slow to be effective, but they wouldn’t be dead zero and unresponsive to my predatorsense.
My best guess is that by forcing in the plug the wrong way, perhaps I damaged the connector in some way (either the hole or the plug that goes in) or I somehow shorted something on the board itself (or maybe the former causes the latter).
I’ve scoured the internet for a similar scenario and possible solution in vain. I think I only found 1 or 2 guys in similar situation on some forum, with no apparent solution.
I do have a multimeter at home, that my brother used for a college class, but I don’t think I’ll attempt trying to find, much less do anything about a shorted circuit. I mean, I screwed up even the simple paste change operation despite a mountain of online support guides, disassembly videos, and taking my time to familiarize myself with everything. I’m no electrician and I’d probably just do more damage (thankfully everything else seems to work fine, though I’ve not actually tested the dedicated GPU, for obvious reasons of overheating).
So I would be happy to have a professional try their hand at this, but I imagine the cost would be hundreds of dollars now. I don’t even know who to turn to, since most “pc repair” people only do simple operations like “data recovery” = they unscrew the back panel and take out a HDD or something. They don’t have the experience or tools or even care to take risk for fixing a motherboard. The tech world has a culture of dispose and replace everything because it’s all so inexpensive right now.
Anyway, sorry, this became quite long, but if anyone has any useful suggestions, I’m all ears. I don’t know what to do, my brother (always been a tech kinda guy, studying computer engineering major) is equally out of ideas, and I can’t find any help online. Maybe somebody knows a good tech repair service I can contact? Or perhaps someone with experience in the field can guide me if there is some DIY solution I missed or overlooked.
Thanks for your time and any help you might offer.
I don’t think the issue at heart is the fans themselves, because they were working fine beforehand, and I didn’t use any liquid to clean them. I first removed the heatsink from the motherboard, and then the fans from the heatsink. Then for cleaning, all I used was a can of compressed air (holding the fans with my finger so they don’t spin), and I used a small blunt edge to scrape off some grime in between fan blades, kind of like flossing. At any rate, even if the fans are faulty somehow, they should still spin (or try to), and you’d hear some noise or they’d be too slow to be effective, but they wouldn’t be dead zero and unresponsive to my predatorsense.
My best guess is that by forcing in the plug the wrong way, perhaps I damaged the connector in some way (either the hole or the plug that goes in) or I somehow shorted something on the board itself (or maybe the former causes the latter).
I’ve scoured the internet for a similar scenario and possible solution in vain. I think I only found 1 or 2 guys in similar situation on some forum, with no apparent solution.
I do have a multimeter at home, that my brother used for a college class, but I don’t think I’ll attempt trying to find, much less do anything about a shorted circuit. I mean, I screwed up even the simple paste change operation despite a mountain of online support guides, disassembly videos, and taking my time to familiarize myself with everything. I’m no electrician and I’d probably just do more damage (thankfully everything else seems to work fine, though I’ve not actually tested the dedicated GPU, for obvious reasons of overheating).
So I would be happy to have a professional try their hand at this, but I imagine the cost would be hundreds of dollars now. I don’t even know who to turn to, since most “pc repair” people only do simple operations like “data recovery” = they unscrew the back panel and take out a HDD or something. They don’t have the experience or tools or even care to take risk for fixing a motherboard. The tech world has a culture of dispose and replace everything because it’s all so inexpensive right now.
Anyway, sorry, this became quite long, but if anyone has any useful suggestions, I’m all ears. I don’t know what to do, my brother (always been a tech kinda guy, studying computer engineering major) is equally out of ideas, and I can’t find any help online. Maybe somebody knows a good tech repair service I can contact? Or perhaps someone with experience in the field can guide me if there is some DIY solution I missed or overlooked.
Thanks for your time and any help you might offer.
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