CPU fan goes into overdrive

[Camry]

This problem just started today. Whenever I try to boot up the computer it gets to the Windows login screen and then the fan goes crazy. It sounds like its going 10x faster than normal. The monitor shuts off and the computer is non responsive. It has done this twice and I have let it set for a couple of hours in between. I don't hear any other sounds other than the fan. It doesn't smell like its burning either. I have to unplug the power cord to shut it off. I may try it a 3rd time in a few.
BTW its a Dell Optiplex GX280 2.8ghz with 2 gigs of memory, running XP Pro.

 

[Hefemeister]

does your dell bios have a temp monitor in it to see what the temperature of your cpu is? do you have a lot of dust inside the case?

 

[Camry]

I went into the bios, but no temp monitor. However, I disabled fastboot and it is fine so far. I will get a can of air and clean it out, just for the heck of it. Thanks!

 

[jairic]

Unfortunately, I have way too much experience with GX280 fan problems.

According to Dell, the motherboard is bad, and will have to be replaced.

In my experience, it always starts the same way, the fan is too loud and fast every once in a while, then one day it gets more consistent. Finally you'll power on your pc, and the power button on front will have an "amber" color light instead of the green and the fan will go loud. When that happens your PC is no longer functional. Where I work, we literally have stacks of these 280s. Dell support can't fix it without a mobo replacement, and I've tried everything from a different cooler, different fan, more thermal paste, less thermal paste, etc. I have found nothing to fix this problem.

So I guess my advice would be to get any files you want to keep off of your hard drive and onto some sort of media so you can transfer them to the PC that you will inevitably have to buy now.

If anyone does have a solution to this, I'd really really love to know because it would allow me to put about 10 of these back into service!