A suddenly noisy fan

Grievous Angel · Post by **Grievous Angel** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 11:46 am

Since I got my new PC, the sound has been fine. In fact, unless you were standing right near it, you wouldn't know it was turned on at all. Yesterday, I turned the computer on, and it sounded like an airplane was firing up its engines. Any ideas on what would make a fan suddenly get so noisy, and is this an easy thing to fix? The PC (from ibuypower) is still under warranty, so I can get someone to make a free house call. I just don't know if this is a major thing to repair or something simple.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 11:49 am

It's probably dust. If you feel comfortable, open the case and hit the fans inside with some compressed air.

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 12:04 pm

Does the back of your PC look like this?

~Neal

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 1:15 pm

It could also be a wire just barely touching the fan blades. THat can make a gawdawful racket.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 5:27 pm

Ironrod wrote:It could also be a wire just barely touching the fan blades. THat can make a gawdawful racket.

For sure, I've seen that happen dozens of times. Especially with the CPU fan. Be careful not to stick your finger in it while running. It hurts

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 6:24 pm

Rip wrote:
Ironrod wrote:It could also be a wire just barely touching the fan blades. THat can make a gawdawful racket.
For sure, I've seen that happen dozens of times. Especially with the CPU fan. Be careful not to stick your finger in it while running. It hurts

Especially those 120mm suckers.

naednek · Post by **naednek** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 8:59 pm

do you have fans on on the actual case? If so, try tightening up the screws, sometimes they get loose and start to rattle. That's what happened to me a few weeks ago

Grievous Angel · Post by **Grievous Angel** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 3:06 pm

At the risk of exposing my lack of knowledge about computers...

I have two fans in my case, one that was added on and one that's part of the motherboard (Abit? I THINK this is the motherboard, but I don't really know). At any rate, it's the Abit fan that's making the noise. I couldn't see any wires near the blades (the case is actually fairly nicely packaged, with wires all bundled up together), and there wasn't a lot of dust in the case at all. So much for me meager repair abilities.

I think I may call to have someone come in and check the machine out. This should still be under warranty, so it shouldn't cost anything.

Bakhtosh · Post by **Bakhtosh** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 4:24 pm

If it's one of the small fans on the motherboard, and it's being noisy, it's likely going bad. Those small fans do that sometimes...If it's not dust, and cleaning it off doesn't help, then it will probably need to be replaced.