CPU Fan Grinding

[counterpoint212]

Greetings. I have a question about my CPU cooling fan. Tonight i've begun to get a rather loud grinding or rattling sound from it. Its intermittent, and loudest at boot, but i'm concerned about failure nonetheless, so my question is this.

I have an Asus Silent Square Pro cooler on my CPU (Q9450 quad core on an Asus P5N-T Deluxe mobo, old I know but hey i'm poor.), judging by the looks of it. I pulled the power connecter and booted the system to confirm thats where the noise seems to be coming from. Is it possible to just replace the fan inside the cooler, as I believe its a 90mm or so fan running on a 3 pin connector in there. Or do I just have to buy a new cooler? Forgive my ignorance but i'm not particularly tech savvy, and money is tight at the moment as I'm in the process of moving.

I've also wondered if the heat fins on the cooler with just normal air flow through the case, or a box fan put up against the side would move enough heat to cool the processor sufficently. It isn't dead yet, so I dont seem to be in immediate danger, CPU temps are holding nice and steady under load, just trying to get a feel for my options. Any help you can provide would be appreciated

 

[rds1220]

Greetings. I have a question about my CPU cooling fan. Tonight i've begun to get a rather loud grinding or rattling sound from it. Its intermittent, and loudest at boot, but i'm concerned about failure nonetheless, so my question is this.

I have an Asus Silent Square Pro cooler on my CPU (Q9450 quad core on an Asus P5N-T Deluxe mobo, old I know but hey i'm poor.), judging by the looks of it. I pulled the power connecter and booted the system to confirm thats where the noise seems to be coming from. Is it possible to just replace the fan inside the cooler, as I believe its a 90mm or so fan running on a 3 pin connector in there. Or do I just have to buy a new cooler? Forgive my ignorance but i'm not particularly tech savvy, and money is tight at the moment as I'm in the process of moving.

I've also wondered if the heat fins on the cooler with just normal air flow through the case, or a box fan put up against the side would move enough heat to cool the processor sufficently. It isn't dead yet, so I dont seem to be in immediate danger, CPU temps are holding nice and steady under load, just trying to get a feel for my options. Any help you can provide would be appreciated

This is a desktop right? First I would open the computer up and make sure no wires are getting tangled up in the fan. Then if that checks out alright I would take off the heatsink and seperate the fan from the heatsink. Then remove the back sticker on the fan and put a small drop of oil in the hole. That will lube the bearings inside the fan and MIGHT get rid of the sound. If that doesn't work or you don't feel like doing that you can just get a new fan. Fans from Coolermaster are pretty cheap.

 

[counterpoint212]

Yes this is a desktop, no way the cooler would fit into a laptop. I havent seen anything getting tangled into the fan, as the only wire that runs into the cooler itself is for the fan power on the interior, that pulls air through the fins. Is there any particular kind of oil I should use? And on top of that, can the fan inside the cooling tower itself be replaced? Or did you mean just replacing the entire cooler?

Its a rather loud grinding sound at times. I dont know how long it might last under those conditions, but i'm hoping I can string it along at least till november after i'm done moving

 

[rds1220]

I had a couple of bottles of Hoppes #9 laying around so that's what I used but you can use pretty much any kind of all purpose oil. Hoppes #9 or that 3 in 1 they sell in hardware stores will work fine.

I was talking about re-placing just the fan not the whole cooler BUT it it uses a propietary fan/heatsink like some of the old Dell's than I don't think you will be able to replace it. Do you have any pictures of the cooler or any idea of the size of the fan? If you take the fan off of the heatsink you maybe be able to see it on there. It might say 12cm (that's a 120mm's) or 14cm's (140 mm's)

 

[counterpoint212]

I'm pretty sure this right here is the cooler I have, looks identical Rather sheepishly I have to admit I didnt even know there was a fan in the thing till it made some noise, though I did dust the fins out when I cleaned the rest of the inside.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835101009

It looks like the top come off of it, and I can access the fan through their. The power cord runs out the bottom and plugs into the mobo.

Fan says 90mm on the details page, and there's more info there on it as well. I cant get into it right now because I'm on the pc in question and I have to hit the road for the day here soon, so I wont have access to it.

EDIT: Also I dont have the control panel mentioned in the pictures on the website, but everything else is identical.

 

[Alex The PC Gamer]

Grinding noises could be triggered by different things.

1 - Could be that it just needs a little bit of oil. You can use your typical can-spray oil and proceed just as previous posts mentioned.

2 - Try cleaning the fan area/cooler as best you can. It might just be dust that's causing it.

3 - There's usually 4 screws attaching the fan to the cooler. One or more screws might be too tight or too loose. This would cause the "case" of the fan to be twisted...which might result in fan noise (perhaps even grinding noise).

4 - Fan's dying. Get a new one and attach it to the cooler (just like the previous one).

ALWAYS ATTACH A FAN TO YOUR COOLER...letting the cooler sit without fan won't displace the heat quick enough which will result in garanteed overheating.

Edited: In the 2 minutes it took to reply, all these new posts showed up. Best of luck (and sorry for repeating some of the previous posts at this point).

 

[counterpoint212]

Any particular preferences I should look at when going for a replacement fan to tuck inside of there, since the fan seems to sit inside the cooler instead of against it? I mean its always seemed to make a little noise now that I dwell on it, but tonight's grinding was rather loud and significant and actually noticable, if intermittent

 

[Alex The PC Gamer]

Any particular preferences I should look at when going for a replacement fan to tuck inside of there, since the fan seems to sit inside the cooler instead of against it? I mean its always seemed to make a little noise now that I dwell on it, but tonight's grinding was rather loud and significant and actually noticable, if intermittent

Wow, this is a bit more touchy...simply replacing the fan as become replacing the fan with the exact size of fan (fan casing included)...your best bet is to open your heatsink and find what fan they used and buy the exact same one (probably is an ASUS fan).

Could it also be that when you were cleaning the heatsink, you loosened up the heatsink casing. Make sure all screws are tight (but not too tight). If it's too loose, the metals will, well, bump against its counterparts and make a grinding noise.