[Help] Graphics Card Fan Seems to Be Spinning... a Lot

[amouravski]

Hi folks, I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to post this, but I figure it's the closest forum to what I'm looking for.

A few weeks ago (maybe months?) I've noticed that my computer has been vibrating much more than usual. This gets as bad as it noticeably makes noise against the case. Honestly, I smack it and it seems to work. Well, around the same time one of my hard drives decided to only be visible in Windows 50% of the time, so I got all of the data off of it and unplugged it. The vibration against the case seemed to have stopped. I guess it was just a faulty disk or something.

However, my computer is STILL louder than usual and it feel like it's vibrating just by touching the case. This never used to happen a few months ago and now I'm scared. When I play graphics intensive games the fan sounds like it's going into hyperdrive.

My build (copied from 2009 NewEgg order)
1 x COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP Black SECC/ ABS ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
1 x ASUS M4A79T Deluxe AM3 DDR3 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard
1 x SAPPHIRE 100259-1GL Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
1 x CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V v2.2 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply
1 x AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Black Processor HDZ720WFGIBOX
1 x OCZ Reaper HPC 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ3RPR16004GK
1 x Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
1 x LG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model GH22NS30 - OEM
There's also a 750gb HDD in there.

I don't know what other kind of diagnostic information to add. Running speed fan, I have:
CPU: 69C, GPU: 56C, Core: 70C
With fans going: 1177rpm, 3068rpm, and CPU fan 3068rpm and all other fans at 0.


This community has helped me out so much before, and so you were the first people I came to with this.
Basically, am I screwed? If I am, what do I do?

Thank you so much,
Andrei.

 

[amouravski]

so, does the vibration decrease if you slowed down the fan?
Chances are, it's the vibrations that have caused the drive to fail in the first place

How do I slow down the fan?

 

[smorizio]

first off have you opened the case and blown the dust out of it???dust will cause fans to slow down and bind and keep the heat in the case. the second issue i see it it looks like you dont have any case fans for air flow. both the cpu and gpu are running hot.
most case you want two fans...one pulling air in and one blowing the hot air out. check that all the case fans are moving..
if you think it an airflow issue try running the pc with the side panel off for a day or two and see if the temps go down a lot. one other issue could be that making the fans run hot if the system was built in 2009 is if the heat sink on the cpu or gpu used heat sink tape or cheap thermal past it may have dried out. with video cards fan there controled two ways..there a bios fan profile where at power up the fan runs at a set speed for a set time to check that the fan is working...after that the drivers in ati or nvidia take over. nvidia has a thrid party program called afterburner...there may be a fan profile setting in ccc. I nver used it but google fan control profile in ccc.

 

[amouravski]

first off have you opened the case and blown the dust out of it???dust will cause fans to slow down and bind and keep the heat in the case. the second issue i see it it looks like you dont have any case fans for air flow. both the cpu and gpu are running hot.
most case you want two fans...one pulling air in and one blowing the hot air out. check that all the case fans are moving..
if you think it an airflow issue try running the pc with the side panel off for a day or two and see if the temps go down a lot. one other issue could be that making the fans run hot if the system was built in 2009 is if the heat sink on the cpu or gpu used heat sink tape or cheap thermal past it may have dried out. with video cards fan there controled two ways..there a bios fan profile where at power up the fan runs at a set speed for a set time to check that the fan is working...after that the drivers in ati or nvidia take over. nvidia has a thrid party program called afterburner...there may be a fan profile setting in ccc. I nver used it but google fan control profile in ccc.

Hey! Thanks for the reply. I have not tried blowing out the gunk, but just ordered some air to do that. I used to be in the habit of opening up my machine and cleaning it out regularly, but totally forgot to do that in awhile.

In other stupidity, I decided to check what the airflow was like in the case and I noticed that one of the fans wasn't spinning. That's no good. Seems that one of the pins on the power connector got loose somehow. Well, I got that back into place and then I noticed that one of the fans was making a lot of noise. Guess it's on its way out. I went to replace the fans and as I am not currently at home, I looked at my previous purchases to see what size fans fit my case and I noticed something on the picture of the case that I'd completely forgotten about. The fan on the front of the case has blue LEDs, but I haven't noticed my computer spouting blue light everywhere in a long time. Holy crap, that fan died a long time ago and I didn't even notice!

So, I ordered two fans: one to replace the dying one on the side and one for the front. We'll see if that helps!

Thank you so much for the assistance! I'm feeling much more confident that this is a fixable problem.

 

[amouravski]

So, replacing the fans fixed everything?

Not sure yet. Just ordered them. I just got excited about troubleshooting the issue and wanted to add some detail. Will let you know when they arrive!

 

[amouravski]

Best answer selected by amouravski.

 

[amouravski]

Just wanted to finish this topic:
I ordered two fans, put them in, made sure they were powered this time and everything's going great! The temperature inside is down to CPU: 39C, Core: 31C. WAY better.

Thanks for all the help!