Noisy fan

[TURIN]

The fan on my graphics card makes an intermittant and odd noise. Any ideas what could be causing it? I have tried blowing any dust off but problem persists.

[Voidhawk]

It might be on its way to failing, so keep and eye on it, especially if it stops making the noise . (New fans don't cost much)

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

TURIN,

If you are very careful, you can take the fan apart and clean the inside. If the dust has already damaged the inside of the fan, there is not much you can do, other than replace it. It would really help knowing the make and model of the video card, in order of offer options to you.

Take Care,

Richard

[allthatglitters]

The time to start worrying is when the fan stops being niosy.

[UNCTUOUS]

Not a fan of ASUS

Richard

NVIDIA V7700

Already asked and no fans are available. Let's hear it for ASUS.

Their graphically pretty SmartDoctor fan-monitoring software (see their site's front-page) must have cost them a pretty penny. Pity they didn't spend those pretty pennies on fans with quality bearings. Of course once the graphic card has failed you cannot see the failure message anyway (so they spend a lot of time telling you that your fan is about to fail). I've been seeing that message and hearing the grinding bearing for many months now.

But I guess planned obsolescence must build in an Achille's Heel - and the fan bearing is as good as any. 99.89% of ASUS fans just wouldn't go out and buy a new one - they'd go buy another ASUS graphics card (so goeth the ASUS marketing strategy anyway).

Unctuous

[ORAC]

If it's so poor, why fit another of their fans anyway? GeForce 2 GTS fans are easily replaced. See here. Get yourself something like the Thermaltake Crystal Orb.

[ratsarrse]

This might not apply, but with many fans you can dismantle them fairly easily and put a drop of sewing machine oil in 'em to keep them turning sweetly.