NOISY FAN PLEASE HELP

[ivanoe]

i have a pc bought from a shop. not a dell/ intel ,just run-of the- mill. it as one fan inside and one with the power unit.
and it is running very loud. i have cleaned it inside with a feather duster, and i have taken the power unit apart and cleaned that.
and it was thick with dust.(i was careful to to put it back together the same way) but the fan is still noisy. it is hard to tell which one it is.
i have another power unit so i switched them round but it is still doing it . can anyone suggest anything else.

    frank

[Lisa_maree]

Hi Frank

You can either disconnect the fan to test or hold the fan from turning for a minute to see which fan is noisy. Also some cases have fans in the front of the case which is not easily visible.

With fans you can't easily get to like the power supply fan, use a plastic chopstick to hold the fan from turning.

When you isolate the fan  which is noisy you can either be lubricate/repaire or replace.
   

[ivanoe]

Thank you Lisa Maree will try that.

[Ruby8522]

Some PCs run their fans at full blast all the time—this is especially common if you built your own PC and haven't done any fine-tuning of the cooling hardware. If your fans are plugged into the computer's motherboard, you might be able to control them using your motherboard BIOS. You can enter the BIOS menu by pressing a key as your computer boots, usually DEL, F2, or something similar. Then, look for the hardware monitoring section (or something similar).

Every BIOS is a little different, so we can't walk you through the exact steps—some will only offer basic "high" and "low" fan settings, while others may provide advanced fan curves that let you set the fan speed at different CPU temperatures. Some motherboards can control all the connected fans, while others may only be able to control fans that use 4-pin PWM adapters (rather than cheaper 3-pin fan models). Play around with the fan control settings and see what works for you.

If your BIOS doesn't have any fan control options, a program like SpeedFan will work too, but again; only if your motherboard is functionally capable of controlling those fans. For graphics cards, MSI Afterburner can help you adjust the fan's behavior when you're in a heavy gaming session. peryourhealth

If you can't control the fans through software—say, if the fans are plugged directly into the power supply rather than into the motherboard—certain hardware accessories can help. Noctua makes low-noise adapters that essentially act as a resistor, reducing the voltage sent to the fan and thus reducing its speed. Hardware fan control knobs do something similar, though offer more fine-grained management. Once you get the right speed dialed in, your gaming sessions will hopefully be a bit more peaceful.

[nasroo7]

That idea to block a Fan to locate which fan makes noise is good.
Find out which one(s) is/are noisy first.

Since it's a custom built computer, you can also make sure that the Fans are plugged into Fan pins on that motherboard that adjust the voltage depending on your BIOS settings.
You can give the complete model of that motherboard and tell us where each Fan in plugged. We can check the diagram of the motherboard and compare.

If it's the CPU Fan, then most likely the Heatsink is still dirty, or the Thermal paste is dry.
I'm not sure what's your level of expertise, but taking out the CPU Heatsink, clean the CPU and replace the Thermal paste is usually good for an aged computer.

But from personal experience, when old Fans are dusty, they will be noisy, and you'll end up replacing them in order to have a quiet desktop. Fans are not expensive, and you can have Fans for like $10 a piece.

[kburra]

Had a similar noise problem,the bearing in the Power supply fan was kaput!