Yup...soooo I am about to tear my hair out...After dealing with whiny fans on my rad since christmas, just today I installed a new pair of quiet fans making my pc nice and quiet. I did not do anything that even remotely stressed my gpu. I was actually just messing around in my bios working on getting an overclock for my cpu. After getting frustrated with my bios, I finally figured out what I needed to do, but now low and behold one of the fans on my gpu starts to make this awful groaning sound. Now the fan is still spinning, however it looks kind of odd I can't really describe it, like the fan just doesn't look like the other fan that is spinning just fine. I'm getting really scared that I might have to buy a new gpu and that is not an option at this time as I do not have a job and am really busy with school. I bought the gpu, an asus 7970, and it has been working just fine for almost a year now...I tried to mess with the fan speeds in gpu tweak, but that didn't seem to do much...the noise is louder at low rpms if that helps you...This is just my luck.
First I would try blown out your GPU fans with some canned air. If you can tap on the fan while it is making the noise and the noise stops, chances are, the bearings in that fan are going bad.
Just take the fans off and zip tie a 120mm to it, or 2 80mms.
Or ya, dust it.
I just cleaned them off today when I installed the new fans on my rad..D: GREAT
Well I tapped the fan a bit while the system was off and on reboot the noise was gone. Fingers crossed that it was just an isolated incident, but sadly the bearing are most likely going out on me. Hopefully I can get a job this summer and get a new 300 series card unless they are a bust.
Replacing fans on a GPU isn't that big of a deal, because that stuff does happen. You should be able to contact Asus, and see if they'll send you a pair, or direct you towards a place where you can buy some replacements.
If you are up to it,
Pull out your GPU card and look between the fan blades and find the 3 to 4 screws that are holding it in place they are usually smaller than a phillips no. 1 screw driver so you'll likely need a set of jewelers screw drivers (about 5 dollars for el cheapo set) and remove the screws to release the fan (there maybe a heavy build up of dust that are covering the screws) and unplug the fan from the card.
Now give it a good once over with a dust brush and/or compressed air to clean up the worst of the dust
once the fan is out, turn it over to access (normally) a label which has a rubber plug/dust cover under it. Pell back the sticker so you can reuse it and remove the plug if it didn't come out with the sticker.
Now either,
1 . Spray a little bit of WD40 or Inox mx3 into the cavity behind the plug being careful not to spray it where the label sits as the oil will stop it from sticking
Replace the plug and label
Screw the fan back into place, plug the fan back in and replace it back into your system, Fin.
2 . If the oil has grit or has dried out and gumming up.
Carefully remove the clip and washer (normally plastic) that holds the shaft in place,
Pull the blades away from the hub and clean the shaft and bore with a solvent and cotton buds/pipe cleaner ,
Replace the oil with something like WD40 or Inox mx3.
Reinstall the blade into the hub and with the washer and clip you removed before.
Spray a little bit of WD40 or Inox mx3 into the cavity behind the plug.
Replace the plug and label
Screw the fan back into place, plug the fan back in and replace it back into your system, Fin.
WD40 isn't a lubricant and will cause the bearings on the fan to go stiff since the oil would dry up, use light machine oil instead. WD40 is only used for cleaning, not a lubricant.
linus made this video on cleaning GPUs, you might want to look into it.
You must be trolling. WD-40 is a brilliant lubricant, it was designed back in 1950s for use in the aerospace industry and is marketed around the fact it is a Water Displacing lubricant which also protects, penetrates.
As someone who has used WD-40 since the early 90s as well as the fact i have been working off and on as a locksmith and WD-40 is 1 of 2 products that gets used when dealing with tight tolerances, the other being Inox Mx3.
WD-40 has better penetrating properties. Where as Inox has better longevity.
This I write down to be because WD-40 has white spirits used as a carrier and when it dries out it no longer flows as well. Where Inox is a thinner viscosity fuild, without using a solvent so in turn does not dry out.
And now go read the first post of this thread, he is asking about a noise made by his fan at low rpm, not thermal compond
Which i did to my his 7770 because it was creeping up to 70c on a mild OC
So go put Linus back where you found him
Well, I have used WD-40 for some time and it did pretty well in removing rust, eliminating squeaky hinges and stuck gears but it certainly dried up very quickly. Like what happened to my gerber multi-tool, cleaned it with WD-40 and the pliers got stuck after a few days so I had to use machine grease. I mainly use WD-40 for cleaning stuff, but then put some other lubrication after. I guess we just use the same thing in different ways.
And, I just linked the video there because I think it might help when he wants to clean his card since it might have collected some fair amount of dust by now. :)
This is just for you, well i made it with you in mind.
"How To Lube a PC Fan" made by yours truely while half asleep