On 20 October 2010 18:49, Rob Malpass <li...@getiton.myzen.co.uk> wrote: > Hi all > > > > Can anyone help with solving the following "phenomenon"? At boot, my main > machine developed a low tone groaning noise - the sort that signals the fan > is gunked up. After being on for about a minute - the noise goes away. I > brushed it clean on Monday. On reboot - silence - all seemed well. > > > > Now curiously the groaning noise is back! However rather curiously the > noise doesn't start a couple of seconds after boot as it did before - it now > happens about 15-20 seconds after boot - then it goes silent again after > about a minute. > > > > So I'm pretty sure the graphics card fan is the culprit (running the machine > with no graphics card it was silent from power up to power down), but it was > brushed clean so it can't have gunked up again in 2 days - or can it? And if > it has (there are no holes in the case - no open card slots etc) I'm not too > sure how I could prevent it gunking up again. > > > > Anyone experienced this? Any known workarounds?
The only sure way to fix this it to replace the fan. What is happening is as the bearings heat up, the remaining oil in them will start to flow better and cause the noise to go away. Cleaning the fan will only improve things marginally as the balance will be better, but your bearings will still be worn and/or low on oil. I had the same problem, and tried lubricating the bearings. It worked for a little while, but the noise came back. I then had a strop with it, and bought a cheap fan-less graphics card. -- Philip Stubbs -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --------------------------------------------------------------
