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billdotson
March 21st, 2007, 06:18 AM
One of my case fans.. the one that sits in the 3.5" bay in front of the HDD will start rattling after about 15 minutes. I opened it up and looked and the fan cable to it was pinched, so I wrapped it up with electrical tape, ad put it where it wouldn't be pinched anymore. I thought I had fixed it but after about 20 minutes I noticed it again. I just unplugged that fan as I do not know what is going on.

Any ideas of what is going on? The fan is part of the 3.5" bay and is in there fine from what I could see.

steven8
March 21st, 2007, 06:30 AM
Perhaps the bearings in the fan are going bad? Fans aren't very expensive, and easy to replace.

Spr0k3t
March 21st, 2007, 07:15 AM
X2 on the replace. Just get a good measurement of the fan size and order what you need. I like to use Newegg.com for most of my shopping... not only cheap but damn fine customer service.

jdong
March 21st, 2007, 07:16 AM
Take a large strip of duct tape and ..... hmmm... that would probably affect circulation.

More seriously, as a seasoned maintainer of countless aging computers being abused as "full time servers", there could be two things happening that immediately come to my min:

(1) As stated, the bearings in the fan, or some other mechanical aspect of the fan, is malfunctioning, and that could be causing excessive vibration, hence resulting in the rattling. The best fix in this case is to purchase a new fan. (You can usually tell this is the case by holding the fan in your hand, and spinning the blades manually. If it doesn't spin fluid-smooth and effortlessly, then you know it's the problem)

(2) The other possibility is that your mounting bracket for the fan (either the anchor that holds the fan to the case, or the slot on the case itself) has worn out and the fan no longer snugly fits to the case. In this case, the most practical approach would be a creative use of duct tape and other adhesives to restrain the fan down, then post pictures of your awful looking tape job to Digg and of course, to here!

hardyn
March 21st, 2007, 07:25 AM
(2) The other possibility is that your mounting bracket for the fan (either the anchor that holds the fan to the case, or the slot on the case itself) has worn out and the fan no longer snugly fits to the case. In this case, the most practical approach would be a creative use of duct tape and other adhesives to restrain the fan down, then post pictures of your awful looking tape job to Digg and of course, to here!

Oh geeze... anything but duct tape! hehehe

the the fan or a loose screw.

you don't need to order that kinda stuff from new egg... just measure the screw hole pitch (distance between) and hit up a local computer store, or an electronics supply.

there are also calculators on the internet if you wish to slow your case fan down for acoustic reasons... i have done that to all my PCs... its amazing what a 1watt resistor and a soldering iron can do for acoustic comfort

Spr0k3t
March 21st, 2007, 07:32 AM
...

Don't listen to a thing this man says. He doesn't not know nothing about everything.

Duct tape... yeah, duct tape is good. It will seal the holes in ducts.

OffHand
March 21st, 2007, 09:23 AM
Seriously.... a new silent case fan will cost you less than 10 dollar. Time to go out and buy one ;)

slayerboy
March 21st, 2007, 09:39 AM
Yeah I was just thinking this today...."my computer sounds...loud..." Time to look at the fans and see what's goin on.

Actually...this thing is like 3 years old with el cheapo hardware, so more like 4-5 years old. I'm thinking it might be time to start planning on a new pc.

NO...not because of the fans.....but because I need a new case anyways. First PC i built and I went CHEAP! Aluminum cases are HORRIBLE, don't ever buy one.

But yeah, sounds like the fan. While you're checking the case fan, check the CPU fan as well. Also, check to make sure you don't have a disc in the cd/dvd drive. I know sometimes those can be noisy too, and we forget we have discs in the drive and wonder where the noise is coming from! LOL

steven8
March 21st, 2007, 11:24 AM
Yeah I was just thinking this today...."my computer sounds...loud..." Time to look at the fans and see what's goin on.

Actually...this thing is like 3 years old with el cheapo hardware, so more like 4-5 years old. I'm thinking it might be time to start planning on a new pc.

NO...not because of the fans.....but because I need a new case anyways. First PC i built and I went CHEAP! Aluminum cases are HORRIBLE, don't ever buy one.

But yeah, sounds like the fan. While you're checking the case fan, check the CPU fan as well. Also, check to make sure you don't have a disc in the cd/dvd drive. I know sometimes those can be noisy too, and we forget we have discs in the drive and wonder where the noise is coming from! LOL

When my computer started sounding 'loud', I centered in on the CPU and case fans. Even bought a new case fan. However, it was the danged power supply going bad! It pooped out, I put in a new one, quiet as a mouse!!

Bartender
March 21st, 2007, 01:51 PM
When one of the fans gets louder and louder and then suddenly stops making noise altogether, that's when you need to worry!
Seriously, that fan keeping your HDD's cool is important. It not only moves some air past the HDD's but brings cooler air into the rest of the case, where warm air can stagnate.
Aside from age, heat is probly the biggest killer of HDD's. The tolerances inside are miniscule and thermal expansion/contraction should be kept to a minimum.
I like SPCR (http://www.silentpcreview.com/) for info on cooling & quiet running

billdotson
March 21st, 2007, 03:45 PM
I would rather not buy a new fan and mess w/ all of that. I know it is the fan because when I unplugged it I never heard that sound again. Maybe I should take the 3.5" bay out and take a closer look. I am tired of spending money on my new (5 month) PC to just make it work. It is ridiculous and I have already had to replace the motherboard and the PSU.. I do not feel like messing with anything else. I have 2 120MM case fans, a huge Zalman CPU fan, the PSU fan and 2 80MM fans in the case and the only one that is rattling is the one in the 3.5" bay. My CPU stays about 85 degrees F and the motherboard stays at about 72 degreees F so my case seems pretty cool. The other 80MM fan is right below the 3.5" bay the HDD is in.

hardyn
March 21st, 2007, 06:32 PM
When my computer started sounding 'loud', I centered in on the CPU and case fans. Even bought a new case fan. However, it was the danged power supply going bad! It pooped out, I put in a new one, quiet as a mouse!!

if you are comfy with a soldering iron and a screwdriver, just change the fans in the power supply... they power supplies themselves rarely go bad.

saves 20$-30$ for 10min of work.

Bartender
March 21st, 2007, 06:44 PM
I'm sorry to hear your new PC has been so unreliable. From your description, it certainly sounds like you have enuf air-moving equipment.
If you have two 80mm fans stacked above each other in the front of the case, would it be possible to either move the still-functioning fan up so that it replaces the dead one and blows across your HDD, or move the HDD down so that it's in front of the good fan?

AusIV4
March 21st, 2007, 07:42 PM
When I got my case, it had this big cylinder type thing that went from a grate in the side of the case up to the CPU fan. It was the noisiest case I've ever had. Finally I decided to take the cylinder out (it was just screwed in) and see what happened. Now I can't even tell the computer is running (I also unplugged the power and HD lights because they were annoyingly bright). Initially I was concerned about temperature, but it's idle temperature is only ~2 degrees warmer, and the temperature for a heavy workload hasn't changed at all.

billdotson
March 21st, 2007, 09:12 PM
I opened it up and I think that I had some of the fans connected oddly. You know how with the power there are the male and female 4-pin connectors I had one fan plugged into the one from the power supply and the other fan plugged into the male connector to the fan I had plugged in so I guess power was running through one 4 pin to both fans.. weird. I also took the 3.5" bay out and looked and tightened the screws on the hard drive.

Since I have had it running.. ~2-3 hours I haven't heard the rattling.. good sign. Hopefully that fixed it. I am guessing it might've been something with the hard drive because the 2 screws on one side weren't tightened all the way, I got about ~1-1.5 turns on them. I don;t know though... at least it isn't doing it right now. I guess I will just keep a watch on it.