Noisy fan on graphics card

Phantom · Post by **Phantom** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 6:07 am

I recently bought a GF4 Ti4200 to upgrade my old TNT2. The card works fine but the fan is very noisy. The card had never been used (or at least, it looks that way), so I don't think dirt is the problem. The noise is best described as a clicking noise, kind of like a hard disk makes, or a geiger counter. The fan seems to work fine otherwise. Here's an image of the card: http://www.price.ro/images/preturi/vide ... 828TVD.jpg.

Does anyone have any tips to get rid of the noise? Would oiling it help? Are there any replacement fans I could fit on this thing?

Thanks.

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 6:11 am

Could need a bit of oil. Maybe its just loose on the heatsink, my PC made a ticking noise for weeks because the motherboard standoffs became loose

Phantom · Post by **Phantom** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 6:22 am

The screws seem to be tightly fastened. There is some 'vertical' movement in the rotating part of the fan though. I think that might be causing the noise, it could be 'bouncing' up and down.

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 6:29 am

Theres usually a little verticle movement on the shaft. Is there any dust?

Disheveled DrFreeze · Post by **Disheveled DrFreeze** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 6:39 am

you could also splurge 30 bucks on a vga silencer or a zallman hp 80 fanless cooler, that should cool the card better, and allow for some OCing, and the 4200 are the best OCers in the gf4 series

Phantom · Post by **Phantom** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:00 am

mattthemodder wrote:Theres usually a little verticle movement on the shaft. Is there any dust?

I don't see any dust. I just did a test by taking a cue tip and pushing it lightly against the center of the fan (light enough that it keeps moving). The noise goes away when I do this, so it doesn't seem to be the spinning itself that causes the sound.

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:06 am

It could be too loose. Or when you pushed it down it had more clearence, so the fan blades might be hitting that matal that surrounds it

gamefreak701 · Post by **gamefreak701** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 8:54 am

Get a can of compressed air and blow it in there (clean your whole PC case while you're at it

)

Phantom · Post by **Phantom** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 10:33 am

mattthemodder wrote:It could be too loose. Or when you pushed it down it had more clearence, so the fan blades might be hitting that matal that surrounds it

The blades aren't touching anything. There's no dust. The only thing I can think of is the vertical movement that's causing this. Or perhaps the card simply isn't new at all. I think I'll just order a new fan. Let's hope I won't destroy the card in the process.

dcmodder · Post by **dcmodder** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 11:32 am

yea that sounds like the best thing to do. I know that compusa has a lot of replacement video card fans. if there's no compusa's around you, you could just look online somewhere.

Disheveled DrFreeze · Sun Oct 17, 2004 11:42 am

hey phantom, i just noticed your dutch, so am i, where do you live?

i live in dongen, between tilburg and breda

Phantom · Post by **Phantom** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 11:55 am

DrFreeze wrote:hey phantom, i just noticed your dutch, so am i, where do you live?

i live in dongen, between tilburg and breda

I live in Oss.

Rattrap51 · Post by **Rattrap51** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 1:25 pm

My friend had a GeForce TI card that had a faulty fan and it fucked itself over. Does your computer randomly restart? Especially while playing games?

Rattrap51 · Post by **Rattrap51** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 1:25 pm

My friend had a GeForce TI card that had a faulty fan and it fucked itself over. Does your computer randomly restart? Especially while playing games?

Phantom · Post by **Phantom** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 2:23 pm

It hasn't done that yet, but I've only had the card a few days. The fan seems to be working fine apart from the noise.

Phantom · Post by **Phantom** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:59 pm

I put some oil in the fan and the noise seem to be almost gone now.

I'm not sure if this is a long-term fix or not.. we'll see.

Alexvrb · Post by **Alexvrb** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 10:32 pm

Just plan on replacing it at some future date. Unless you plan on overclocking it, "Arctic Cooling Nvidia VGA Silencer 1" would probably be overkill. So I wouldn't bother if you don't want to spend the cash for one. Also, they don't come with memory cooling, so if you really wanted to overclock it, you'd need that too. They are nice though, I mainly like them because they help keep your case temps down a bit too.

Phantom · Post by **Phantom** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:45 am

Alexvrb wrote:Just plan on replacing it at some future date. Unless you plan on overclocking it, "Arctic Cooling Nvidia VGA Silencer 1" would probably be overkill.

Heh, that thing looks huge. I'm not sure whether I'd be able to attach that one because it looks like the ramsinks might be in the way. I was actually considering buying a Thermaltake G4-VGA cooler. Any opinions on those?

Alexvrb · Post by **Alexvrb** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 10:03 am

It's huge because of the way it works, but if you look at the back, it actually has a fair amount of clearance. But I still say that even though it is a good cooler with a great design, it is overkill if you don't want to overclock. The venting sure is nice though, I think ALL two-slot coolers should vent outside.

As for the G4-VGA, that was the one I have a spare of.

They're OK, probably no quieter (or noisier) than a new stock fan, but good clearance and better cooling. Mine came with ramsinks, use the short ones on the side with the fan, or else they'll block airflow (if you use them at all).

Phantom · Post by **Phantom** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 4:49 pm

Alexvrb wrote:As for the G4-VGA, that was the one I have a spare of. They're OK, probably no quieter (or noisier) than a new stock fan, but good clearance and better cooling. Mine came with ramsinks, use the short ones on the side with the fan, or else they'll block airflow (if you use them at all).

Well.. my card already has ramsinks so I won't need them. There's another thing I've been wondering about. When I boot into Windows the card's fan spins faster than it does in Linux or the BIOS. It looks like the windows driver increases the fan voltage. Which is odd because there's no thermal sensor on the card.