CPU fan questions.

[Victor Kish]

The one on my antique PC was sounding quite squeaky, grindy and was varying a bit in it's speed. Knowing nothing about this but knowing a bit about other stuff, I removed it, found a reasonable bit of play in the shaft so I gently lubed it a bit and it sounds OK and the speed has settled down.

Another problem noted was that one of the 9 blades was missing and so I managed to balance it in a fashion by removing 2 other blades. Because of this, I suspect that it has a limited life.

So, I'm now looking for a new one ....

Measured at 70mm x 70mm x 15mm, it has a 3-pin contact to the motherboard. Will any other 70mm x 70mm CPU fan with a 3-pin contact work? (there are lots on eBay at pennies) ... or does the 3-pin wiring vary at all. FWIW, it's black/red/yellow from left to right with the raised locating ridge underneath on the m/board.

Also, would a 25mm wider one be of benefit or is this overkill?

TIA.

[stan_qaz]

You posted this here, a spot for problems with the forum software:

General Site
Questions or comments related to the website and forums. Please no questions related to MailWasher

Down just a bit is an open forum for tech questions of all sorts:

General Tech. Help
Computer problems not related to MailWasher or other Firetrust programs getting you down. Put the geeks to the test by asking about your problem here.

Not a big deal but trying to keep things neat helps when folks are searching for previous answers.

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Pretty much any three pin fan will work, look closely at the connector and make sure it matches so you don't have to swap ends on the two fans.

Beyond "working" you might want to go a bit deeper into what fan you have now in particular the CFM (air movement) rating.

Knowing what CFM you are looking for you can start shopping in the 70x70 size fans. If you are not limited to the 15 mm height you can likely find a quieter fan, usually a bit thicker and slower turning (RPM) fan will make less noise.

Then you come to technology and you really want a brushless motor (most are) and decent bearings. You can go from a single sleeve bearing (noisy and short lived) dual sleeve bearings (better) single and dual ball bearings (quieter and longer lived) up to the magnetic bearings that give the least noise and longest lifetimes. Depending on where it is going I get dual ball bearing or magnetic bearings. Unless the system is going to be tossed in a year or so I'd skip sleeve bearings, they just aren't enough cheaper to put up with.

[Victor Kish]

Thanks Stan. I was going to post this in Gen Tech Help but took the wrong choice. Tried to butcher one from an old abandoned PC here but it was an 80 x 80. I'll look on eBay and buy the right one.

[Victor Kish]

Well, still a problem with this li'l ol' fan!

I bought one from eBay and although it had correct fittings (I'm told it's a Socket 754-fit ) for both fan and plug, when changed over I got an error message saying that the fan speed was too low. Sent back to seller who exchanged it for another ... still same problem.

Anyone able to direct me to a product on-line that has a sufficiently high spin speed, size, correct plug and sufficient movement of air to do the job? From what little I know, seems to be quite a small PC by today's standards (100Gb hard drive of which only about 28Gb is used and IIRC, about 1.5 to 2 Mb of RAM).

Help moocho appreciated, as usual.

[stan_qaz]

Try Google with the fan manufacturer and part numbers off the old fan to get the basic specifications.

You might want to look in the BIOS at boot time and see if there is a setting that allows the fan's alarm speed to be set.

[TrustFire]

@ Victor Kish

What's the full description name of your BIOS? Here's a lil' example of what your BIOS can accomplish:-

BIOS.png (196.64 KiB) Viewed 21007 times

Fan.png (197.07 KiB) Viewed 21006 times