Videocard fan matinence, please help!

[Cheesemold]

My videocard ( geforce Ti4200), makes this weird buzzing/rattling sound when I turn on my computer. Within 20 to 40 seconds, the sound dies down. The fan still spins after the sound stops, which I would guess is a good thing, but this sound I hear every day when I turn on my computer is still somewhat annoying and makes me worry about the card. What should I do?
I would like to open it up and lubricate it (I have a tube of lithium grease), but I have no idea how to open it (all guides I've found deal with opening a slightly larger fan). I would probably be fine replacing it, but I don't know where to find a replacement fan at all.

Could someone help me in fixing or replacing this fan?

Oh -- and I have already tried blowing canned air into it, this does seem to do anything.

[DaveW]

I'd recommend agaisnt lubing up the fan, it honestly won't help. This sort of thing happens quite a lot to me, here's what i'd suggest:

1) Remove the fan from the heatsink if possible. Then, using something like a bent paperclip, remove all the dust and 'crap-cake' from the fan and the heatsink.
2) Check the fan blade is properly attached to the motor. If it has a wide range of motion, i.e. you can pull it pretty far away from the motor, then you might want to look at buying a new GPU cooler.
3) Reattach the fan, and at the same time, make sure that all your screws are fairly tight, and that the fan's wire isn't touching the fan blades or anything.

At the end of the day, when fans start doing this, it's usually a sign that they're ready to die on you. Watch out for the fun suddenly packing at a moments notice, like mine did. If you felt particulalry saucy you could mod another fan into it, or you can pick up a GPU cooler for about £6.

Good luck!

-Dave

[ForceFedFlesh]

i would use compressed air can and clean it.
also check that nothing is in the way of the fan fins.
and u can try spinning the fan manually to see if u hear the sound.
if these idea dont work that u could try lubing it. but be careful

[DaveW]

He's allready tried compressed air, and lubing PC fans isn't really a great idea. Normally it will just kill the fan. At least, i don't think i've ever heard anyone benefit from trying to lube a brushless DC fan.

-Dave

[Cheesemold]

I can spin the fan manually, and also I can spin it using the canned air, the noise is not comming from the blades physically hitting the heatsink or the cord. The part of this problem I can't quite understand is why the noise starts with the computer turning on, but dies down to a regular sounding fan after a short time. I'll try cleaning the fan out sometime soon, though I'm not very optimistic about it working, I don't think I've had the card long enough for dirt to collect and cause problems. I'm willing to buy a new GPU cooler, or at the most practical level, a new fan for it, but the problem is that I simply have no experience in buying such an obscure part.

**Stray Thought**
I haven't actually tried using compressed air directly to the insides of the fan itself, only to blades and blowing air into and around it. I haven't been able to take it apart, to remove the rotor and all that fun stuff to better clean it. I would love to do this, but I simply don't know how to take apart a fan, if anyone can provide me with instructions how, then that'd be great. The way i currently understand how this is done is you need to remove a sticker on one end of the fan to get access to some gasket... some kind of a disk with a hole in it that you remove so the fan can slide apart. With other videocards I've tried to do this, but couldn't because of the sheer scale of the parts and my lack of tools to manipulate said parts.
**|**

So I either need help buying new stuff or taking apart old stuff.

[DaveW]

I'll be back in an hour with a short tutorial. Hopefully.

-Dave

[DaveW]

Is this your graphics card here? (http://www.axle-hk.com/i16.htm)

If it is, then i can put together a simple tutorial on graphics card maintenance. If it's not, and you have one of those bloody big moulded heatsink and fan jobbies you see on all the latest 'flashy' graphics cards, it will be a bit harder.

I just thought i'd best check first....


-Dave

[Cheesemold]

For the most part, yeah. The heatsink fan setup is different, but I understand how to take the fan off, just as long as the tutorial covers how to take apart the fan itself, it will cover what I need.