Replacing sleeve bearings (with ball bearings)

[poby]

Ok so my gigabyte 1070's, less than 6 months old are starting to fail.  They are gummed up with dust and one of them seized up altogether.  Checked out http://cryptomining-blog.com/8138-how-to-maintain-and-repair-dual-x-and-other-non-serviceable-gpu-fans  and https://youtu.be/Tf0FxUe30rU and decided to have a go disassembling and replacing the sleeve bearings with ball bearings.

Got the 2x5x2.5mm bearings and shims off ebay and set to work.  Took all up about 5 hours!  Which included going out for some superglue.  The fan mounting brackets are extremely fragile to the point where a stern look is almost enough to make them crack.  Also on one fan I managed to break off the metal spindle attached to the fan so superglue definitely needed!

Apart from being extremely careful the only really hard bit is separating the fan blade section from the stator.  These fans are NOT meant to be disassembled!  You need to apply just enough force in just the right location and pray the bits you want to separate, come apart and nothing else.  There are very small bits of plastic that will break easily, not to mention the small built in circuit board which attaches to the stator coil by 3 current bearing pins.  When applying separating pressure, a lot of stress is put on these pins and you are relying on the quality of the solder joints to hold them.  You want the tiny plastic holding ring to give way before the solder joints do and I can tell you, they are pretty evenly matched!

Removing the fans requires separating the heatsink from the chip so the silver lining to this ordeal is that you hopefully apply better quality heatsink compound.  I discovered the existing compound had lots of voids and some shiny bits of chip were visible.  So hopefully my application was an improvement.

Anyway, put it back in the rig... and the middle fan not spinning.  Totally free to spin but apparently no current reaching it.  Ran it for 30 minutes with just the 2 adjacent fans doing the work and it seemed to run ok, without overheating.  Which at least shows the upgraded fans are working way better as previously when the middle fan was seized up, the temperature soared.

I wasn't very optimistic but decided to take out the middle fan and resolder the circuit board to coil pins.  Put it back and much to my surprise, all 3 fans are now working perfectly!

In theory, with the nice new ball bearings, it should run for years, long after the card ceases to be mining economic.  The bearings are sealed so no matter how much dust gets thrown at it, they shouldn't seize up.  In theory.

I have 23 more dusty cards running that will likely seize up in the next few months so I have 23 x 3 = 69 more fans to replace with bearings.  If anyone knows of any magic special way of separating the fan blades from the stator without risking breaking anything, I would so love to hear it!  Anyway worst that can happen is I break a fan that isn't working anyway so no big deal.

[adaseb]

I've done this also and it's just way too time consuming.

With the gigabyte wind force I just pull the fan blades and oil the bearing. Usually lasts a month to 6 months before I need to repeat the job.

I keep thinking "mining might be dead soon" so these temp fixes are adequate enough.

I think I did a gigabyte 7950 like 8 times already. Been using that one since like 2013. And mining still hasn't died.

[poby]

I've done this also and it's just way too time consuming.

With the gigabyte wind force I just pull the fan blades and oil the bearing. Usually lasts a month to 6 months before I need to repeat the job.

I keep thinking "mining might be dead soon" so these temp fixes are adequate enough.

I think I did a gigabyte 7950 like 8 times already. Been using that one since like 2013. And mining still hasn't died.

Thing is pulling the fan blades is where all the risk and difficulty is.  If I can do it once, I can replace the bearings so hopefully never have to do it again.  And when the day comes to sell the cards, I can do it in good conscience.

[adaseb]

I've done this also and it's just way too time consuming.

With the gigabyte wind force I just pull the fan blades and oil the bearing. Usually lasts a month to 6 months before I need to repeat the job.

I keep thinking "mining might be dead soon" so these temp fixes are adequate enough.

I think I did a gigabyte 7950 like 8 times already. Been using that one since like 2013. And mining still hasn't died.

Thing is pulling the fan blades is where all the risk and difficulty is.  If I can do it once, I can replace the bearings so hopefully never have to do it again.  And when the day comes to sell the cards, I can do it in good conscience.

Pulling the blades takes like 10 seconds. Depending where the GPU is in the rig, I can even do it while it's still mounted.

I just used a string like floss and wrapped around 2-3 blades and another set of floss on the other 2-3 blades and comes out easy.

To replace the bearing you need to separate the stator from the plastic mount which is held on by glue. There is a very high chance of destroying the fan while separating the two. Since some fans use little glue others use tons which is very difficult to break apart.

[jimmykl]

I curse the day I decided Gigabyte ITX cards were the way to go… one fan = one point of failure. 8 RMAs out of 28 cards in 9 months…

Decided f*%k the warranty on this one and until my bearings arrive from China this will have to do 

[smoolae]

I curse the day I decided Gigabyte ITX cards were the way to go… one fan = one point of failure. 8 RMAs out of 28 cards in 9 months…

Decided f*%k the warranty on this one and until my bearings arrive from China this will have to do 

Is this one of the Noctua fans? What are the temps on this one?
I actually like the look of this

[jimmykl]

I curse the day I decided Gigabyte ITX cards were the way to go… one fan = one point of failure. 8 RMAs out of 28 cards in 9 months…

Decided f*%k the warranty on this one and until my bearings arrive from China this will have to do  

Is this one of the Noctua fans? What are the temps on this one?
I actually like the look of this

Yeah it's one of these https://noctua.at/en/nf-f12-industrialppc-2000-pwm Total overkill but had it on hand and it works really well.

At 20˚C ambient currently the other cards are ~55-58˚ and this one is 38˚ (the speed is dialled down with a fan controller too!)

[smoolae]

At 20˚C ambient currently the other cards are ~55-58˚ and this one is 38˚ (the speed is dialled down with a fan controller too!)

Awesome!

[QuintLeo]

I have a bunch of "left over" NVB 92mm case fans that fit VERY NICELY on any Gigabyte "Windforce" model card - one per heatsink.
2 of those running on 5V seems to provide more airflow (by a hair) than the *3* Gigabyte fans did, as temps on the cards I've used them on DROPPED a degree or so.
Running them at 12V = MUCH BETTER cooling than the Gigabyte fans even at 100%.

They soak .35 amps each, so a pair of them at 12VDC is a tossup on power with the Gigabyte fans at 90% or higher.

Gigabyte likes to talk about how their "fancy blades" provide more airflow, but in actual fact their fans on the Windforce cards are JUNK.


3601NL-04W-B40 is the specific fan model from the back of one of them.


I've not had the FAN on a Gigabyte "ITX" model fail yet, but I've got *3* of those POS things outright dead over the last couple months, not sure if any of them made it to a year - I do have a few others still working, though.

[Eyedol-X]

anyone come up with a BB replacement solution for the Zotac Mini 1070/1080s?

[poby]

Pulling the blades takes like 10 seconds. Depending where the GPU is in the rig, I can even do it while it's still mounted.

I just used a string like floss and wrapped around 2-3 blades and another set of floss on the other 2-3 blades and comes out easy.

To replace the bearing you need to separate the stator from the plastic mount which is held on by glue. There is a very high chance of destroying the fan while separating the two. Since some fans use little glue others use tons which is very difficult to break apart.

I have the opposite problem with my cards.  The glue breaks free easily but the locking ring is so stiff that often something else gives before it does, which in one case was the spindle breaking free of the fan, and in another the circuit board pins pulling out of the solder joints.  I will try the string method however and see if that helps.

[QuintLeo]

anyone come up with a BB replacement solution for the Zotac Mini 1070/1080s?

None of mine have failed yet - but they'll probably get the NMB treatment with a single fan running at 12VDC when they do.


It might be interesting to find out what Gigabyte puts on those "in a box" Aorus 1080 models - it's a largish single fan on an otherwise "stock" ITX 1080 model, per at least one review of the unit, but I don't think they published the actual fan model in that review.

[adaseb]

Pulling the blades takes like 10 seconds. Depending where the GPU is in the rig, I can even do it while it's still mounted.

I just used a string like floss and wrapped around 2-3 blades and another set of floss on the other 2-3 blades and comes out easy.

To replace the bearing you need to separate the stator from the plastic mount which is held on by glue. There is a very high chance of destroying the fan while separating the two. Since some fans use little glue others use tons which is very difficult to break apart.

I have the opposite problem with my cards.  The glue breaks free easily but the locking ring is so stiff that often something else gives before it does, which in one case was the spindle breaking free of the fan, and in another the circuit board pins pulling out of the solder joints.  I will try the string method however and see if that helps.

Strange. Maybe mine come apart easily because they are older and looser.

Breaking the glue on mine was very difficult.

[poby]

Just done doing the 2nd card.  The string on the blades trick helps a lot!  It's still the most painful part of the procedure - the most likely bit where irreparable damage can be done, depending on what gives - but I succeeded.  On 2 of the 3 fans the glue gave out before the locking ring did which is totally fine as it still gives me access to replace and lube the bearings.  Also this time I managed to avoid breaking any bits of plastic so over all a good result.  Replacing the bearings means hopefully I will never need to take the card apart again (assuming the sealed bearings stay sealed.

It's hard to fathom why gigabyte would choose to save a couple of bucks in manufacturing costs and probably cost more in RMA's because they choose to use crappy sleeve bearings which are pretty much guaranteed to fail vs sealed ball bearings that should last for years even in a dusty environment.

2 cards permanently fixed, 22 to go.