GPU Fans buzzing

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

Well after a good few months of mining, both my 5850 AND 5870's fan are making this buzzing sound which is horrible and loud.

Is there a temp. fix for this or do i have to buy new fans?

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[racerguy]

trying increasing or lowering the fan speed, probably some kind of resonance.

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

trying increasing or lowering the fan speed, probably some kind of resonance.

Nope it's resonance, it's the sound of the fan wearing off. A replacement is needed, but i can't one fan much less two atm.

[DeathAndTaxes]

You can try blowing the fan w/ compressed air.  You could just have a lot of gunk on the spindle making it unbalanced.  Be sure to hold the fan when you blow it.  Spinning fans w/ compressed air is never a good idea.  However you likely need either new oil or new fan.

You can try re-oiling the fan.  Depending on the layout it can be hard or easy.  Some fans the bearings are "face up" so you just need to remove the sticker on the hub, put in a couple drops of lightweight oil (don't use WD40), and put sticker back on.  I have found the sticker never "resticks" so having a replacement sticker is a good idea.   The bad news is on the squirel cage type fans the only way to get to the bearings is to remove the entire heatsink and shroud.    Same time you can put some artic silver on the GPUs so it isn't a total loss.

If it is under warranty I would just RMA it.  Out of warranty you don't have much too lose.  If the fan has lost its lube then the more you spin it the more it is grinding down the internal components and eventually it will seize.  While replacing the fan isn't that hard the bad news is a fan seizure under full load likely will cook the GPU.

[likuidxd]

Be sure to hold the fan when you blow it.  Spinning fans w/ compressed air is never a good idea.

Please make sure you do this, I'm quite surprised more people don't realize this.

Be sure to blow out the inside of the fan. If you have furry animals around, their hair likes to go up inside and can unbalance the fan greatly. After you get it out hit it with oil, not grease and not wd-40!

[DeathAndTaxes]

After you get it out hit it with oil, not grease and not wd-40!

And not olive oil.  I have no idea where the idea to use Olive oil started but olive oil has very low evaporation point and is never homogeneous.  The lighter components will evaporate off leaving a heavier sludge which will kill the fan.

[Mousepotato]

Replace with a water block.  Problem solved

[cicada]

I've you've got a decent craft/fabric store nearby, sewing machine oil works really well.

I've also used hair-clipper oil, it's basically the same stuff.

Ideally you want something synthetic, organic oils (veggie or olive oil) are generally short lived.

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

Nope, standard reference 5870 AND 5850 from Sapphire and Asus, but the fans should be identical.

[DeathAndTaxes]

So here is the bad news.

Strangely since you posted this I had a 5970 fan start "screeming" (loud).  I took card offline.

"fun problem #1
There is no way to remove the "front" of the shroud (the plastic cover) w/ heatsink attached to GPU.  So the dismantling steps are
1) remove entire heatsink cooling assembly.  This invovles removing all screws from backplate and both screws holding PCB to expansion bracket.
2) with all screws removed pull to seperate heat sink assembly from GPU (you are going to need to clean GPU and re-apply thermal paste).
3) flip GPU assembly upside down (GPU side up).  You will find another set of screws.  3 holding fan to assembly and 8 holding plastic shroud to heatsink.  remova all 11.
4) you can now remove the heat shroud & fan from the assembly.  So you have a total of 4 parts
a) plastic shroud
b) heatsink
c) fan
d) naked GPU PCB.

"fun problem" #2.
There is no good way to re-oil the squirrel cage type fans.  The bearings are internal and it looks like the rotor is forced into fan assembly under pressure durring assembly.  I didn't want to pull too hard but I found no way to gain access to the bearings.  There is no oiling port under any sticker.

My guess is the fan is assembled to never be taken apart.  If you can find a replacement fan you can "easily" (see fun problem #1) but there is no good way to clean the "reference style" fans.  The only good news is it looks like 5850, 5870, 5970 all use the same fan.

[chunglam]

I followed this post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=46642.0) and successfully replaced two 5870s with failed fan.

[conspirosphere.tk]

"fun problem" #2.
There is no good way to re-oil the squirrel cage type fans.  The bearings are internal and it looks like the rotor is forced into fan assembly under pressure durring assembly.  I didn't want to pull too hard but I found no way to gain access to the bearings.  There is no oiling port under any sticker.

My guess is the fan is assembled to never be taken apart.  If you can find a replacement fan you can "easily" (see fun problem #1) but there is no good way to clean the "reference style" fans.  The only good news is it looks like 5850, 5870, 5970 all use the same fan.

Maybe drilling a small hole on the top of the fan with a dremel to spill oil inside might be a good idea?

[Unacceptable]

If you need a new heatsink & fan,these guys are the bomb,I have saved many vid cards with thier products:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100008006%2050002107&IsNodeId=1&name=ARCTIC%20COOLING

Most are kinda big & take up an extra slot,maybe,so research the size for your application(multiple cards on one mobo may need extention ribbons as they may interfere with each other).

Whenever you clean your cards with air,be sure to use a small flashlight & look inside both ends for accumulated dust,like little dust bunnies.If found I use a piece of small diameter wire to fish em out