saturnwolf

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saturnwolf

If you remember my posts from months ago about my desktop making a loud, mysterious grinding noise, I've isolated the sound to the GPU, I believe. Had to happen eventually, 1060s don't last forever, but upgrading my GPU is....currently out of the question, financially

The thing is, it doesn't even do it consistently. It comes and goes so I'm still left not entirely sure what the issue is. Do I need to clean it? Do I need to re-seat it? Do I need to add more internal fans to help with cooling/airflow? I wish I knew!


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in reply to @saturnwolf's post:

We can Sherlock this a little bit.

If the GPU is making the grinding noise, the only moving parts on that thing is the fan. Reseating it isn't going to do much. Adding more internal fans will make it so the fan on the GPU doesn't have to increase in RPM on the attached fans so much, which will help, but only in a roundabout way.

Generally if something is grinding it either means there's an obstruction while the fan blades turn (like dirt or hair), or the fan itself is just mildly defective and the bearings inside the fan are going bad. This happens! The cooling fan that came with my case sometimes gets noisy and it kind of "rattles" when the system first turns on.

There's a number of solutions you can try and some of them aren't even that expensive.

One, get a can of spray duster. Using either your fingers or a toothpick or a screwdriver or something, make sure the fan blades on the GPU cannot spin. You don't have to push down on them, just block them from spinning. Wedge the spray duster nozzle towards the base of the fan (where the blades converge and connect to the motor) as close as you can get and give it a few strong puffs with the air. Try doing it from different angles. If anything is jammed in the motor, you're trying to get it out.

The reason you don't want the fan blades to spin is because the bearings are only rated for a certain kind of RPM and letting the can of air spin the blades can actually damage things because they might start spinning faster than they're supposed to.

Similarly, if there is gunk caught in the motor somewhere, trying to blow it out might, in some edge cases, make the problem worse. It's making noise because something is starting to get stuck, but if you move the gunk around, it might shift into a place where it'll get stuck more easily.

The second solution is something I ultimately ended up doing to my CPU fan and that is... instead of giving it a few puffs with spray duster, a dribble or two of WD40 lubricant. You don't need a lot; I feather the trigger on my can as gently as I can and literally only used a drop or two in the same place (at the base of the fan). Given my CPU fan was starting to get awfully whiny, it cleared right up and hasn't made a peep in over a year.

I dunno about in your neck of the woods, but a can of spray duster is only a couple bucks here, and the smallest cannister of WD40 will run you between $3-$6. Might be worth a try, but maybe eyeball it first and see how easily you might be able to see the base of the fan like that, since I know GPUs can have fancy shells on them these days that make it hard to access and service that kind of stuff.

(If it was easier to reach those things, I'd just say buy a brand new fan of similar dimensions, since they used to be interchangeable. One of those tiny little fans is usually under $20)

Holy shit I cannot thank you enough
If I could heart this comment a thousand times, it still wouldn't be enough, I've been a little at my wits end trying to figure this out! I'll be sure to run through all of this and hopefully it won't need to be taken into the shop