Computer’s Fan Makes Unusual Noise. What to do?

Since two weeks, my computer makes strange noise. Every day, when I boot my PC, I hear roaring fan. After few minutes of thunderous noise, it works quietly.

“Okay,” I explain it to me, “this is more or less normal. So long there is no other problem...”

The computer is working well. It is not the youngest one and not the fastest one, but everything else works. I decide, “There is no need for action.”

One day it takes the computer almost half an hour to be quiet again. I am thinking, “Yes, it is not pleasant, but it might be only today. Tomorrow it will be much better.” Yes, this is true; the PC is running without any atypical noises on the next day. I hope it stays as it is. Who wants to take well working piece of electronic apart?

Few days later, my PC is roaring for several hours. Day after this, the roaring is even lauder.

Only few days ago, I would solve this problem through restarting the computer. Today, restarting makes no difference. Sorry, I must open it. No way to leave it as it is. Even when it still works well, the sound makes me feel nervous. It makes me think that my computer is going to breakdown.

I hope that it might be the chassis fan, or one of the case fans. I open the case of my PC, connect it to the power source and inspect all the fans. They work well, and nothing is extremely loud.

I am checking if any of the cable connectors are disturbing the steady work of the fans. Many colorful cables are filling the inside of my PC, but they are not intruding the work of computer fans. It looks like the solution of this problem is not going to be easy.

The open computer is lying flat on my table. I am listening closer to the CPU fan. It seems not to be particularly loud. However, I am sure it is louder than the other case fans. It must be the noisy one, but I still do not have any evidence for my suspicion.

I decide to move my computer and to turn it off. Now it stands upright on the table. After switching it on, I listen to almost exactly disturbing sound. It must be the CPU fan. It cannot be anything else. I do not know why the fan is louder when the PC is standing upright. I see that still nothing is disturbing the fan. Either the fan is going to be kaput, or the PC is too dirty. I see lots of dust.

Even the heat sink is full of dust. “I must clean it,” I think. I do not know if the dust causes the loud working fan. Probably it might do it to a certain level.

A clear solution for my problem right now is to buy a new fan or fan including the heat sink. I check on Internet and receive the following information: Yes, I can replace an old fan with a new one, without even moving the heath sink. I like that. This is what I want to do. If it works, I am always for the minimal invasive surgery.

However, some other people on Internet think differently about it. They suggest that the fan including heat sink must be replaced. Few people wrote even they could not remove the heat sink from the CPU. They were speaking about that some CPUs are glued with their heat sinks together.

I still like the first prospect, replacing only the CPU’s fan. The second solution may be much more inconvenient than the first one. I stick with the first idea.

Close to my place, I have seen computers repairing shop. On Friday afternoon, I decide to visit this place. From far away I can see few flashing, in all possible colors, signs “OPEN.” Happily that soon my computer is going to work in silence again, I… the door is closed. I am too late. The “OPEN” signs are simply lying. Nothing is open here. I am disappointed!

On Saturday, my friend and I, we have something to do in the town. This is around 45 miles away from here. There is also a large computer center. There, I want to find a case fan, buy it, and be happy again.

I find in the huge store only two sorts of fans in the size I need. They are almost identical. I take one of them. It has the same size, but I see also tiny differences between this fan and my old fan, and I hope that it will not have any impact on the planned replacement.

Next day, on Sunday, I will install the new fan. First, I check online in which direction the fan must move the air. The answers are confusing.

Some people answer this question into the processor, and some are sure the airflow must be in the other direction. It would be logical for me, to pull the hot air away from the chip and let it flow to the rear exhaust fan. It must be the right way. Later, I read more about the possibilities and see it differently. The only way to blow the air away from the processor is when you have another fan blowing cooler air into the CPU. WOW!

In 99 % of the setups, the CPU fan should blow the air into the heat sink, period. Okay, but how do I know in which direction the fan blows the air?

My old fan did have on its side two arrows. One was showing the direction of the moved air the other one was showing the direction in which the fan's blades were moving. My new fan is not that smart. It is a pity. How would I recognize the working direction of a fan? It is simply. I let the fan work and feel in which way it is blowing; I do it manually.

Okay, everything has been done, now I know exactly how to position the fan. The heat sink is still properly mounted, and I try to fit the new fan on top of the heat sink. It is not working. The fan fits, but it is not fitting. So simply it is. It is illogical. Okay. I have the right size of a fan, but it is fixed without screws. When you have this problem, you need exactly the same fan. It is not enough to have the same size of a fan. I'm happy that I have recognized it. Finally!

I still do not believe that my recognition affects this particular fan... Because I don't give up, I have to remove the heat sink from the CPU first. I do it, but it seems to glue to the CPU. Help! I hope this is not true! This is a common tale that CPU could glue to the heat sink! However, my does not want to move!

There, I see some screws, and maybe I must remove them. By my first attempt to do so, the heat sink jumps (really, it jumped!) down from the CPU. I hope (I can only hope) that it have not damaged anything.

Okay, now I am able to clean the heat sink. I do it with my vacuum cleaner. Yes, it works. I am very careful and use the cleaner only on the heat sink, which is a simple aluminum alloy block.

The heat sink is clean. The new fan is ready, but it is not fitting on top of the sink. The fan does have too high edge, and this prevents it to be mounted. I was trying in every way possible, and even asked my friend for help, but nothing worked. Tomorrow we will give the fan back and buy a new cooler for the processor. We also should not forget to buy the thermal paste. I must remove the old paste and place a new layer on top of the chip. Without this, I cannot assemble the PC again.

We are driving to the town again, ninety miles for the round-trip. It takes the whole day… This is not much fun! The only positive ray of sunlight on this is that I love the large computer store. They have the newest computers, parts of computers, and every imaginable gadgets. I absolutely love it!

First, I walk again to the place where I found the not fitting fan and see the whole wall full of coolers. They are all gigantic! My processor, the ancient AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual Core, needs rather a small heat sink. There are five different smaller boxes with the coolers. I am opening them all because I am thinking, "When I see the entire item, I can better imagine if it would fit or not."

All of them are much too different. Some are even too small! Finally, I am on all my fours trying to see what they are hiding on the lowest shelf. There, I find a last box that looks different from the others. I hope that it might be the right one. I open it and see that it looks a little bit less bulky than my old heat sink. The box says that my processor is compatible with it. OK, I take it.

The last box from the last corner and I buy it. I have no choice.

Back at home again; I try first to use my old heat sink with the fan from the new heat sink. I try hard, but also this fan will not fit. Pity, I have to use the new flimsy sink. Okay, I hope at least that this thing will fit on top of my processor. Yes, it is, but first I clean the processor from the old thermal paste. I do it just with facial tissue and kitchen towels.

After that, I put some of the thermal paste on top of the clean processor and spread it evenly over the entire chip. I bought thermal compound with diamonds. Yes, diamonds are the girl’s and CPU’s best friends, you know? I read it somewhere that the thermal paste with diamonds is the best cooling paste of all. This is why I use it.

Computer is fixed and ready to go. I turn it on… No, no, no explosion. No, no. Nothing. Nothing happens. Hmm. What is that? Okay, I better press the front panel on the PC's case and use the button. Okay, done it and still nothing happens… Yes! The power! I forgot to turn the power on the electrical panel!

Now! What is happening now? The information on the screen says that there is no booting hard disk, and I must insert a disk with the operating system. I am confused. I did nothing to any disk. I have not even touched them. Okay, I remove the PC from the power again and check the connections to the hard drives. Yes, that is! I have by chance disconnected the hard disk.

I put the computer together again and let it work. It is producing the same noise as before. Nothing has changed. I shut it down and after two minutes boot it again. This time it is working almost silently. Hallelujah!

A day after, the PC is hauling again, worse than ever before. I check on Internet if there is any solution and see many thousands of pages speaking about loud and hauling fans. Especially AMDs are producing the “singing” computers.

Is it possible that I have used too much of the thermal paste? I will check it today. It is also possible that AMD does not like diamonds. He is not a girl, obviously. It is also possible that the chip is dying. I see black colors. Black diamonds?

As I open the case and try to remove the heat sink, I do not succeed. I cannot move it at all! Help! It seems to stick to the processor. Maybe I should have not used this particular thermal paste. I read something about arctic silver. I should have better used it. Now I cannot even replace it.

It is possible to run the PC for twenty minutes and try to remove the heat sink while it is still warm. I do not have the time right now to do it, so I put my computer together again and let it work… It works pretty well. I can tell it because I began to write this article four weeks ago, and today my computer is still running flawless. :-)

More information about how to ground yourself and how to replace a CPU fan.