Fan lubrication?

[4tified]

I just recapped an ATI Radeon 9700 AGP video card yesterday and was wondering what I should do about the fan. It is noisy and scratchy. Is there a way to lubricate a fan like this or do I need to just find a replacement?

[c_hegge]

Re: Fan lubrication?

There should be a few screws holding the fan in place (usually three of them). Undo them to remove the fan and peel off the sticker. Some fans have a rubber plug under the sticker. Remove that and put a drop of oil in. I find that sewing machine oil works as does air tool lubricant. Don't use thick grease or WD40.

[kaniki]

Re: Fan lubrication?

there was a topic about this a while back.


https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showth...highlight=wd40

[stj]

Re: Fan lubrication?

just replace it,
if it scrapes then the bearing isnt smooth.

try rocking the blades from side to side.
they shouldnt move - if they do then the bearing is totally gone!

[momaka]

Re: Fan lubrication?

Follow kaniki's instruction on the thread he posted and you should be able to fix the fan easily. I've re-lubed a fan on a Radeon 9800 Pro and it wasn't hard at all. Since Radeon 9800 is only a model newer than Radeon 9700, I'm guessing the fans are pretty similar. If I remember correctly, there was no rubber plug under the sticker on the back of the fan. Also, you don't need to remove the heatsink to remove the fan - as c_hegge said, there should be three screws holding it to the heatsink. Try not to put too much downward pressure with your screw driver on them though, otherwise you might get the GPU core cracked.

[4tified]

Re: Fan lubrication?

I'll go ahead and give the oil treatment a try.

As far as replacing the fan, it's honestly not worth it, as a Radeon 9700 rarely fetches over $20 resale. I just wanted this as a backup.

Anyway, I've replaced the 470uf solid state caps with 680uf, 10v electrolytics, and the card seems extremely stable. Next is time for some small memory heatsinks.

[Aruba]

Re: Fan lubrication?

I'll go ahead and give the oil treatment a try.

As far as replacing the fan, it's honestly not worth it, as a Radeon 9700 rarely fetches over $20 resale. I just wanted this as a backup.

Anyway, I've replaced the 470uf solid state caps with 680uf, 10v electrolytics, and the card seems extremely stable. Next is time for some small memory heatsinks.

You can try the lubrication as suggested above but having tried the same on
power supply fans it only gave me about 3-5 months of use before they start
to be loud again. Once the bearing is worn and wobbly it has gone pretty
much beyond repair. Oiling it gives you at most a few more months of "quiet"
life back.

[Eagle2a]

Re: Fan lubrication?

I've successfully relubed dozens of fans, including several that were almost completely seized up. In fact, I've never failed to restore a fan back to normal quiet operation yet. A few times I've had to repeat the process after the oil leaked out, and once I had to switch from oil to a light synthetic grease for a video card fan that was mounted upside down (to keep the lubricant from leaking out). The other thread referenced earlier gives lots of good technical advice for the process.

[4tified]

Re: Fan lubrication?

I know the bearings are worn, not much I can do about that. The 3-in-1 oil offered some lubrication and decent noise reduction, but the oil is providing enough leeway.

I know this sounds stupid, but can I use lithium grease? I know it works pretty well with optical transport rails in CD drives, so why not try it with a brushless fan motor?

What have I got to lose?

[kaniki]

Re: Fan lubrication?

I know the bearings are worn, not much I can do about that. The 3-in-1 oil offered some lubrication and decent noise reduction, but the oil is providing enough leeway.

I know this sounds stupid, but can I use lithium grease? I know it works pretty well with optical transport rails in CD drives, so why not try it with a brushless fan motor?

What have I got to lose?

true, dont have anything to loose but a little time, but i dont believe that lithium grease will hold up to the constant wear and friction that the fan has. CD ROM rails get a little use but do not get a constant flow of friction. I use that stuff on wheel chairs and the places that I put more of an motor oil type consistence of a lubricant needs re-greased only once about every 6 months while the places that have the lithium grease need redone every month to every other month. It just does not hold up to constant friction.

You can try the lubrication as suggested above but having tried the same on
power supply fans it only gave me about 3-5 months of use before they start
to be loud again. Once the bearing is worn and wobbly it has gone pretty
much beyond repair. Oiling it gives you at most a few more months of "quiet"
life back.

All i can say about that is you must be using some very crappy lube to do it. I did the fan in my mothers power supply and then ran it for about 2 years with no problem.. after that I replaced the power supply with a bigger one due to demand and putting newer more power demanding parts in. The fans in power supply's do not get really any more wear or torture then the cooling fans for the case or the processor. I have re-lubed a lot of fans in everything from power supply's to processor heat sinks to video cards to case fans and have never had any of them ever come back or have problems even years later. So if you only get 3-5 months out of a new lube job, either that fan was really trashed before you lubed it, or you need to get some new lube..

[stj]

Re: Fan lubrication?

Loctite make teflon loaded synthetic oil, but it's not easy to find.

[Eagle2a]

Re: Fan lubrication?

I second kaniki. While I haven't personally tried it, I don't think lithium grease would be a good lubricant. In my experience, almost any quality oil will do the trick. I have the Loctite synthetic lube with Teflon that stj referenced and it works well, but IMO no better than most of the other lubricants I've tried (3-in-1 oil, sewing machine oil, both conventional and synthetic engine oils, Slick 50 One Lube, etc.) As mentioned in my previous post, I had an excellent experience using SuperLube synthetic grease with Teflon in a video card HS/F last time and I'm thinking about continuing to use it in the future. I may also experiment around with various other light greases to see how they work.

I also fully agree with kaniki about the longevity of the relubed fans. They continue to work perfectly almost indefinitely afterwards. I've started preemptively lubing some of my fans with higher quality lubricants as preventative maintenance, hoping to head off future problems.

HTH