something is noisy, not sure what

demonikal

demonikal

New Member
I have two 120mm fans, one for intake at the front and one for exhaust at the back. Then there's my power supply and my CPU fan. What is likely the thing that is making the noise that I hear so loud when I start my PC up and when I change the settings on the Asus motherboard EPU from slow to fast?
 
Open the case and figure out what is making the noise. Most likely the cpu fan hitting something like a cable.
 
Yeah, did that when it first started becoming a nuisance several months ago. Just didn't get around to asking about it until now, but it's been on my mind. My cables are managed fairly well. My processor fan came with the processor, so I know it's not high end, but it's fairly small. Just don't know how loud those things get. Maybe I'll try unplugging the exhaust and intake fans when I start it up. If it's not loud, I'll know it's those. I know those weren't very high end either when I bought them. I'm really tired of the LED lights too. Saw some fans that have a fairly low (relative to other fans) decibel rating called SilenX I think on Tigerdirect's website. And I know my PSU is pretty much crap.

Nevermind. I guess I answered my own question on what to do. Now I just got to make the purchases :)
 
You might not have to swap the fan or fans at all. If it's a kind of grinding noise that you hear? It could just be that the lubrication are gone.
Just stop one of the fans with your finger at the time and listen.

If you wanna take the time to lubricate before you replace it / them? Just dismount the fan, remove the label and carefully remove the little plastic plug beneath the label. Give the fan a drop or two of sewing machine oil and spin the fan a bit. Then clean away any excess oil that might have ended up ouside the lubrication hole and put the plug and label back. But as you have had this problem for quite a while. Then the bearing in the fan could be damaged beyond any tinkering.

One other way to listen after noise, is to take a thicker A4 paper or 2 and make a funnel ( with a small opening at the pointy end ) by using some tape. Stick the pointy end in your ear and move the hearing aid around inside the box until you find the noisy part.
 
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goranpaa said:
You might not have to swap the fan or fans at all. If it's a kind of grinding noise that you hear? It could just be that the lubrication are gone.
Just stop one of the fans with your finger at the time and listen.

If you wanna take the time to lubricate before you replace it / them? Just dismount the fan, remove the label and carefully remove the little plastic plug beneath the label. Give the fan a drop or two of sewing machine oil and spin the fan a bit. Then clean away any excess oil that might have ended up ouside the lubrication hole and put the plug and label back. But as you have had this problem for quite a while. Then the bearing in the fan could be damaged beyond any tinkering.

One other way to listen after noise, is to take a thicker A4 paper or 2 and make a funnel ( with a small opening at the pointy end ) by using some tape. Stick the pointy end in your ear and move the hearing aid around inside the box until you find the noisy part.
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Wow, that's a kind of computer repair I didn't know existed. You guys know your stuff. I'm temped to try the lubrication and I'll keep the hearing aid funnel as a note :rolleyes:
 
You're welcome.

Hanging around at forums like this makes you learn some special and neat tricks of the trade. :) The ones I told you about I did learn at another computer forum 6 years ago.
 
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Well, that's the kind of stuff I eat up - the DYI stuff. Like I said, didn't know anything like that was possible in the computer world. Now that I know, I'll be keeping two eyes open :) Nice avatar by the way - priceless.
 
Have a good feel of the fan itself spin it using your fingers very slowly and try and feel for any sticking, notching, grinding etc that could indicate the bearing is damaged, if so then it would be best to replace the fan. If it is nice and smooth then follow goranpaa's advice, put a drop of oil in the back. Might be worth it to repeat this for all your fans at once to ensure they have lubrication and last aslong as possible.
 
tylerjrb said:
Have a good feel of the fan itself spin it using your fingers very slowly and try and feel for any sticking, notching, grinding etc that could indicate the bearing is damaged, if so then it would be best to replace the fan. If it is nice and smooth then follow goranpaa's advice, put a drop of oil in the back. Might be worth it to repeat this for all your fans at once to ensure they have lubrication and last aslong as possible.
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Gotcha :good: I don't know if fans are measured in hours of life like motherboards and other stuff sometimes are, but I built the computer in January of 2011. Maybe it depends too on whether I keep it on 24/7 or not, which for the past several months I have been doing, but not really previously.
 
Yes, milage and hours counts. But most important is the quality of the fans.
I must say that Noctua fans, seems to have a very long life span. Their SSO bearings have very low friction. And besides that, they are quiet but still push a lot of air. Not an easy thing to accomplish.

The only backside that might put some people off are the colour scheme.
Noctua fans are not exactly cheap by any means, but you get what you pay for.
I have tried some other fans down the years. But there always seemed to be something wrong with them. Either they have been too noisy, pushed a too small amount of air or have had a pretty short life span.

The only fan brand that comes close to Noctua as far as I have experienced are Adda. But they are almost as exspensive. Corsair use them in their powersupply's btw.
In third place I would say Nexus.
 
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Are you talking about best fans or best fans that make least noise?

I have a quad-core processor, but I've never had any reason to overclock it. I have 16GB of memory, but I don't know if that even generates any heat. My video card is fairly low end and has a fan attached to it.

I have blue LED fans. Blade colors would not bother me, unless maybe the blades were like dirt brown or something :D However, I no longer want LED fans. It used to be something I really loved, even seeing the light going everywhere in my bedroom, but now at night I put a t-shirt over the clear side panel so that blue light only really goes out the back.

As long as I could find fans that pushed the same amount of air that the ones I currently have do, without LED, I think I'd be happy. Unfortunately, it looks like I bought the intake and exhaust fans in-store, so I don't have their specs. I'll take a look inside to see what info I can find on the center thingy :)

(btw, I just realized with my t-shirt over the side panel, the noise is muffled. I have two vents on the side panel that are near the exhaust fan and CPU heatsink fan and I didn't start doing this t-shirt thing until about a week ago)
 
I'm talking both good quality and low noise level + pushing a good amount of air at the same time.

This is how the Noctua fans look like:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608004

Those vents that you measion are unnessisairy really as you say you have the exhaust fan close by. Take pieces of some stiff and transparent, plastic and then use some clear tape to fixate them steady over the inside of those vents. Likely, you wont need to use any T - shirt after that. :)

Btw. Fractal Design, seem to have some nice fans too. Got som nice reviews on the net.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&name=Case Fans&SpeTabStoreType=0&isdeptsrh=1
 
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Jamebonds1 said:
OP, You're going have to list your heatsink, PSU and case fan.
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Just found the info on the case fans, front and back, heatsink, and PSU.

Cooler Master CM Essentials 140 - Sleeve Bearing 140mm Blue LED Silent Fan

Specs:

- 140mm x 140mm x 25mm
- 1000 RPM 60.9 CFM
- 16 dBA

Link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103077

Heatsink:

Thermaltake TR2-R1 / AMD Socket AM2/AM3/939/754 / Aluminum / 92mm Fan / CPU Cooler

Link: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2604150

PSU:

Ultra LSP550 550-Watt Power Supply - ATX, SATA-Ready, SLI-Ready, 135mm Fan

Link: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3276574
 
Jamebonds1 said:
It is your PSU and case fan. They make noise fan. I recommend XFX 500 Watt and Thermaltake fan. CoolerMaster is known for most noise fan ever.
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16dB is not that loud... It could be vibration from the fans against the case but it couldn't be the fans itself...

It could very well be the PSU if it's running at load or higher...
 
Jamebonds1 said:
It is your PSU and case fan. They make noise fan. I recommend XFX 500 Watt and Thermaltake fan. CoolerMaster is known for most noise fan ever.
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I'll look into XFX for a PSU and I'll look into Thermaltake 140mm case fans :good:

Until then, if I want super quiet, there were only two case fans under the 140mm category with 10-15dBA checked (lowest dBA rating on Newegg). Highest rated was this SilenX fan measured at 12dBA http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835226046. And second highest rated was this be quiet! fan measured at 10-15dBA http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA68V21E0606.

C4C said:
16dB is not that loud... It could be vibration from the fans against the case but it couldn't be the fans itself...

It could very well be the PSU if it's running at load or higher...
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Is there some way to insulate the fans against the case? Like spray rubber perhaps? :rolleyes:

What does it mean if a PSU is "running at load"? :confused: Does that mean if it's powering as much as it can power? I only ask because two weird things meant for other forum category questions happened within the same week. One, now my computer won't boot into Windows 7 - only Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 on three separate partitions of the same drive. Two, my DVD writer stopped functioning completely and driver updates didn't do a thing. It could be a coincidence, but I've also been told in the past that my PSU was even too weak for the Fallout 3 game.

I think Ultra is a store-brand (Tigerdirect/CompUSA) name anyway (for the PSU).

Jamebonds1 said:
I think we both know that is not true. I have coolermaster fan that claim it is 16 db on max RPM, but really is they are over 30 db and they lied.
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I didn't know that about CoolerMaster fans. They may be known for most noise ever, but it's the number one 140mm fan choice among Newegg buyers. It's the exact same one as mine, except it doesn't have the LEDs like mine has.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103078

[I'm thinking of getting two new case fans anyway cuz the blue light pouring out sometimes keeps me awake at night. I actually ended up spray painting the clear panel black on the inside to block most of the light. It's actually a nice mod. :D ]

P.S. I also saw a few fans searching elsewhere online rated at 7dBA, but they were all 80mm.
 
Check the device manager for any yellow exlamation/question marks on the cdrom drive. Usually this is a registry corruption issue why the cdrom doesn't work.
 
I already took it out and put my IDE burner in, but I'll attempt it on the floor with necessary cables attached. :good: for the tip.
 
Jamebonds1 said:
OP, You're going have to list your heatsink, PSU and case fan.



No, no, no. Don't stop spinning fan, that can hurt motherboard or power supply. Plus sewing machine oil are not for DC fan because I don't recommend it. I would have recommend to pick up that type of oil from radioshack.
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Wrong. You cannot 'hurt' a motherboard or PSU from stopping a fan. Secondly sewing machine oil is fine.
 
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