Repair your noisy CPU and system fans

supersmashbrada, thanks again for your help.
So you are running the fan at medium instead of low due to lower noise factor, right? And, of course, that cools your cpu more.
Thats great!! Your info is probably the best example of what graphite powder can do for a fan, so thanks for letting us know about it!

oh np, I'm actually about to test out the Zalmans 9700 heatsink, Want to see what I can do with it and this graphite.

Fan noise

My computer fan is super noisy. Is your solution above applicable to all fans or are some fan just noisy after over years of usage?

Wilson

Excellent tip!...Thanks for sharing

Removing cpu fan from body

thanks a lot for the tip on quieting fans and making them last longer. I have to repair a lot of older pcs throughout the day and many of the cpu fans are noisy. i have noticed though, that some of the cpu fans don't have the 'holes' you mentioned for lubing beneath the sticker...on the top or bottom. i've also noticed that the fans are pretty easy to 'pop out' of their housing so you can actually clean the inside (using wd-40) magnet and shaft and oil it while it's apart. my question is, is this safe?...as long as it 'pops' back in and doesn't easily pull apart once you've reassembled it?

thanks for your help in advance!

wes king

Sorry, somehow i didnt see this post, not sure why i wasnt emailed, maybe i was, dont know for sure.
But, yes, you wont have any problem if you lube it and put it back together and go.

thx Nork for this priceless info. well done..

hormonat, thanks, because its people like you and the others who have reported success that make this post good because others see the results and go out and get the items i mentioned, try it out for themselves, see how well it works, and then report it here!

It really does work and its even good for the fans on those expensive video cards too! I have had emails from people specifically saving their video card fans!

I know it works but i am really glad to see others trying it and reporting success.

Now i have taken up the habit of applying my "fix" on all fans i get before i even start using them. My thoughts are that this will work even better as it will prevent any wear and tear right from the start. This graphite, if you get some on your fingers, you can see why it works so well because when you rub one finger on the other you dont get any friction at all. Its a tremendous product! And, as i said in my original post, its better than oil as a lubricant, but it also lasts a lot longer as it doesnt dissipate with heat the way that plain oil does. So there are several reasons for using graphite powder.
I use it when i get a new lawnmover as the wheels dont wear out like they used to and i use it on almost anything i buy that has wheels or any parts that can wear out! I find that the graphite prevents wear and tear. So you can use this same method on all sorts of things! I hope to hear more stories showing how well it works. The more good reports the more others will use graphite.
And for the naysayers, which hasnt happened yet, but could, i ask you please to not post here. My reason is that one naysayer can turn one person off who would have used my method and i know for a fact it works and doesnt cause any problems at all.


thanks

Fans

Brilliant idea am gunna do just that and thanks

It will work.

I have repaired quite a few video card fans and we all know how much these video cards cost.

And i have had a ton of feedback from people who have followed my instructions, works all the time. Of course there is always that one fan that is too far gone to repair and i have run into them myself, but its actually fairly rare. My guess is that 98 to 99% of fans will work when done with this method.

I have taken to using my method even on new fans, get them before they go bad and they will last virtually forever. Again very important for vid card fans.
Some are hard to open up though.

Nice topic - just stumbled upon it. Never tried it, but will definitely do. Got a noisy candidate in my son's computer

As an ex telecom engineer I must say that graphite does conduct electricity but has a relatively high resistance. In fact old resistors were made by applying a thin layer of graphite on top of a ceramic tube. You will, probably, not short the fan, but I'd be careful to prevent leaks on any bare contacts on the fan/mobo/etc.

On a different note, do you notice any reduction in the speed of the fans? Graphite oil was widely used in electrical and electronic applications, but it has relatively high viscosity. Also, you say that you tried different oils, but they never lasted long enough. I gotta try the oil for sewing machines. It is specifically developed for lubricating the bearings with minimum resistance.

In any case, thanks for the advice!

No, i havent noticed any fan go slower, but i have certainly noticed them going faster.
Thing is, i only use oil to help spread the graphite around and the oil isnt really needed at all, plus the fact that i only use a tiny drop of oil out of a pen-barrel type applicator, it has a needle on the end, so you can imagine how little oil is used.
I know one thing, the oil always dissipates in time anyway and you are left with the graphite powder only, which, long before that, has repaired the fan and its humming along nicely. thats why i said it hardly matters which oil you use as its only a drop to start with. And, again, it dissipates due to heat. I know because the first number of fans i tried to repair worked fine for a while but they all eventually started acting up again(bad little fans) and my repairs only started being permanent when i switched over to graphite powder, just to try it out. Turns out, for many reasons, it was the right choice.
I am only surprised this wasnt real common knowledge and still isnt all that common because i dont read labels, dont know that much about this stuff, only
wandered into it by trial and error, lol. I had found it was great on hinges, doors, and stuff like that. So i tried it on a couple fans and found it worked great. After that is when i found out why it worked so well! Heat doesnt dissipate graphite powder like it does with oil and graphite powder is very very slippery, making it a great lubricant.
thanks

Thanks for sharing the info.....

Nork,
it worked for me too. My CPU was screeching and actually locked up my laptop. The replacement fan assebly would be about $130 from HP. I googled and found your post.
I looked around the house and found that I had the oil with a needle tip for small oil delivery but no graphite so I used a razor to scrape some graphite off of a pencil. My fan is the type that can eparate the rotor from the stator. I spread some graphite all along the inside of the fan body stator, and then added a tiny drop of oil to the inside. I added more graphite to the drop until it was paste. I put some on the shaft in the same manner. The graphite filings were very fine and I didn't use much at all. I figured i could always add more that way. It works perfectly. Thanks!!! Jim

really smart thinking on your part! Its the same graphite i would imagine. And it worked so thats what counts!

If you do run into trouble in the future with the same fan i do suggest you do get the "store-bought" graphite as the graphite would be ground much finer than we can do. I say this because the problem here is that most fans run hot enuf to dissipate any oil or grease that is applied to the moving parts in a fan. The only reason my graphite solution works is because the graphite doesnt dissipate with heat and continues doing the job even after the oil and\or grease has stopped doing the job. Put another way, oil and grease will dissapear, leaving only the graphite to do the job. so the graphite better be up to the job and the store-bought type is ground up fine enuf to do the job.
I'm certainly not knocking your solution. Its actually quite ingenious. I hope you post back to tell us if this ingenious remedy of yours works over time. I hope it does! even if it fails the test of time its still a great method to get you up and running while you do the permanent fix!

I have this thread running in a few forums so i will try to post this info on them as well.
Thanks again and be sure to let us know how it works down the road!

Im not surprised to hear about the clay thing. For what its worth i recommend going with the store-bought powdered graphite because its so fine and its likely got a lot less contaminents in it. It just seems to be made for the job of fixing computer fans of all types. And its so cheap to buy!
However, i dont want to step on JimG's toes. He did what he did and reported his findings. Im not an expert so i cant really say one way or another. But i think the test of time will be the real test here. If the fan in question is used every day and is still humming away in 3 months that would be an indication that its ok, if not, well ....
Still, it does tell us the power of graphite.
Since i wrote this article i have serviced a lot of fans. I had one, a fan in a good power supply.
This fan was in real rough shape and i told the fellow this is simply a test as i felt the fan was too far gone. Well the fellow reported back to me a month later that the fan was running just fine. I suspect its still working fine and it's been a long time now.
I've had a few other fans that were real bad, one on a video card. Put another way i havent had one person get back to me that the fan i repaired had gone bad again. Its bound to happen sooner or later, though. This isnt magic, its just that fine powdered graphite is a tremendous lubricant.

Hello Nork & Mailpup.
Well, last night I started hearing the fan again but not as bad as initially. I inspected the fan and saw that the graphite was granulated and had dried out. I also looked up and found clay is the binder for the pencils which s used granulate. The #2 pencil I used would have more clay than a 9B (thank you Wikipedia) but I didn't have one I don't know don't know how much clay is in any pencil types. I'll go out and buy proper graphite powder today.

I put another tiny drop of oil in the stator and mixed it with the granules to get me going again. The computer is typically on for 16 hrs/day and lasted 43 days until I heard the noise last night. 688 hrs of mostly 130F based on Speedfan. I haven't come back to see if I had a reply until now. Thank you to you both. JimG

Its great to hear your report on the results.
Of course, the noise is back because of the oil drying up and likely the clay clogging things up as well. When you get powdered graphite and put that in with a drop of oil then your problem should be resolved for good, if not for many years, at which point you could simply add more graphite. But, again, the graphite doesnt dry up like oil does so it should last for years, done properly only once.
Make sure you get that clay out of there before you put the graphite in.

Hi, I wanted to post my results.

Well, it took a little bit of searching to find the powdered graphite. My mistake? I was looking in Wal-Mart. I spent probably half an hour looking, and if they have it I couldn't find it. Went to Rona, was in and out of the store in about 3 minutes.

Went home, took the fan off my video card (which was so noisy it could wake the dead). Put on some 3-in-1 multipurpose oil and puffed some graphite on, wiped off the excess, put it back, and the fan is so quiet now!

All I can say is thankyouthankyouthankyou!