Repair your noisy CPU and system fans

I squeezed two times, each amount would be about half the size of a rice grain. The bearing is very small so i wasn't sure how much to apply. As far as what type of fan I have they are sealed single ball bearing. Not sure how to explain it but the "face" of the fan is where the BB is closest too. At the opposite end of the shaft where the little plastic C clip holds the fan from flying out, is a sleeve bearing. I'll put it more next time I dust my pc but it's getting quieter overtime.

If its getting quieter over time it usually means that a bit more graphite is called for. Fill the hole as much as you can. Cover with duct tape if need be, just make sure tape doesnt interfere with the fan.

I'll take pictures next time I do and will post back on here.

I read your post and according to the feedback I thought let me try in a ps3 fan. Big mistake... The bearing started making loud grinding noise after applying graphite and it stayed like this for hours. Its a ball bearing and I can tell for a fact that the graphite worked its way down the ball bearing because thats when the noise started. I tried everything everything. I cleaned off all the graphite fully with TF2 and applied lithium grease and bearing grease but that grinding is still there. The graphite damaged the balls in the bearing I assume. maybe it works with other ball bearings but not with mine. Or I did something wrong... like wrong graphite? I got this one:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Graphite-...P+SNh1bCfMpiKXVjYcuj3Fo=&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc
Any ideas? I dont know what bearing size it is to replace it and a new fan is very exensive for ps3!!

I cant for the life of me see where powdered graphite of any kind could possibly cause what you are talking about. There just HAS to be more to this story. I have repaired hundreds of fans with the results being from good to excellent depending on how badly worn the fan was to begin with. I have repaired some real screamers!
Its possible the graphite you used has another element in it or the fan was just ready to go bad, hard to say from your description. The graphite I use comes from Canadian Tire and its use there is for auto, squeeking doors, that sort of thing but it works wonders on pc fans, even video card fans, all fans. Ive repaired our house fans, list is endless. Wherever I can get access to the "innards" of a fan I have repaired it, even if I got some of the powder on the windings! This graphite powder is black, very very small crystals and its like soapy to the feel when you rub your fingers together with some of this your fingers get very slippery, thats what makes this stuff work so well, slippery as hell, see if yours is too? Thats about all I can think of at the moment. If and when I think of more I will post.

Wow thanks for the quick answer! I think I read somewhere that the ps3 fan's bearing balls aren't the best quality. Maybe the metal is just very brittle or softer than graphite and the graphite made the balls imperfect. I tried the graphite on 2 ps3 fans and they both made the grinding noise, non repairable. I did try the graphite on my graphics cards sleeve bearing fan and it seems to work ! but 2 ps3 fans ruined lol, I found a cheap one on ebay to replace it. I'll keep the graphite far from that one. I will use the graphite on some more pc fans and post the results here. The graphite does fit your description of slippyness. Google images shows many different graphite powders with different darkness. Mine is dark grey , not black as you described yours. Maybe its just not as pure as the description stated (95%, natural graphite).

Actually the color is grey, not black, my bad. I will tell people with ps's to use graphite at their own risk. However, it seems these fans are gone anyway so no harm done.
"graphite made the balls imperfect" - nah, I wont go there, lol.

To answer the question everyone seems to have...YES graphite powder is a conductor. It is used in small bombs that are dropped on sub-stations. The powder coats the insulators and allows the current to flash over to ground and blow the circuit breakers. WD40 is also a good conductor. It doesn't matter. The only place you can short a bearingless, brushless motor is at the terminals, or from one terminal to the sleeve. And since the sleeve isn't grounded, there would also need to be a short to the other contact for that to be a real problem. The wire on those coils may not look it, but it is coated with a layer of ceramic insulator. That's why the coils can be in contact with each other. The lubricant is really nowhere near where it would need to be to cause a problem as capillary action draws it to where it's needed. Not to mention that to cause a short the gap you would need to bridge would be far too large to easily bridge by mistake.

@gabriel

I just want to comment about WD40, WD40 is not conductor, it is non-conductive.

Hi

Could anyone post a video of applying the powder to a laptop cpu fan...I would like to see how this would work...Why would the graphite powder not seep from crevices and spread on a mother board...Thanks for any assistance

Gabriel, thanks for the perfect answer to the question of conductivity, I appreciate it and im sure others do too.
Lambanien, I hadnt thought of that, I will do that, not right now, but maybe over the holidays.
Stay tuned.
For certain, my method has never harmed a fan. Its impossible. However, if a fan is very very very badly damaged, well, it may not help but it cant do any harm. Notice I said very very very. Its because I have repaired very and very, just not very very very. Very very very is likely too far gone to repair. Im very very very sure of this,lol.

I can tell you this much. I have had people from U.S, Canada, and Great Britain send me their video card fans and I have repaired every single one of them, one was at least a very, maybe a very very.

Hi I have 2 laptops I would like to try this with but I would like to hear from anyone who has tried this with laptops first. So did it work or did it brick your laptop lol? Thanks

Ok looks like this is a dead thread. To bad sounded like a good idea.