Replacement Graphics Card Fans?

Kensington

Hi all

Over the past few weeks my graphics card (nVidia FX5500) cooling fan has been making a lot of noise. When it starts up, it makes an almighty racket until it "warms up" and then it quietens down, although the fan speed is not steady (revs up and down and makes a good bit of rattling noise). This gives me the impression it's the fan motor bearings on their last legs so, does anyone know any decent replacement fans for the card? Are they easy to replace by yourself (eg. is there any soldering involved)? Or is there anywhere that will replace it for me, and not charge a fortune?

Any help/advice greatly appreciated!

Cuddlesworth

Depends, any after market cooler would come close to the value of your card anyway. Have you tried a hoover or can of compressed air to blow any dust out the heatsink?

Kensington

I have tried vacuuming and compressed air, a hell of a lot of dust came out of it but it's made no difference at all to the sheer racket the fan is making

Wertz

Exact same thing happened to my old fx5200 a good while back...sounded like it was either spinning too fast or trying to spin and being jammed somehow...this would only happen at boot up (on a dell) and as soon as I got inside windows it would spin normally. I reckon it could be more firmware/BIOS related than a physical fault.

Thinking it was dust, dirt or a bad bearing I bought a vantec iceberg pro off of ebay, but upon trying tofit it, discovered that I'd not read the small print Didn't fit. Turns out I needed (as would you) the non-pro version.

The vantec is still laying about someplace...I've since turned that old dell into a HTPC and tore the cooling fan off it and replaced it with a passive heatsink (since it doesn't run games, I figure what harm can it do, if it cooks it cooks) which makes for a super quiet PC.

If you find one to replace it with, there are good tutorials for removing the old fan and fitting the new on on the web. Good luck with whatever happens...

Cochise

If you can post a pic of the card showing the fan i may have a fan that will fit it if i do i'll give it to you for the cost of postage which should be much

uberpixie

Have a gawk here

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Arctic_Cooling_395.html

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Vantec_397.html

Khannie

www.hitide.ie do arctic coolers. Beware the paste that comes with them (or use arctic silver).

Kensington

Thanks for all the replies lads, much appreciated. I think I might go with this fan. I've looked at the website and the fitting instructions are pretty clear and look fairly easy - afaik Maplins off Jervis Street also stock it so I'll try there. Thanks, once again!