Fan Noise.

[Ekolite]

Hi, my PC is quite small and its fan has the most infuriating high pitched buzz that absolutely drives me insane. Is there any way to reduce the noise without completely rebuilding it or buying a new fan or opening the computer up in any way. BTW I'm not the kind of person who naturally gets on with computers so a simple, easy to do answer would be best. Thanks for any help.

 

[Cutlass]

Your 2 choices are to buy and install a low noise fan or build a noise absorbing enclosure to keep the PC inside of.

I would change the fan.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Hi, my PC is quite small and its fan has the most infuriating high pitched buzz that absolutely drives me insane. Is there any way to reduce the noise without completely rebuilding it or buying a new fan or opening the computer up in any way. BTW I'm not the kind of person who naturally gets on with computers so a simple, easy to do answer would be best. Thanks for any help.

You could look for a fan speed control utility. Reducing the fan speed some would help with the noise, but it will never make it go away. The only thing to do to make it silent is a new fan. ( And they cost like 10$-20$ at most...)

 

[Ekolite]

The price isn't the important thing. The problem is convincing my dad to fit it, and even if he did he'd probably end up breaking my PC - he pretends to know about computers but he really doesn't. Where will the fan control be? Control Panel? The annoying thing isn't the noise itself, but its so high pitched - that's what annoys me. Finding a way to reduce the speed should help.

 

[warpus]

The fan could just be dying - it would be best to replace it. Which fan is it? If it's just a case fan then it's very easy to replace.

If you really don't want to replace the thing, I would open up the case and vacuum out the dust from around the fan.. as well as looking into slowing it down, but that's not really a good solution imo.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Fan control would be at best in a separate app, and at worst nowhere. Personally, i use SpeedFan for my desktop, and I8kfanGUI for my dell laptop.

 

[Speedo]

Many/most fans in computers use bushings rather than bearings, so after years of running as the bushing starts to wear they can begin to wobble ever so slightly, which makes those crazy buzzing noises.

Very high pitch buzz means that it's a small, high RPM fan, almost certainly a motherboard chipset cooler. While it's *possible* to replace them, don't mess with it if you don't know what you're doing.

 

[Cutlass]

Many CPU fans can be very loud as well because they are often smaller fans turning at higher speeds.

 

[StarWorms]

Which fan is it? The smaller the fan, the noisier it is, because it has to spin faster. I have an annoying little one on my motherboard, but as my graphics card goes in front of it, I can't replace it with a heatsink.

 

[Martacus]

I'm having problems with my case fans too. With four of them going, plus the fans for the video card, CPU, and power supply, my system can get pretty noisy. Lately it's gotten worse, and sure it's the case fans getting old--I've stopped them manually for a moment just to check where the noise was coming from, and sure enough, the noise went away, and came back once I let go.

Of course, that doesn't take care of my other problem: the fans keep going even when the computer is shut down. The only way to make them stop is to turn off the switch in the back after I shut down the computer. Is anyone familiar with this problem or what may be causing it?

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Means your motherboard is still supplying power to the fan headers. I don't know what you can do about this besides kill power to the system altogether though. You could do like I do and have a surge protector for everything relating to my computer ( which you should have by default). When I turn it off, I shut down and just hit that power switch, stops the annoying whine my PSU emits.

 

[Cutlass]

Means your motherboard is still supplying power to the fan headers. I don't know what you can do about this besides kill power to the system altogether though. You could do like I do and have a surge protector for everything relating to my computer ( which you should have by default). When I turn it off, I shut down and just hit that power switch, stops the annoying whine my PSU emits.

It should be an Uninterpretable Power Supply (backup battery) instead of a surge protector.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

A UPS is pretty useless in my opinion unless you're at a very high risk of a power outage. In all my time of living in the bay area I've only been through one, so it shouldnt be too much of a problem not having one. Plus they cost more money than they're worth imho.

 

[Speedo]

A UPS is pretty useless in my opinion unless you're at a very high risk of a power outage. In all my time of living in the bay area I've only been through one, so it shouldnt be too much of a problem not having one. Plus they cost more money than they're worth imho.

If you've only seen one power outage in your lifetime you're either very young, very lucky or have a very short memory.

For most people who actually do work on their computers, it usually only takes a time or two of losing hours worth of work (or better yet, getting a corrupted file and being fk'd) before they get interested in a UPS. Not to mention that a UPS provides brownout/voltage drop protections that a surge protector is simply incapable of doing.

 

[Cutlass]

If you've only seen one power outage in your lifetime you're either very young, very lucky or have a very short memory.

For most people who actually do work on their computers, it usually only takes a time or two of losing hours worth of work (or better yet, getting a corrupted file and being fk'd) before they get interested in a UPS. Not to mention that a UPS provides brownout/voltage drop protections that a surge protector is simply incapable of doing.

And you can get one that'll handle a single home PC for as little as the price of any surge protector that is actually worth having.