This,, is not good...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Babble
  • Start date Start date
B

Babble

I've only had my ATI 9600 Pro for about 3 weeks. The fan started
howling today like a sick dog. Not good. I had to remove the card,
then remove the HS assembly, take it apart, remove the sticker and
drop some oil in it, and put it all back together hoping it would stay
secure once placed back on the card. It's not something the common
everyday user can do. Or should have to do. One could argue that
doing that would void your warranty. But, will ATI warranty the fan?
I doubt it. Some people would just return the thing for replacement
after having it for such a short time. I don't think ATI would like
to see a lot of returns for a fan!
Here's hoping it lasts till I change video cards again cause it may
not tolerate another removal and reattachment. It's a very small HS.
Not much there at all. The pins that hold it on the board are what
takes the abuse when R/R it. I added a little thermal grease to
replace what was disturbed.

Other than that, the card is great.
 
I had a Radeon 8500 several years ago. It had a fan that got really
noisy. I took the sticker off, put some light machine oil on (I bought it
at a model train store, very good oil- I use it on my n-scale trains too),
put the sticker back on, and it didn't bother me again and I used it for
quite a while before I gave it to my dad, and he used it for another year
just fine.

Really they ought to move to ball-bearing fans. It wil cost a bit more,
and they won't be as quite initially, but they will last longer. These
cheap sleave bearing fans, in my exeperience, start out quite but then get
noisy as they get older and the sponge bearing inside dries out and they
just get some mechanical wear too.

I had a motherboard chipset fan with the same problem, so it's not just
videocards.
 
I had a Radeon 8500 several years ago. It had a fan that got really
noisy. I took the sticker off, put some light machine oil on (I bought it
at a model train store, very good oil- I use it on my n-scale trains too),
put the sticker back on, and it didn't bother me again and I used it for
quite a while before I gave it to my dad, and he used it for another year
just fine.

Really they ought to move to ball-bearing fans. It wil cost a bit more,
and they won't be as quite initially, but they will last longer. These
cheap sleave bearing fans, in my exeperience, start out quite but then get
noisy as they get older and the sponge bearing inside dries out and they
just get some mechanical wear too.

I had a motherboard chipset fan with the same problem, so it's not just
videocards.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I've played this game before with sleeve bearings on case
fans and older AMD k6's and Pentiums. I think I've tried everything
BUT your model train oil. <g> You know what I found works best?
Motor oil. Yup, good ole 10w30. I think it even slowed down this
little fan a bit because of it's viscosity. You could hear that
little fan above my CPU fan! It really had some RPM's.
It's quieter now. I have plenty of airflow in my case. I don't think
there will be a heat problem.
 
Back
Top