Loud fan on ATI AIW Radeon

[Mattster]

I have been running this card for about a year now, and have noticed recently that the fan has gotten quite loud, compared to when I first got this card last year.

Anyone know how I can safely get the thing off and what I should replace it with?? Or should I send it back to ATI under warranty?

TIA!
Matt

 

[gaidin123]

If you can live without the card for a while you might want to replace it under warranty if ATI will let you.

In my case I had an old Rage 128 card in a non gaming machine that was making a tremendous amount of noise for such a small fan. If you unscrew the fan from the heatsink, peel back the sticker on the underside of the fan, drop a drop of oil in there, and put the sticker back on firmly then your noise problems will likely go away.

You might be able to get away with taking the fan off altogether though the drop of oil thing is definitely the safer of those two options. 🙂

Gaidin

 

[FlowerMan]

I'd replace the stock HSF. Warranty-shmwarranty 🙂 If the card has lasted you a year without any problems, it will most likely not have any problems from here on out.

http://www.voidyourwarranty.net/review/review.php3?r1=diy/vidcardcooling/index.php3

I think ATi still epoxies their heatsinks, so:

Method for removing epoxied HSFs.
1. Remove the fan.
2. Get a can of compressed air.
3. Spray the contents upside down onto the heatsink for 5 secs.
4. It should be frozen, so get a thin plastic card.
5. Put the card between the GPU and the HS.
6. Get a thin flat screwdriver.
7. Put the screwdriver between the card and the HS.
8. Twist the screwdriver.
9. If it does not come off easily, try doing it on each corner.
10. Clean up with 70 or 91% alcohol. If you need something stronger, acetone will do. Not the scented nail polish remover crap, the clear acetone. Then clean up again with alcohol.
11. Put a new HSF with AS/AA epoxy on.

If that video card has DDR ram, you might want to put some ramsinks on as well.