Graphics card fan seizing up - the best way to fix it...?

Merlin

Ministry of Retr0bright and Street Judge
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I have been working on a system that is having severe problems, not least of which is the fan on it's Nvidia 7300GT AGP graphics card. The fan barely turns if moved by hand (feels like dry bearings) and does zilch under power. The bearings of the fan are either clogged with crud or are seizing up.

A quick wash in white spirits and a liberal slathering of WD-40 has got the fan turning again, however, under power it makes a real racket and vibrates a lot. The fan is 'chattering' and creating a high frequency vibration, so it still needs more work.

My question is this; what is your chosen method of cleaning and lubricating the fan like this one, to restore it to working condition? There's no easy way to hack a different fan onto the heatsink, so getting it working again is the preferred route.

It's a real shame, as it's a 512Mb card and other than the fan issue, it works fine. It's probably a bit too old to find an aftermarket cooler for it now.
 
Many of that series ran with just a large heatsink like on the Voodoo 3's

Maybe you could pull the fan and replace the unit with a nice large Heatsink?

I don't think its going to be possible to repair a dying fan, I though they were something you bin when they give up the ghost and replace.

Maybe you could find a replacement cooling solution on ebay or if someone has a dead card they can pull the fan off for you?

All the best.

Steve.
 
Have you tried some lube dear sir? It may be a good temporary solution!
 
Find a nice low profile heatsink (fleabay has a wide selection), hotglue it to the card at strategic points then mount a low profile fan on top.

End result might be a bit ugly but it's cheap, affordable and easy to maintain.
 
That noise you hear is worn bearings, there's nothing you can do about that except replace the fan.
 
I don't think an aftermarket cooling solution would be cost effective, it'd be cheaper to another Video Card, maybe even a 7600 series card.

I'd go with Blankies suggestion :)
 
Ive Got a 7300GT complete with fan but with duff RAM chip if you want it for bits.

TC :D
 
@ JuvUK

Thanks! There's some nice hardware pr0n to lust after on that Shiny site.....:nod:

@ TC

Thanks! Let me know the postage and I'll send you some beer tokens.
 
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