Problems with Motherboard fan

[quiq]

My MOBO fan started making a lot of loud noise whenever I booted up, like it was grinding on something every few seconds. Sometimes it would go away for a while but then come back.

So I would tap it and sometimes that would get it to stop temporarily from making noise.


How important are motherboard fans? If I disable it, will my motherboard die or something ?

I tried to open the housing that the fan is into to check it out closer, but its hard to do. Do you think a local computer store caries these things, and are they universal? Is there a bearing or something I would need to replace too? Mine is a very small fan

Heres a pitcher of my motherboard fan. The fan's in the golden square thing http://www.gen-x-pc.com/images/BIOSTAR-N4SLI-A9.jpg

 

[Law]

It looks like a small fan for your north chipset, but I can't see the south chipset anywhere so that's what I'm assuming. I think I see the south chipset near the three blue PCI slot. Anyways you don't really need a fan for that, just get a heatsink. Also your local CompUSA carry fans for chipset so you can replace it if it's getting old and worn out. It might be a little hard for you to do since some fans are mounted on the MB, sometime you need a nail clipper to clip the molding off from the bottom of the motherboard, sometime you just need to unscrew it or remove the bracket that is housing it.

 

[quiq]

Yeah, I was wondering about how to take it apart. I will take a closer picture of it and maybe you or someone else can tell me what to do because the manual has nothing on how to disassemble it without breaking something

 

[quiq]

There it is. I tried unscrewing the top off but even with my small phillips head the screws wouldnt budge. What about those 2 springs holding it to the motherboard?

 

[Law]

Those two black spring are the thing housing it onto the motherboard, I think you have to remove your motherboard and look on the bottom of it. The black spring needs to be clip off on the bottom. That's what I think but you can try to push it down and turn it to see if it will unlock, I'm just not sure about this because pushing to hard might damage your mb.

 

[quiq]

Ah, I just had to put more downward pressure on the screws with my screwdriver and they came off. Took the top off the fan casing and I discovered there was a power wire that was in the way of the fan, so the fan had been slicing up the wire for quite some time now. I got that annoying sound to stop. Now I gotta figure out how to quiet some other loud fans on this computer.

Thanks

On a side note, those 2 springs that hold the fan to the MOBO did push down but I couldnt get enough grip on them to try twisting them. I dont know if thats a locking device or what

 

[Law]

You can always replace those system fans when they get too loud, if your motherboard has a place to install a 120mm fan it's better than a 80mm fan because it can spin at a lower rpm and move more air which makes it more quiet. What I usually do is replace the system fan, the PSU and the CPU with a quieter product after a couple of years. I also have a fan controller to switch the system fans on and off when I need to.

I donÂ’t think those two springs will come off easily; youÂ’ll probably have to clip them off from the bottom of the MB or cut them. Some advice, make sure the other fans are securely tight so they donÂ’t vibrate and make noise. Replacing them is recommended and itÂ’s cheap. Or by a fan controller that has on and off feature and speed control.

 

[CrazeD]

Once you take the motherboard off, the back of those pins will look like this:

\|/

You have to push the \ / pieces togethor, so it looks like this:

|||

Then it should go through the hole and you can take it off.

However, you DO need something there. Be it a fan or a chipset, you do have to have some sort of cooling, or you'll fry it.