How to fix your noisy Acer X27 fan

LigTasm

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jul 29, 2011
Messages
6,610
I did some searching on this and found lots of complaints but no solutions!

I bought (stupidly) an Acer XB273K (4k/144 Gsync 2 27"). I got it all set up and was very impressed with everything except the blasted fan noise. I didn't know prior to buying it that it even had one so that was a shocker to hear my monitor sounding like an AMD 290X in the middle of the sahara desert.

I contemplated the 2 hour + drive back to microcenter but decided to just try and fix it, since there were to tamper seals I could see.




***Take off the two covers by the stand, and the 4 screws holding the stand on.

Popping the back case off is easy, there are two indents on the bottom edge and I used a vinyl trim tool to twist a little and it popped right open, then traveled along the outside perimeter. Didn't even leave a mark on it.

Once I had the cover off I took some of the small connectors for the controls loose and the fun begins.

This is basically what you'll see:

20190709_144917_LI.jpg

I removed the silver tape from around the module and fan (already removed as pictured), and folded back the ones holding the frame to the display panel. Also disconnected all the plugs on the top (some go to the back case and are already off in this pic).

Then I flipped the whole frame away from me to take out 6 silver screws, 5 on the back and one by the ports. Then it comes off easily and then I flipped the module back towards me so I could work on it. I did not remove the display cable itself as I know those can be sensitive.

Now you will have 4 screws holding the Gsync module and fan to the board, unplug the fan and remove the module out of its slot.

Now take the 4 screws off from the back of the module, very similar to most GPU fan mounts.

Here we find the problem. No contact at all to the fan.

20190709_143648_LI.jpg

But why? You notice the fan is held on by 3 screws, 2 longer silver ones and one shorter black one. The black one is supposed to go over the chip. The silver ones stick out and actually damaged the IHS on my chip from being cranked down on there. It was preventing any contact at all between the IHS and the heatsink/fan.

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After switching the screws I repasted it with some noctua paste and reversed all the steps to put it back together. The tape is a little finicky to get on straight again but it only took me maybe 3 minutes to have it back together.

And voila, now the fan can be heard if you concentrate but it isn't any louder than my rig and I certainly can't hear it from the next room like I could out of the box. All this for one tiny little screw that someone put in the wrong spot.
 
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I like my Paper Clip solution better. Its more elegant, adds more aluminum to the design and you can make millions selling X27 Paperclip Kits on Ebay.

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To me the most amazing thing about this design is that they apparently could not put that fan and board anywhere else but right smack middle of the part where the stand connects. Like you could have just moved it to the bottom or top edge and it would not be visible from the front and not blocked mostly by the stand.

I really hope they have learned their lesson for the upcoming 43" models and don't cram a fan in those.
 
Ah, Acer, never change.

Yeah some QC would have helped this. Despite that I am very impressed with the screen otherwise, colors are fantastic although it doesn't have the FALD setup the more expensive X27 version has. I haven't used the 144hz setting, I only have a 2060 so I don't have the horsepower to do it anyways but in the games I play it has no problem maintaining 90-100 fps. Buttery smooth compared to my 34" 100hz ultrawide that had flickering problems.
 
Yeah some QC would have helped this. Despite that I am very impressed with the screen otherwise, colors are fantastic although it doesn't have the FALD setup the more expensive X27 version has. I haven't used the 144hz setting, I only have a 2060 so I don't have the horsepower to do it anyways but in the games I play it has no problem maintaining 90-100 fps. Buttery smooth compared to my 34" 100hz ultrawide that had flickering problems.
I have the ASUS, which uses the same panel, and I agree. I've never had an issue with the fan(s) in the ASUS.
 
I can say for a fact I’ll never own a monitor with a fan in it. Annoying him right about ear height? Who comes up with these ideas?
 
I can say for a fact I’ll never own a monitor with a fan in it. Annoying him right about ear height? Who comes up with these ideas?
Engineers who understand that their fancy tech would melt otherwise. TVs have had fans in them for years.

Regardless, if the fan(s) are working properly then you won't hear anything unless you put your ear right next to it. In the case of the OP we can clearly see that whoever assembled their monitor did not properly install the fan.
 
I can say for a fact I’ll never own a monitor with a fan in it. Annoying him right about ear height? Who comes up with these ideas?

I really can't hear it at all, my system is right next to it and the only thing I ever hear while gaming is the RTX 2060 fans a little bit. I/m very sensitive to fan noise, I have 3x Noctua gray fans in there at ~600rpm and they're silent. At idle there is no noise I can hear over ambient now.
 
Engineers who understand that their fancy tech would melt otherwise. TVs have had fans in them for years.

Regardless, if the fan(s) are working properly then you won't hear anything unless you put your ear right next to it.

You could always just use a big enough heatsink...

With TVs there is no issue because they are never as close as a typical desktop display.
 
Better engineers don't keep releasing FPGAs years later to be incorporated in consumer products for functions that should have been ASICs if the company behind the tech actually had faith in its own bullshit to commit to real production.

But yeah back to Acer engineers, they're all about cheap. Depending on the part though, sometimes they do really great bang-to-buck designs. $2k monitors...not so much.
 
Do you guys think is possible to put this fan on the Asus PG27UQ? Do you know the reference of this Fan?, ty,

im looking to replace the cooling on my Asus monitor, any suggestions would be appreciated?
 
Thanks for the write-up, Ligtasm. The fan on my x27 started making a new loud noise after a couple years of use. Your guide emboldened me to take the thing apart and see what was going on. All of the screws mounting the fan to the heat spreader were of appropriate length, but the thermal paste application was pretty sloppy. Cleaned it up, replaced the paste, applied some lubricant to the fan bearing, and put it back together. Now its running nice and quiet. The fan in mine is a chiefly brand, model number cc8015s05h, 5V, .5A, sleeve bearing fan. I might try to order another fan so I could replace it outright next time, however the connector seems unique.
 
Thank you for sharing this. I had the same issue, that fan screw also scoffed the IHS of the Gsync module Altera FPGA.
Fix is pretty easy, hardest part was carefully removing the cover without leaving marks.
Fan is now inaudible, used to ramp up 100% after just turning monitor on.

I also advise anybody doing this to take pictures of how cables are attached before disconnecting them, makes it much easier to verify, there are about 10 cables.
 
Just also wanted to say thank you for sharing this information, this guide fixed my noisy XB273K fan as well.

I found that there was a scoff mark on the IHS also, and it appeared that perhaps the heatsink had been over tightened with a little too much thermal paste that had spilled out over the sides of the chip.

After cleaning this up and reapplying some noctua paste... & also not over tightening the heatsink when reattaching - the heat transfer and fan speed regulation appears to be much more consistent & the fan doesn't ramp up to max rpm at idle temps any more.

One other thing that I did worth noting - was that I didn't reapply the top most back silver tape as I felt that this would allow a bit of extra cool air intake airflow/ventilation around the fan.

Perhaps with the way the tape seals all the surrounding air intake channels this was also contributing to cool air being unable to reach the chipset and the same hot air being recycled around the fan & gsync module, causing higher idle temps and the fan controller ramping up after quickly reaching the threshold temps on the fan curve.

Something to consider if anyone else is looking at this solution...

So all in all I can confirm that this solution works 100% & I have not had any further issues with the fan - everything is working as it should!

Thanks again LigTasm, you have saved the day here... respect!


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Hey, so I just wanted to post this here for anyone that is or is worried about having problems with the fan on the XB273K. I talked to Acer several minutes ago, and pushed through the non english speaking Acer Tier 1 technical support that know nothing about the monitor, to the perfectly english speaking Tier 2 technical support that knew basically everything about the monitor. The guy I talked to was Phillip in Tier 2 technical support.

FIRST OFF: He said that Acer definitely can send us replacement fans. You just gotta ask Tier 2 technical support because Tier 1 cant see any sort of fan part number or anything. So needless to say, he is sending me a replacement fan in the mail.

SECONDLY: He also said the the fan is ONLY needed for HDR cooling. He said that if I never use HDR and leave HDR off... the fan is unnecessary and you can safely leave it unplugged/disconnected if it starts giving you problems. Just remember, if you ever use HDR, you must have the fan running or it will overheat.

As a side note, obviously all of this voids warranty so be smart.
 
.... I turned "Auto fan" off in the service menu which drops it's PWM duty cycle to a fixed 30% and it only raised temps by 3C.....

When AngryLobster said "Auto fan" option, i was like.... what? Searched and found that there is a hidden menu in this junk pile! Just press the keys twice from bottom to top - bottom, bottom, middle bottom, middle bottom, middle, middle and the menu will magically appear. Wish they had told me that somewhere. Never got a manual.

Anyway I attached pictures of this hidden menu and the process, as well as the new fan they just sent me and the packing slip with the part number.

Good job Acer. Leave it to us consumers to figure everything out ourselves. Apparently according to the packing slip... the Acer Part Number for the Fan is "23.TBAM2.002" and the description is "COOLER 5V 0.35A 80X80X10 MM".

XB273K_Buttons_Factory_Menu.jpg


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Guys, you saved my bacon on this thread! I was about to ship my monitor to ACER when I am 100% capable of doing this myself since I am a computer HW engineer of 30 years now. You guys rock!
 
Hey guys been a long time lurker of this forum but joined because of this post. First wanted to say thank you to the brave ones that first figured you might as well open this expensive thing and figuring everything out, saved me the trouble of being super cautious.

A note on the dismantelling procedure. The two pieces of silver tape directly on the sides of the fan I did not touch did you guys put it back when done or just leave it off? Also what about the square piece above the fan?

My fan was held in place by 3 silver screws so as noted one was long and possibly not allowing proper contact of heatsink with Gsync module main chip. I took a set of pliers and cut the end off of the screw making it shorter and reinstalled. But seems factory guys are half asleep when doing this what probably seems to them as not overly crucial step.

On the firmware screen my fan speeds are down but I noticed temps stay around 63c with room ambient of 24-26c with hdr on and max resolution even when not gaming, are you guys seeing similar temps?

Again thank you for the knowledge.
 
Hey guys been a long time lurker of this forum but joined because of this post. First wanted to say thank you to the brave ones that first figured you might as well open this expensive thing and figuring everything out, saved me the trouble of being super cautious.

A note on the dismantelling procedure. The two pieces of silver tape directly on the sides of the fan I did not touch did you guys put it back when done or just leave it off? Also what about the square piece above the fan?

My fan was held in place by 3 silver screws so as noted one was long and possibly not allowing proper contact of heatsink with Gsync module main chip. I took a set of pliers and cut the end off of the screw making it shorter and reinstalled. But seems factory guys are half asleep when doing this what probably seems to them as not overly crucial step.

On the firmware screen my fan speeds are down but I noticed temps stay around 63c with room ambient of 24-26c with hdr on and max resolution even when not gaming, are you guys seeing similar temps?

Again thank you for the knowledge.
sounds about right. hdr drives temps up. try turning it off and see if the temps drop a bunch. welcome to [H] too!
 
sounds about right. hdr drives temps up. try turning it off and see if the temps drop a bunch. welcome to [H] too!
Turned HDR off in windows (who knows if that even does anything) temps dropped a bit but fan speed slowed and tems stayed in high 50s to 61.
I am using an aftermarket display stand am thinking about adding some standoffs and larger screws to give fan even larger opening in the back for ventilation.
 
Turned HDR off in windows (who knows if that even does anything) temps dropped a bit but fan speed slowed and tems stayed in high 50s to 61.
I am using an aftermarket display stand am thinking about adding some standoffs and larger screws to give fan even larger opening in the back for ventilation.
I'm sure the firmware has a temp target for a balance between cooling and noise. Also keep in mind that even with HDR off the entire backlight array is working to illuminate the screen, so I wouldn't expect temperature to drop that much. But that temperature range looks perfectly fine to me. If your goal is to reduce the noise level even more then go for it.
 
Found this thread looking for monitor temps to compare, unfortunately I didn't know about the service menu before changing my fan, so I didn't get the "before" temps, but after replacement it's around 50-56 with 23c ambient, after hours of use. The factory fan started making a loud grinding noise and vibrating, out of the blue, turned the PC on today and the fan was like that.

I put in an old 12v about 8cm, only had a 6cm 5v at hand and decided to try a bigger evga graphics card fan that fitted perfectly, despite being 12v. It has just ground and power and I have no idea how fast it's spinning, but I'd say around 1000 rpm with no noise. It's a lot better than the factory one that let the monitor get really hot and then started roaring full speed, lots of noise and monitor still felt a lot hotter than now with the evga fan. Whoever designed the original system did a very poor job.

Here is a link for the service manual:

https://elektrotanya.com/acer_lcd_x27.pdf/download.html


My temps are as follows with 82hz 12bits HDR and Gsync on (Gsync only for full screen) and 23c ambient temp:


index.jpg
 
Hi i make a huge mistake by replacing the Fan for X27. I broken the Pin Adapter from Fan and so i decided to soldering the cable but rpm and tacho not working. The soldering on Mainboard seems very dark and black and it is heavy to solder for me. So i look for a mainboard but there are two Mainboard. 1.:
Acer MAIN BD.X27 für Acer X27 and 2: Acer MAIN BD.FOR.M270QAN02.200-TW für Acer X27. So what is the right Mainbord for my X27? it is not the X27P Version. I live in Germany and i saw a part listening Company which has the both parts https://www.ipc-computer.de/acer/monitore/monitore-x-serie/x27/

Fan.jpg


 
Having read through this thread, which is rather fascinating, a few thoughts/questions. I just received my XB273K yesterday, and am loving it. The fan speed isn't at 'obnoxious' levels, but it did seem a lot louder than I'd expect it to be.

First off, Ligtasm, thank you very much for your bold efforts in cracking open your brand new monitor and finding the issue and presenting a fix. Awesome.

I'm curious what your monitor's build date is/was. My factory menu lists 'OSD Release Date: 20190712" - curiously enough just a few days after your original post. I'm not too sure that 'OSD' date is the build date though.

At roughly idle, I'm running at 56C in a roughly 23C room, which seems high - but i have no reference to compare to, and could find no thermal limits info on that Altera Aria chip (assuming the monitor stil uses the aria 10, "AX" version as seen in the photo - no AX version listed on Intel website). Fan it on smart fan, and running at 49% duty.

What I'm wondering is what the likelihood may be that my monitor is 'infected' with the insane too-long-screw-over-chip problem. I'm leary of cracking open the monitor, at least not yet.

And I have to say - who the heck even sources and uses an IHS that will have a fan screw through hole right over the chip itself??!! Sheer madness. How freaking hard is it to have the screw holes aligned away from the chip. sheeeez!!

Also, thanks to the other responders in this thread -- this info is amazingly helpful, if only in understand what goes on inside the monitor, and what the chip and board looks like! I hate black boxes!
 
I did some searching on this and found lots of complaints but no solutions!

I bought (stupidly) an Acer XB273K (4k/144 Gsync 2 27"). I got it all set up and was very impressed with everything except the blasted fan noise. I didn't know prior to buying it that it even had one so that was a shocker to hear my monitor sounding like an AMD 290X in the middle of the sahara desert.

I contemplated the 2 hour + drive back to microcenter but decided to just try and fix it, since there were to tamper seals I could see.




***Take off the two covers by the stand, and the 4 screws holding the stand on.

Popping the back case off is easy, there are two indents on the bottom edge and I used a vinyl trim tool to twist a little and it popped right open, then traveled along the outside perimeter. Didn't even leave a mark on it.

Once I had the cover off I took some of the small connectors for the controls loose and the fun begins.

This is basically what you'll see:

View attachment 172893

I removed the silver tape from around the module and fan (already removed as pictured), and folded back the ones holding the frame to the display panel. Also disconnected all the plugs on the top (some go to the back case and are already off in this pic).

Then I flipped the whole frame away from me to take out 6 silver screws, 5 on the back and one by the ports. Then it comes off easily and then I flipped the module back towards me so I could work on it. I did not remove the display cable itself as I know those can be sensitive.

Now you will have 4 screws holding the Gsync module and fan to the board, unplug the fan and remove the module out of its slot.

Now take the 4 screws off from the back of the module, very similar to most GPU fan mounts.

Here we find the problem. No contact at all to the fan.

View attachment 172889

But why? You notice the fan is held on by 3 screws, 2 longer silver ones and one shorter black one. The black one is supposed to go over the chip. The silver ones stick out and actually damaged the IHS on my chip from being cranked down on there. It was preventing any contact at all between the IHS and the heatsink/fan.

View attachment 172890

View attachment 172891

View attachment 172892

After switching the screws I repasted it with some noctua paste and reversed all the steps to put it back together. The tape is a little finicky to get on straight again but it only took me maybe 3 minutes to have it back together.

And voila, now the fan can be heard if you concentrate but it isn't any louder than my rig and I certainly can't hear it from the next room like I could out of the box. All this for one tiny little screw that someone put in the wrong spot.
I signed up just to thank you, so here it is...Thank you!:) You made my 2020 a whole lot better!
 
I signed up just to thank you, so here it is...Thank you!:) You made my 2020 a whole lot better!

glad I could help. Such a silly QC problem on a very expensive screen and I know a lot of people have returned them for fan noise.
 
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Just reporting in because I ordered the part listed and it did not fit exactly. I was, however, able to use the heat-sink from the original and the new fan. All is well and a huge thanks to those on this thread that provided pictures and descriptions.
 
In case it helps anyone, I recently got an ASUS PG27UQ with a loud fan and managed to fix it by using some kryonaut thermal paste (instead of the caked up junk that came from the factory), and some new fans I got from eBay. Apparently these are just standard laptop fans that you can get pretty cheaply, just search for model EF70151S1-C010-S9A.

Also note, I said "these" as there are actually 2 fans in there! One cooling the FPGA, and another exhausting hot air from the case at the top. All you need are some guitar picks and a phillips screwdriver to sort it out.
 
Hello to everyone In this tread. First of all, sorry for my bad english. I do my best.

i did what this topic is about. Removed the frame and cleaned my fan that suddenly became noisy. My vaccumcleaner was enoug for me. I want to replace termal paste but dont have nerves to remove silver thingy and screw everything off.

however, i actually write to you guys for picture settings. I spend so many months google watching reviews and dont feel like i get the best result for PC gaming.

can you guys help me with the best picture from the menu? User mode, brightness, nits, color ect. I would be so happy!
Ty om advance
 
Hello to everyone In this tread. First of all, sorry for my bad english. I do my best.

i did what this topic is about. Removed the frame and cleaned my fan that suddenly became noisy. My vaccumcleaner was enoug for me. I want to replace termal paste but dont have nerves to remove silver thingy and screw everything off.

however, i actually write to you guys for picture settings. I spend so many months google watching reviews and dont feel like i get the best result for PC gaming.

can you guys help me with the best picture from the menu? User mode, brightness, nits, color ect. I would be so happy!
Ty om advance
It really depends on your preference and room lighting. Also if you use 144hz, it’ll be dulled by design.

I use HDR on windows and games look better but the screen isn’t going to pop like an OLED tv. You’ll probably get the best results from HDR, non overclocked and a 4K game that your computer can drive with settings turned up.
 
Hi ,this thread is interessting to me.
My XB273K Fan is noisy and i turned smart mode off and set the fan speed to 30% and now the temps are around 70 degrees, is that okay?!
When i turn on smart mode, the fan will ramp up sometimes for no reason, even when the temps are low, is it fixable?!
And when i try to set the fan to 45% without smart mode, after i turn off and on the monitor the fan speed are set to 30%

And what means the "Burn In" option in the factory menu?!
 
Anyone know where to buy a replacement fan in the US? Or a compatible fan that maybe will last longer? I'd prefer not to order from Europe, and I don't need a new heatsink to go with the fan.

I dismantled my display to see if maybe poor contact was the reason for the noise. Nope. The fan is just worn out. Super awesome for a $2000 monitor to have a fan go bad after just 18 months. Taking off the cover was a pain, all the wires are a pain, and other than cleaning out the dust and replacing the thermal paste, I'm still stuck with a noisy monitor. :(

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