One fan harder to spin?

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hajalie24

[H]ard|Gawd
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Dec 22, 2010
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I noticed my gpu has been getting hot so I decided to try cleaning it out and I noticed something odd. One of the fans on my twin frozr 6950 seems harder to spin. The other fans spin quite quickly if I just give it a tap, but this fan no so much. I'm really not sure how to ffix it though. Any suggestions?
 
Took it apart, cleaned the dust, nothing. I unscrewed the fan and it byitself is having a hard time spinning. I'm not sure what's stopping it though.
 
That's what it ended up being. Never had to do it before so I wasn't sure, but some WD-40 made it spin normally again. In fact it actually spins easier now than the other fans.
 
WD-40 is fine for short term use but it doesn't work well as a lubricant. I would redo it with actual lubricants.
 
Be very careful with WD-40. If you spray WD-40 on the coils for the motor, it will eat away at the varnish for the windings and short out the motor and probably the circuit that also drives the motor.
 
I've never seen WD40 do that before. Not that it couldn't, but it's mostly just mineral oil and stoddard solvent, and most motor winding enamels shouldn't be dissolved by that.
 
Yoda4561 said:
I've never seen WD40 do that before. Not that it couldn't, but it's mostly just mineral oil and stoddard solvent, and most motor winding enamels shouldn't be dissolved by that.
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I've seen it happen more then once with electric strikes ( Locks ) I work with. The maintenance staff troubleshoots a sticking electric lock and decides to spray WD-40 into the mechanism. The carrier and lubricant get to the windings for the electric solenoid and shorts the windings for the solenoid and blows the fuse that powers the strike.
 
Don't feel too bad about this as I have 3 of these cards msi 6950 twinfrozr unlocked shaders that run 24 hours a day at full load. I've RMA'd all 3 cards 3 times in the past 15 months. Not to mention I've had to return RMA these cards 2 other times for getting back defective cards. These fans commonly go bad. I have 6 xfx reference 6870's running 24 hours a day and those cards are all original and have never once had to RMA them. I also have 2 XFX 7950 Ghost DD cards (5 months old) and I can already tell that one of the fans is slowing as well with these cards running 24 hours a day. I just bought a saphire 7950 so we'll see how this fan does.

Reference coolers with the the squirrel type cage fan seems to last significantly longer. Only downside to this is they are louder.

These fans last longer
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103201
 
If i ever lubricate fan motors I use a syringe and make sure im not getting any lubricant solution on any electrical components instead of just spraying WD-40
 
hajalie24 said:
That's what it ended up being. Never had to do it before so I wasn't sure, but some WD-40 made it spin normally again. In fact it actually spins easier now than the other fans.
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It's interesting that you mentioned this, as I have the same card and one of its fans is starting to make some noise at mid/high rpms.

Eureka! said:
WD-40 is fine for short term use but it doesn't work well as a lubricant. I would redo it with actual lubricants.
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And now I ask you: what would be an appropriate lubricant? Something silicone based?
 
The easiest stuff to get would be a good lightweight synthetic motor oil or ATF. Synthetic gun lubricants like Breakfree CLP are also good. What you don't want are gear oils, most spray lubricants, cooking oils, or high solvent content oils that dry out and gum up under high temps. This btw means marvel mystery oil is out.
 
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