Home PC - fan making lot of noise, advice please?

mwa

Hello

Over the last few weeks, the fan on my PC has been making a lot of whirring noise, not just on start up but all the time I am logged on. It's very loud and alomost sounds like it's about to take off

Not being technically minded, can anyone advise what the problem might be? I am in the process of backing up everything in case...

Many thanks
MWA

PS if it helps, this is a 4 year old Dell Dimension 5000

Livingthedream

mwa wrote: »

Hello

Over the last few weeks, the fan on my PC has been making a lot of whirring noise, not just on start up but all the time I am logged on. It's very loud and alomost sounds like it's about to take off

Not being technically minded, can anyone advise what the problem might be? I am in the process of backing up everything in case...

Many thanks
MWA

PS if it helps, this is a 4 year old Dell Dimension 5000

Sounds like your PC needs a clean

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial118.html

aliEnRIK

Clean it
And if all else fails then buy and fit a new one. Its easy as I swear

darich

My PSU ( at least i think that's what makes the noise) sometimes kicks in an extra fan for a few moments then turns it off.
I assume it's detecting a rise in temperature and the additional fan lowers the temperature again. Mine only comes on occasionally indicating that my temperature is generally low enough.
It could be that yours is a bit higher, possibly through dust as suggested, so the additional fan is running constantly.

Long term it could burn the pc out as it becomes more clogged with dust, short term, it's normal and like your fan in the car coming on to cool the radiator in traffic.

johnoz

Had exactly this issue recently, and as the other posters suggest, sounds like it needs a clean.

Often, there are several fans inside the pc. In my case, the one which had most of the dust collected in it was the one mounted on the CPU (on the main board) itself.

A careful dust off with a soft brush, and a bit of a blow out, was all it needed to remove most of the dust, and it's been fine ever since.

cookie_monster

Had the same problem;

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1166989

Sorted.

mwa

Thankyou all! Sounds fairly easy and I will get some compressed air tomorrow and hope that sorts it.

Thanks again
MWA

savemoney

I just clean mine with a small paint brush and the end of a vacuum cleaner.

If its a couple of years old probably best replacing it, its a very easy job to do

[Deleted User]

savemoney wrote: »

I just clean mine with a small paint brush and the end of a vacuum cleaner.

The amount of static that both of those things generate really means it's quite a risky way to do it!

buglawton

Some of the fans that are in a unit screwed on top of the CPU will have blocks of dust trapped inside, in this case a quick brush or vacuum will not fix it, have to remove the fan from heat sink then remove the dust. I've done this with very good results.

savemoney

I been doing this for 12+ years probably more as I have had a pc for 16 years and never once had a issue. I do it every few months on every pc we have which is 4

anewhope wrote: »

The amount of static that both of those things generate really means it's quite a risky way to do it!