Fan in Graphic's card too loud? what to do?

[Noonstar]

EVGA 8800 gt card, like 6 years old, fan suddenly got really loud

what would be a good choice here? is there a place i can buy a fan to replace it?
or just get newer version, but not a modern graphics card? (if so would it be ok to put it on 6 year old build? should i check motherboard before getting new graphics card?)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc..._mc=BlkFri2012

this seems like a viable option, 9800 gt overall cost 25$...
i'd spend up to a a 100, but i mosly only play ffxi and wow, so not much need ... help me out

[orinthia]

Are you comfortable possibly dismantling the card?

If so, you could possibly remove enough of the housing to put a few drops of WD40 in the fan motor. It's probably gunked up though with dust if it's really loud, so an actual cleaning or replacement is probably necessary.

An alternative would be to just remove the old fan and tie a couple case fans to the heatsink for cooling. See if you can find a case fan of the same voltage to hook into its power out too, as the software behind it may complain about there not being a fan hooked to it (or that nothing is being reported for fan rpm, I know some stuff does complain since that can signal a dead fan). Or it might not care; just having a couple fans blow on it at max speed should be enough, but do monitor its temps while playing (I forget if that was a very hot running card). I'd probably go this route actually, if you have the spare case fans anyway.

With a new, comparable card being so cheap, I wouldn't use any money in trying to fix it as you may as well get the new one in that case.