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  1. #1
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    GPU fan whirring

    Wondering if there's a simple way to stop my graphics card's fan from "whirring", which started today. I'm not great with PC components but I tapped on the GPU case which stopped the whirring for like 2 seconds before it started up again, so I'm assuming it's the fan making the noise.

    I assume there's a bearing in the fan that's gone bad or something, this entire rig is close to a decade old and needs replacing, but I can't afford to right now so I'm just wondering if there's a simple DIY fix for it so the noise doesn't drive me insane. The card is a Radeon 5870 (to the best of my memory) if it matters.

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    Could frankenstein it: since it's so old the fan is probably a lost cause, so you could just take it out of the vid card and stick a case fan of about the same rpm/size on there with careful screwing, zip ties or whatnot, plugging it into the vid card in place of the old fan (just in case it complains about there not being a fan plugged in, otherwise just make it work).

  3. #3
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    Hm. I might give that a try. Might see first if I can just lube it up somehow without taking all the housing apart since I'm not super comfortable pulling things apart.

    Out of curiosity, is there a comparable card in terms of performance for reasonably cheap I could potentially just replace it with? I don't know much about graphics cards. :/

  4. #4
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    I imagine you could replace it with like a 1050 and things would work just fine for you, that card is pushing 8 years.

  5. #5
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    Yeah, the only game I play on my PC right now is FF14, and the rest of this rig is just as old as the card is, ha.

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