Hi there,

I new to this so can anyone help?

A fan on my motherboard has recently beening getting noisy. The noise come and goes. Its gets loud. Like I mentioned above this started to happen recently.

Is this problem cause by my power supply or is it just the fan attached to it?

I guess what I am trying to ask is do I need to replace my power supply fan or power supply soon?

Thanks,

Mine has been making weird noises for years now. It hasn't blown yet and I just think it's normal operating noise. Worry about it when it blows.

My motherboard fan is not noisy. Whenever it becomes noisy, I get it changed
With a new one.

Fan is a cheap device and I do not mind changing it to save the costly CPU.

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Originally Posted by takalu

A fan on my motherboard has recently been getting noisy. The noise come and goes. Its gets loud.

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Fans on newer systems will adjust their speed based on temperature status of the computer interior or the device they are cooling. This is one possibility for your symptoms and normal.

Another possibility is fan speed increases caused by dust buildup on the heatsink the fan is attached to. The fan has to work harder and provide more airflow to achieve the same amount of cooling because the heatsink is now partially or fully blocked. Carefully dust the computer interior and if computer is usually sitting on the floor, elevate it to slow the rate of dust buildup. It is possible to suffer a performance degradation of the computer as newer processors will throttle their rate of operation in response to overheating.

If the fan noise is more of a groaning sound particularly at computer startup, or the computer is several years old, the fan bearings may be worn out and the fan needs to be replaced before it's reduced rotation rate causes any permanent damage due to overheating of the component it is cooling.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by takalu

Is this problem cause by my power supply or is it just the fan attached to it?

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It is probably not a power issue as power supply anomalies tend to generate lockups, reboots, or other odd behaviors.

The may be several fans in your computer. A typical arrangement would be a fan in the power supply, a fan on the processor, and a chassis fan. Computers can also include a fan on the video card, a fan on the motherboard chipset, additional chassis fans, or fans near the hard drive bays. You will need to determine which fan is generating the noise before blindly replacing components.

Fans in the power supply can be replaced by knowledgeable technicians (risk of electrocution), however I generally consider it more prudent to replace the entire power supply given the time involved and the usual age of the supply when fan failure occurs.

If shopping for a fan, dual ball bearing or mag-levitation model varieties offer longer life - 3+ years if computer is on 24/7 vs. around a year for sleeve bearing models. I'm partial to Delta and Sunon brands.