agh asus!

PirateNinja

One of the fans on my Asus Radeon 9800pro 256 is dying. I still have a 3 year warranty on the card, but I can't rma it right now. I don't have a spare vid card, and need my computer. So Im taking the bad fan out, and taking a stock AMD HSF, ripping off the outer part, and snipping the blades to the right size. Then Im shoving it in there. ARGH. This thread was built from frustration.

ryko

Careful when cutting the fan blades and the fan shroud....i tried that once, and after i had installed it, the fan flew apart from the rpm's. If that happened it could really mess up your video card.

Also you are, most likely, voiding your warranty by messing with the asus hsf at all...

If you need to do something right now, i would just modd an old cpu hsf and use that instead of messing with the asus hsf. Then when you have time for an rma, just re-attach the broken asus hsf...

madmat

Pull the sticker off the back of the dying fan, you'll notice that the bearing is of the bronze bushing variety. Putting a small drop of sewing machine or 3 in 1 oil on that bearing/bushing should more than likely cure your ills. One of the fans in my ASUS V9950 Ultra did the same thing (it uses a HSF that's nearly identical to yours) and the fix I mentioned took care of it.
If you're careful when you peel the sticker back and make sure no oil gets on the fan motor plate (where the sticker is stuck) the sticker will go right back in place and no-one will be the wiser.

PirateNinja

madmat wrote:

Pull the sticker off the back of the dying fan, you'll notice that the bearing is of the bronze bushing variety. Putting a small drop of sewing machine or 3 in 1 oil on that bearing/bushing should more than likely cure your ills. One of the fans in my ASUS V9950 Ultra did the same thing (it uses a HSF that's nearly identical to yours) and the fix I mentioned took care of it.
If you're careful when you peel the sticker back and make sure no oil gets on the fan motor plate (where the sticker is stuck) the sticker will go right back in place and no-one will be the wiser.

awesome! im trying that.

PirateNinja

didnt work, im going to rma this piece of ****.

JChretien

check the return policy of your local stores.... we have a store here called London Drugs who do a no-questions asked full return on computer hardware for 2 weeks...
only problem is that its really expensive.. anyways, go buy another R9800, before 2 weeks is up, return it, get a 9600, 2weeks later return it, rinse and repeat until your RMA comes back? or just go to a used comptuer store and pick up a Matrox Millennium 4mb for cheap.. =D or buy one of geeky's i740s ;p

GnomeWizardd

just buy a artic silencer and replace it
IF something ever goes wrong with the card plop the old heatsink back on it and then send it back. I wouldnt rma the card for a bad fan just replace the heatsink/fan combo with the artic silencer works wonders

keto

JC, Best Buy here in Canada offers the same thing on everything but software. Like London Drugs, not always the cheapest around but unlike LD, usually competetive.

madmat

You need to pull up and push down on the fan blades while holding the backing plate (motor plate) and turning the blades back and forth to work the oil into the bushings, sorry I failed to mention that part earlier...you also need to make certain that the oil is very light as well, I've brought back fans that were siezed solid using this method (although ones that far gone are tough to depend on, they still fail...you're just buying time) so I think it should help you until you can at least get a "standby" card for the meanwhile.
Good luck man.

PirateNinja

after i remove the sticker is there any bit of plastic i have to remove like on bigger fans? i saw a tiny tiny white piece of plastic in the center but i dont know id go about removing it so i could oil the thing.

madmat

Pry it out with a tiny precision screwdriver or exacto knife on an edge and it should pop out. Mine had a black rubberish plug under the sticker now that I think about it but it wasn't glued in, just stuck in.

PirateNinja

awesome .. ill go for round 2 with it. thanks for all the help already madmat. its because of you fans get fixed, and kittens dont run rampant.

PirateNinja

well i took it out again, and i couldnt get the little plastic deal apart. its literally tiny. seems like one ball bearing in the center, surrounded by 4 copper coils.. the center plastic piece is about a mm radius, maybe smaller. i tweaked it though, and then i unscrewed the fan from the hs, and just jiggled it, blew it with compressed air, etc.

put everythign back together and now its fine.....knock on wood.

TMOA

Yeah i have the same issue on my Ti4200 with the Tt cooler kit on it, the damn fan starts making noise (alot of noise) once in a while i pulle it and clean it then oil...altho ive never pulled the white retainer clip out (have to try that now:)

madmat

For pulling the retainer, most are split...just pull the blades away from the backing plate until the retainer is up against the bearing/bushing then pry at the split on one side of the split and work the blades a bit and the retainer should (hopefully) pop out of the groove it sits in on one end then you just pry aroung the axle until the retainer is off.
Just make sure that you note how the shims are placed on the axle, because there are shims to keep the balades centered in the magnetic field of the 4 poles of the motor.
Those poles you mentioned are the armarature and unlike a standard motor where the armarature spins around inside a magnetic shell, the magnetic field actually moves around the armarature and pulls a magnatized hub around with it, the hub being the fans center...if you'll notice once you pull the fan apart theres a magnet in that hub that's a sheet magnet like kitchen magnets are made of.