Michael wrote: > On Tuesday, 23 December 2025 02:12:37 Greenwich Mean Time Dale wrote: > >> P. S. I had to replace the fans on my CPU cooler. I had a power outage >> the other day and when I booted back up, one fan made a little noise. I >> figure the bearings are running dry. I ordered two replacement fans and >> put them in today. I can't figure out how to take that old fan apart. >> I usually take old fans apart and put a few drops of oil in them to use >> them for less critical cooling. CPU fans always get replaced. No idea >> why that fan went out so soon tho. I don't think it is even a year old. > Some older/cheaper plain sleeve bearing fans could be oiled to keep them > going > for longer. You'd peel back a sticky label on their top and pry open a > plastic dust cap - assuming they were expensive enough to have a dust cap > fitted. A drop or two of very low viscosity oil would re-wet the bearing > surface and it will thereafter carry on spinning quieter and faster. > > The modern sleeve design of the Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) variety is > typically sealed and needs no addition of oil to keep it going. This assumes > you didn't buy some alibaba discount 'special' whereby the manufacturer was > economising on every oil drop on the assembly line to cut costs. The shaft > on > the FDB construction may have magnetic support/centralisation, is secured > with > a lock washer and the bearing is sealed to stop dirt from going in, or the > oil > from evaporating too soon. If you try to pull off the fan from its armature > by force you will most likely break it, but YMMV. > > Even a plain sleeve bearing should have the best part of 3-5 years life > depending on temperature and vibration/orientation, before it starts > rattling. > I suspect yours was poorly manufactured. I want to think reputable > manufacturers of expensive kit would be interested to investigate the failure > mode of this fan bearing, so you could try RMA'ing it.
I've done the oiling thing numerous times. That fan tho, has no bearing access at all. I checked both sides. It's solid plastic. I also can't pull the blades off either. It seems that this style of fan once put together, locks into place and can't be taken apart or have a way to get to the shaft/bearings. The fan that was making noise is a Thermalright 120mm, gray in color and a 4 pin connector. I've never seen one that I couldn't peel that sticker back and not be able to oil it a bit. Seems they figured out what we doing instead of buying new fans. ;-) I use the thinnest oil I can find. I used to use some oil that I use on firearms. It was thin and some of the slickest stuff there is. A couple drops goes a long ways. Then I found 3-in-1 oil made just for motors. Fairly thin and made for motor bearings. I admit tho, when I oiled the fan motor in my fridge, on the freezer side, I used the oil I use in firearms. It can handle cold a lot better and it is cold in the freezer. That was a few years ago now. Still running good. Based on other replies, I'm not sure if I need to wait and see on Seamonkey or go ahead and switch to Thunderbird. Vivaldi, sp?, could work but I'm not a Chrome fan. Firefox fits my needs better. I'm hoping Thunderbird will be around a while. It seems to be pretty popular. This is going to mess with my desktop arrangement a bit. Seamonkey for the last decade or so has been on desktop 1 and 2. I may have to shift everything over by one. That's going to take some getting used too. o_O Dale :-) :-)
