ATX power supply fan noisy.

David Farber Inscribed thus:

Not always a good idea. Some have a synthetic lubrication which will turn into sludge if you add a non synthetic oil to it. You can sometimes get away with it on sleeve bearings particularly older fans.

And roller bearings too ! That one's gotta be your boy ...

Arfa

Hi!

I doubt the tolerances are that close in this sort of application. From what I've seen, and from pre-emptively oiling fans before they could fail, very few fan makers provide much of any additional lubrication to the fan bearings. It's a rare fan that I've exposed the bearings on and found a chunk of grease in there.

Of the fans I've rejuvenated by oiling, only a few were unresponsive to treatment or would not continue running. These were the cheapest of the cheap--all the rest continue to run perfectly.

William

I've never had the any luck rejuvenating fans with lubrication after the fan's bearings have started to howl. By that stage of the game, the fan's cheap worn out plastic bearings have so much slop, that nothing short of perhaps axle grease will fill the slop.

On Thu, 29 Apr 2010 02:38:14 +0100, "Arfa Daily" put finger to keyboard and composed:

Ceramic bearings appear to be even better:

- Franc Zabkar

Haven't had any experience of them yet.

Arfa

While ball-bearing fans have the longevity edge over cheap sleeve bearing fans, they aren't necessarily quieter. And newer sleeve bearing designs, such as Nidec's NBRX sleeve bearing, have made great strides in longevity.

My PSU fan seized solid, very solid (nice and quiet, though). The replacement seemed rather noisy for my tastes. I eventually got the original fan freed off. [It needed the application of a hot soldering iron to the end of the spindle.] It ran for 18 months after being well re-oiled with WD40. It was still going fine when, some time ago, I doing a spot of once-in-a-while spring cleaning inside the case. So I re-oiled it again with some '3-in-1' oil. It's still running fine.

WD40 isn't a lubricant. It was developed for 'Water Displacement', or in plain english, to spray on ignition wires that got wet.

Which '3-in-1' oil. That is a brand, not a type.

In message , Michael A. Terrell writes

Regardless of what it was developed for, WD40 does leave an oily layer. It penetrates well, and prevents/halts rust. It also serves as a sort-term lubricant. Despite what the purists might say, it does work well as a switch cleaner/lubricant.

It's the type in a small metal tin with a plastic nozzle - the very same tin I've had on a shelf at the back of the garage for about 40 years. I haven't a clue what the official grade is, other than its the general purpose domestic stuff, like you'd use for oiling door hinges and bicycle chains. And latterly, of course, computer fans.

Which dries into a nasty, insulating film over time. I use PTFE to lube small motors. It Works a lot better than WD40 ever could, and lasts a lot longer.

'3-in-1' does make an electric motor oil.

My favorite "3-in-1" product:

I use lithium grease, but another brand that I can pick up from a car parts dealer just down the street. I also use PB Blaster and Breakfree.

Radio shack has a great webpage in many ways, but one enormous flaw is that if you click on a link, it might say the part is out of stock, even when stores have it.

I signed up to get an eamil when their remote A-B switch was back in stock, and after months I got it, and figured well maybe it's also at a store now too. So I went in and they had two and the clerk said they had never been out of them.

He was very confident, and I had gone in the same day I got the email. It seems unlikely they had in stock items actually shipped for the same reason they sent me the email. They probably did have them all along.

So to with the item above. It says it's out of stock, but when I click on Find it in STores, it gives 10 stores around here that it seems to say has it. I'd call some stores and see.

P&M

In message , Michael A. Terrell writes

Don't get me wrong. I'm not 'recommending' WD40 or 3-in-1 bicycle oil for lubricating computer fans. It's just that I needed something, and those were what I had immediately at hand. The sky did not fall, and continues not to do so.

I have had to clean up a lot of messes caused by people who used both of those. I know gun collectors who have spent a lot of time removing the hardened film of WD 40 off of the gun parts they are restoring. They won't even allow a can of it around their homes or shops.

In message , Michael A. Terrell writes

It's a funny old world. The things that some people swear BY are often exactly the same things that others swear AT!

I like the "3-in-1" spray on lithium grease because I can reach hard to get to places with the spray tube, yet it dries with the consistency of regular lithium grease.

As with all websites (Petco, Best Buy, Home Depot, etc.) information given for a product (availability, price, etc.) is for the website ONLY! There is no way a website can pretend to keep up with the stock details of thousands of retail stores. And only in a minority of cases does a retail store match the price of a website. Only a fool would think that a website saying "out-of-stock" would necessarily mean that a retail store in BF, Iowa, was also out of stock.

I just bought a nice vinyl screen door (I'm 200' from the ocean) from Home Depot that wasn't even available on their website. Apples and oranges.