[SOLVED] Need help fixing/ choosing a budget cpu fan

[pighamlet]

Hi all!

About a month ago I started getting this "ERROR: CPU Fan Has Failed. PC will automatically power down in a few seconds. Service PC immediately to prevent damage to CPU". What I've found is that the fan starts AFTER the error shows up. Manually turning the fans work..to some degree(sometimes ill have to keep turning it through many restarts). My pc is hp pro 3010 mt. Upgraded graphics card to HD 5450. no other increments. This is my current fan. I've cleaned the dust. Budget is around 40$, preferably less. Really appreciate if you could tell me what to look for in a new fan, or better how to fix the current one. One post says it could be due to the bearings and that ill have to add in some lube, maybe. But i have no idea how much and what sort of lube to apply.

 

[Karadjgne]

Once a fan starts stopping and freezing like that, it's almost always the bearings are done for. Occasionally it's the motor finally burned out, but mostly bearings.

With that, there's 2 way the bearings are affected. Lack of lubrication is one, that's easily fixed by a couple drops of lubricant oil (that cheap 3-in-1 oil in the red/white can) or the other is dirt. If dust/debris has gotten up into the bearings, adding all the oil in the world is only going to do 1 thing, make mud. Mud in your bearings will make it very hard on the motor, and much sooner than later, the motor burns out.

So as cheap as heatsinks really are, especially those tiny, noisy stock heatsinks, it's almost always better to just go ahead and replace the whole thing, and aftermarket coolers have easily replaceable fans, 92mm, 120mm, 140mm unlike the fans on stock coolers.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU Cooler: RAIJINTEK AIDOS 48.6 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($20.83 @ Amazon)
Total: $20.83
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-12 07:27 EDT-0400

Simply the best performing budget cooler, stands only 136mm tall and beats out the 160mm CM hyper212 evo on an i7 4770k for temps. On that c2d you should barely be able to hear it.

 

[pighamlet]

Once a fan starts stopping and freezing like that, it's almost always the bearings are done for. Occasionally it's the motor finally burned out, but mostly bearings.

Thanks for the reply n the link! I'm afraid it's not exactly freezing and stopping. It's like it starts spinning but after like 5 seconds. i can force it to start by manually spinning. So you sure it's not a problem with the bios or something internal?

 

[pighamlet]

Heatsinks and stock coolers...mind explaining these? (super new to CPU components)

 

[Karadjgne]

Heatsink is the big chunk of aluminium sitting under the fan in your picture you posted. It works exactly how it sounds, the heat from the cpu gets soaked up by the metal, the fan cools it off.

The whole thing, heatsink and fan, is the cpu cooler. There's several varieties and ways of doing it. Stock heatsinks/coolers are the ones that come from the factory, and for Intel, aren't that good, very cheap. Everything else is aftermarket. You have budget (a step up from stock and relatively cheap), mid range (that's the bigger coolers, above average cooling capacity, starting to get expensive) and high-end (thats the biggest coolers, twin towers, kinda expensive).
Stock coolers average about 110w.
Budget coolers average about 140w.
Midrange coolers average about 180-200w.
High-end coolers average about 220-250w.

Your cpu is most likely a c2d (core 2 duo) which are generally 65w. For best performance the cooler should be 1.5-2x the cpu wattage. So at 130 that's just below budget, at 100w that's just below stock. So a stock cooler will work just fine for temps, a budget would be better. Stock fans are noisy, they are small and spin very fast 2000rpm +, to get the temps down. So a move up in cooler will mean slightly better temps, much better noise control as aftermarket fans are considerably better than stock fans.

Just have to be careful what you buy, because at the low cost level of coolers is many that are realistically no different than stock coolers, and some are actually worse in performance.