Testing Faulty Fan

[apcs13]

Hello everyone,

Ever since I finalized my PC back in late December, I have always heard a faint strange clicking sound from one of the fans in my PC. I didn't pay it much mind at first, since it wasn't that loud or annoying, but now it is starting to bother me. I believe that I have located the fan at fault here, I don't believe it is a case fan since I have never heard it come from any general area of a case fan. Also, the sound seems to go away when the load on the PC increases and the fan speed rises accordingly, and manually setting the fan speed on my GPU up to a high value in MSI afterburner still retained the noise. Therefore, I believe that the source of the issue is the CPU cooler fan, the stock Cooler Master Hyper 212+ fan.

My question to all of you is: how can I safely test the fan outside of my case to determine 100% that this is the fan with the issue? Also, if it IS the CPU cooler fan with the issue, how should I go about replacing it? Thanks!

 

[Karadjgne]

easy. remove just the fan from the cpu cooler, its usually clipped on, unmounts a case fan you know for sure isn't the culprit, and put that temporarily on the cpu cooler. plug the stock hyper fan into the case fan port and while holding it, start the pc. while its running slowly change the angles, if its bad, it'll click, if its not, when reinstalling, make sure all wires are safely away from the blades

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/cooler-master-case-fan-r4bmbs20pkr0
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/noctua-case-fan-nff12pwm
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/bitfenix-case-fan-bffsprop12025kkrp

some examples. what you want (if it is faulty) is high static pressure, pwm, good airflow, quiet (below 30db) is a bonus.

 

[McNeal]

That fan sucks dont worry I had the same problem. It is definately the stock fan. Mine made a lound irritating shrill. I replaced it with a stock fan from my case and the sound went away. You could test it by hooking a 5v dc powersupply to it but im almost certain it is the fan.

 

[apcs13]

easy. remove just the fan from the cpu cooler, its usually clipped on, unmounts a case fan you know for sure isn't the culprit, and put that temporarily on the cpu cooler. plug the stock hyper fan into the case fan port and while holding it, start the pc. while its running slowly change the angles, if its bad, it'll click, if its not, when reinstalling, make sure all wires are safely away from the blades

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/cooler-master-case-fan-r4bmbs20pkr0
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/noctua-case-fan-nff12pwm
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/bitfenix-case-fan-bffsprop12025kkrp

some examples. what you want (if it is faulty) is high static pressure, pwm, good airflow, quiet (below 30db) is a bonus.

Thank you very much for providing all of that information and links, it's all a big help. I did a little bit of tinkering in my case and I am practically certain that it is indeed my CPU cooling fan. Is that first link that you included the same kind that comes stock with the Hyper 212 Plus? It appears to be the same exact one but I can't tell, and I don't want to re-buy the same one and risk another faulty component, although I am glad to have that link to compare specifications of a fan I know fits the heatsink to other fans.

I do have a question though, upon further inspection of those links I saw that they were case fans. I have never really messed around with fans in my PC, the extent of my surplus cooling experience is pretty much installing the Hyper 212 Plus with stock fan on the heatsink. If I remove the current fan from the mounting bracket and attach a case fan on there, as long as it fits, would that work fine?

That fan sucks dont worry I had the same problem. It is definately the stock fan. Mine made a lound irritating shrill. I replaced it with a stock fan from my case and the sound went away. You could test it by hooking a 5v dc powersupply to it but im almost certain it is the fan.

Thanks for the comment, I'm glad that I can get a voice from someone who has had a similar issue with the same hardware. I will try that specific test later in the week and hopefully order a replacement fan around the same time.

 

[Karadjgne]

PCPartPicker.com is a site that shops around its supported stores for the sorts and prices. While it does a great job in that, it also lists every fan under the title of 'case fan' . Fans themselves come in 3 varieties, high airflow (cfm), multi purpose (medium airflow-medium pressure) and high pressure (mm/h2o). Any can be used as a case fan, if you have much restriction, higher pressure is better (like a radiator), if you just need as much air as possible, high cfm is better. So for radiators like a CPU cooler, a 'case fan' with mm/h2o of at least 1.7 or better is good, it'll have enough pressure to 'push' the air all the way through the fins. The CoolerMaster fan listed is a replacement for the stock fan, and is actually not too shabby, even though I'm not a big fan of sleeve bearings. The Noctua is about the best there is for performance, both for silence and pressure/airflow. A pwm fan means you can control its speed, and at 400-900 rpm its dead silent. They may win awards for ugliest fan, but they have little competition performance wise.

The stock 212 fan is 120mm or 12cm, and just about any other 120mm fan will fit as a replacement.

 

[apcs13]

Thanks everyone for the replies, but I am now in an even stranger situation. I ordered a new Cooler Master Blademaster 120 to replace the stock fan on my 212 Plus, and it got here today and I just installed it on the heatsink. However, THIS fan makes an even more consistent, constant, and annoying clicking sound, and I can still hear the other sound that I heard before! What really annoys me is that I listened very carefully to every fan in the case, as well as the hard drive, and I can't determine the source of the original sound! Any ideas what it could be?

I checked the rear exhaust fan and front intake fans of the case, the fans on my GPU, the CPU cooler fan, the hard drive, the power supply and fan, pretty much everything, but I just can't find it!

 

[Karadjgne]

if the replacement fan is bad, RMA it, don't wait. as far as clicking, check the wires around the fans. get the pc started, then unplug 1 fan at a time, see if the clicking goes away. The only ways you will get any sort of clicking are a relay on/off, a pwm fan on lowered settings or a wire coming into contact with a fan blade, HDD or optical drives. Clicking is a sound caused by motion of some sort, so it HAS to be a moving part.

 

[apcs13]

if the replacement fan is bad, RMA it, don't wait. as far as clicking, check the wires around the fans. get the pc started, then unplug 1 fan at a time, see if the clicking goes away. The only ways you will get any sort of clicking are a relay on/off, a pwm fan on lowered settings or a wire coming into contact with a fan blade, HDD or optical drives. Clicking is a sound caused by motion of some sort, so it HAS to be a moving part.

That's what's really tricky about this, because I have tested just about every fan in my PC, and none of them seem to make a clicking sound. Also, when the computer kicks up to a higher fan speed on a greater workload, the noise seems to go away, which made me believe that it wasn't a wire or anything hitting the fans. My next thought was the hard drive, but I listened to it and am pretty sure the source of the sound isn't from the hard drive. I also ran a disk check utility on the drive, and everything came up clean. Plus, I Google some sounds that faulty drives might make, and I didn't find any that matched the sound I get from my PC, especially none specifically for Western Digital.

I think the only solution left for me is to actually get someone to physically show up to my house and take a look at it. The sound is pretty annoying, but I could live with it, I just want to make sure there is no major problem with something in my PC. It seems to come more from the center or rear of the tower, which is why I thought it was my CPU fan at first, but it turns out that wasn't the issue. I don't know what else could be making the noise! I thought it could be the PSU, but I hear the noise even when that fan isn't spinning!