Legit Reviews

My cpu fan was making alot of noise, so I open my computer- and not surprisingly the thing is coated with dust, so I take it apart, clean it out- mostly using cotton swabs- and I put it back on, the rpms are higher and the cpu temperature dropped by about 10 degrees.

Good, I thought- however now my rpm's fluctuate- it runs around 3800 for some time, but it suddenly would drop to like 2000 rpm- and then my cpu temperature would start rising so fast that I'd shut off my computer before it harmed anything.

I lift up the fan from the heatsink, and the underside of the fan is very hot- I try to readjust it on the heatsink, and leave it loosened instead of screwing it down. So right now my cpu appears to be fine, I started out with 3800 rpm- but now my rpm is at 3300 and I'm waiting to see how long it goes before crapping out.

Is it normal for fan speeds fluctuate by that much? It seems like I need to replace the fan altogether, or worse- the fan and the heatsink- unfortunately I can only get one out of a spare computer, and I'd be computerless for a week if I ordered a new part.

!! The fan is now at 2300 rpm. I really gotta stop pushing this hoping that it'll start working normal again. I suppose it's better to wait and replace the fan than to burn my cpu.

lol, someone donate me a water cooled mobo- being a poor college student sucks.

it went back to 2600... ? Why are you doing this to me

Ok, I haven't shut it off- the speeds climbed back to 3300 rpm. I'm going to just monitor these for awhile and see how stable this is until I replace this.

just go down to a used parts store and you can get a stock cooler for $2-5.

What motherboard are you using?.....The fan could be temp controlled by the Bios....So when it gets hot, the fan speeds up.....

If it's not temp controlled, then do as sbohdan says...get a new heatsink, asap.....

I would invest in a new fan and don not leave the PC on when you are gone like this... I had a fan burn and melt when I was gone one time and it about burned up my house in college when it fried. Fried my entire system... CPU, Board, PSU (flames burnt the wires), and the smell of the burnt wires and platic... oh my

Yeah the computer is only on when I'm here, the fan should be running at one speed- my motherboard is an old ECS.

It seems to run fine, speeds not fluctuating much if the fan is loose on the cpu- however as soon as I try and screw it on, it starts buzzing and going very slowly. I've tried to make sure I'm not screwing it in tight, but as long as the bottom center of the fan touches the heatsink- the I get less rpm. I think this thing when it was new ran at 4800-5000 rpm.

So yes, either I need to replace the fan- or the whole unit, heatsink and fan. A cooler is not expensive at all, I just gotta wait until the weekend to have a car and get one.

what type of mobo/cpu you using? I have a bunch of older HSF's in my closet that I don't use for Athlon XP's and many Pentium 4 478 coolers that I can send out to you.

Not sure exactly, my mobo manual is at home- it's a socket 462 ECS, one of the K7V ones- the processor is an Athlon XP 2200

Don't worry about sending me one, I'm sure I can find one locally from a retired computer.

Replaced the fan, running great now ;p