New noise from radiator after cleaning PC?

[platysaur]

It’s hard to tell if it’s my OCD or not, but after cleaning out my PC with compressed air it sounded slightly different. There’s a small, slight idle humming or buzzing sound after I sprayed down the radiator and it’s fans, and also cleaning the dust filters. I am usually able to pick out subtle changes in sound from things. It’s not a horrible sound and it’s not a cable hitting the fan. When I change the fan speeds of my H100i in iCue to extreme or quiet the buzzing goes away, but I like to keep it on balanced.

 

My assumption is that maybe moving it caused a different idle sound. I don’t know why a simple cleaning and putting the bracket with my AIO fans would cause a different sound. Is this normal? Do computers sometimes sound different every now and then when you clean them? It was not heavy with dust by any means. Again, I don’t think the sound indicates anything bad and I believe it’s from the fans, I just don’t know why this would cause them to sound slightly different.

[Duckson McQuack]

Perhaps you moved something and it's causing contact with one of the fans?
Most likely it could be vibration or different RPM. 

[nick name]

So you removed the fans and then re-installed them?  

[platysaur]

Just now, TeeKayTK said:

Perhaps you moved something and it's causing contact with one of the fans?
Most likely it could be vibration or different RPM. 

I don’t think I moved anything since I tried to minimize my contact as much as possible. The only thing I touched was the screws to unscrew the bracket from my H500 case and then I moved the bracket for my AIO only slightly to shoot air at the fans. Same RPM as it was too. Vibration maybe, then?

[platysaur]

Just now, nick name said:

So you removed the fans and then re-installed them?  

Nah I didn’t even remove them, just moved the bracket slightly to shoot air at them.

[nick name]

Just now, platysaur said:

Nah I didn’t even remove them, just moved the bracket slightly to shoot air at them.

What bracket?

[platysaur]

4 minutes ago, nick name said:

What bracket?

On the NZXT H500, since you cannot remove the front panel, you have to mount the fans and radiator on this plastic frame. It’s held in there by two thumb screws and plastic hinges, and I just unscrewed the screws and moved it ever so slightly so I could spray the fans.

 

 

[platysaur]

And by the way, the buzzing more than anything else sounds like it’s just the fans, but again, my I have quite severe OCD and when the sounds change I can pick it up. It just sounded different to me so I wasn’t sure if it was abnormal, but I can tell you that I don’t think the buzzing is like catastrophic or anything.

[Tristerin]

Likely the buzz was there when you got them (SONE levels) then changed over time, as the air passing through restricted - and now back to normal?  If its a tic, or an actual sound you can usually isolate these on fans very easily (ears, stopping each fan individually, etc)