Can Compressed Air Damage Case Fans?

[Apollyon2020]

I've been doing this for years, just never sat back and thought maybe this can cause wear on the bearings? Reason why I'm thinking about it now I guess is because 1 of my case fans are going bad after cleaning my PC from dust. I used my electric air blower to blow all the dust out the PC and fans. I would point the blower to the fans and have the fans spool up real fast for a few seconds before I move on to the next one. Can this damage bearings? I assume the bearings are sealed? The case fan that is going bad starting today is a Corsair QL140 fan. The Corsair fan with the RGB controlled by iCue. I had to order another one today before this one just out right dies. It's starting to rattle when I boot the PC up. Just my luck... lol

[RONOTHAN##]

You shouldn't let the fans spin when you're trying to blow them out, but not for the reasons you're describing as far as I know. Electric motors and generators are mechanically the same thing, and thus if you spin a fan real fast, it can send power back to the motherboard and fry the fan header. Most of the time, the fans don't give enough power to fry it, but it's still not something that you want to be doing. The bearings should remain undamaged.

[Apollyon2020]

This is the blower I have and used: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B082XR3987/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Well I guess from now on, I'll just hold the fan blade and use the blower. I would just spool it up for a few seconds until I can hear it's spinning real fast and back off. Who knows, maybe that 1 fan was dying, and today was the day? lol. I also used the air blower on the GPU fans and spooled it up as well for a few seconds. Once I saw the case fan dying, and showing the rattling sound when boot up. I forced my GPU fans to run at 100% off and on a few times to see if I would hear anything weird. Other than the 3 GPU fans being loud at 100%, I didn't hear no rattle or anything weird. So thank god for that. To replace my RTX 3090 right now, would be a pain.

[thrasher_565]

44 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

You shouldn't let the fans spin when you're trying to blow them out, but not for the reasons you're describing as far as I know. Electric motors and generators are mechanically the same thing, and thus if you spin a fan real fast, it can send power back to the motherboard and fry the fan header. Most of the time, the fans don't give enough power to fry it, but it's still not something that you want to be doing. The bearings should remain undamaged.

ive sent power back in thow the vga port with a usb power... (vga to hdmi ) trys to spin the cpu fan even when the pc is off. no damage thow.

[Mark Kaine]

generally a bad idea, you shouldn't let the fans spin when cleaning,  for the above mentioned reasons, either hold them or use some tape thats easy to remove. 

 

51 minutes ago, Apollyon2020 said:

To replace my RTX 3090 right now, would be a pain.

well if *only* the fans were damaged that surely wouldn't require a total replacement of the gpu??

 

[Apollyon2020]

4 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

generally a bad idea, you shouldn't let the fans spin when cleaning,  for the above mentioned reasons, either hold them or use some tape thats easy to remove. 

 

well if *only* the fans were damaged that surely wouldn't require a total replacement of the gpu??

 

Do they sell alternative cooling for the 3090 cards? I've been out the loop lol

[Mark Kaine]

22 minutes ago, Apollyon2020 said:

Do they sell alternative cooling for the 3090 cards? I've been out the loop lol

im not sure about "alternatives" except water cooling solutions,  but it shouldn't be too difficult to get replacement fans, plus theres always the noctua zip tie option - which might not look great but is highly effective  nonetheless  = )

 

 

[Apollyon2020]

15 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

im not sure about "alternatives" except water cooling solutions,  but it shouldn't be too difficult to get replacement fans, plus theres always the noctua zip tie option - which might not look great but is highly effective  nonetheless  = )

 

Wow lmao

Are there any AIO water coolers for the 3090?

[Mark Kaine]

6 minutes ago, Apollyon2020 said:

Are there any AIO water coolers for the 3090?

yeah, 1st result in google:

 

https://www.aquatuning.us/water-cooling/kits-systems-and-aios/all-in-one-gpu/27824/alphacool-eiswolf-2-aio-360mm-rtx-3090/3080-with-backplate-reference

[NorKris]

no it cant damage the fan 

[Mandalore668]

Im sorry for the late reply but no the air compressor won't damage your fans alot of the time when you use the air compressor to  clean your fan it removes the dust on your fan the dust will slowly build up over time if you dont clean them often enough eventually the dust gets heavier and puts too much weight on the fan which slowly ruins the fan and it will have difficulty spinning and will make a buzzing or rattling sound, after you clean it off its more noticeable because the dust causing problems is no longer putting weight on and slowing the fan so the noise will get louder eventually if the dust sits long enough your fan may start to seize or act up and even can cause it to stop working entirely so make sure to clean the fans every three months or more depending on how dusty your office or room where you have your computer is