best way to "fix" dying fan?

[Ashleyyyy]

so I have a Radeon 2600XT with a dying fan bearing. I want to repair it as it's an original Mac Pro 2008 gpu with Mac EFI, which is really helpful since without that an old cheese grater Mac Pro doesn't output until an OS boots. so you can't reinstall macOS for example without it. 

 

what would be the best way to fix it? are there some tricks or am I just doomed to zip-tying a different fan to the gpu?

[RONOTHAN##]

A lot of times you can find the fans for your particular card on eBay for ~$10. You can't really repair the fan bearing itself, but replacing the fan with an OEM original isn't too uncommon. 

[Needfuldoer]

You could try a drop or two of a light oil. (Sewing machine oil and 3-in-1 work best, in my experience.) It's janky, but it's the best way I know of to relatively easily wring a little more life out of a tired fan.

 

You'll probably have to take the fan assembly off the cooler so you can access the spindle. (It's almost always under a sticker, and sometimes there's a rubber plug you have to pull out.)

 

I tinker with old computers and video equipment, and a needle oiler bottle full of sewing machine oil saves the day more often than you might expect. Sometimes all it takes is a couple drops to get a fan running relatively quietly, or to give an old stepper motor a chance to crack itself loose from decades of sticktion.

[Deadpool2onBlu-Ray]

35 minutes ago, Ashley MLP Fangirl said:

so I have a Radeon 2600XT with a dying fan bearing. I want to repair it as it's an original Mac Pro 2008 gpu with Mac EFI, which is really helpful since without that an old cheese grater Mac Pro doesn't output until an OS boots. so you can't reinstall macOS for example without it. 

 

what would be the best way to fix it? are there some tricks or am I just doomed to zip-tying a different fan to the gpu?

Worst case you can just redneck it. Take off the fans, leave the heatsink on and just put better fans on there.

[SimplyChunk]

If you're comfortable taking it apart a quick search of the serial number on the back in Ali Express usually reveals a plethora of compatible fans

[xg32]

if lazy, ziptie a big fan on top of the dying fan and plug it into ur motherboard, leave the dead fan off if it's making noise.

[Ashleyyyy]

5 hours ago, xg32 said:

if lazy, ziptie a big fan on top of the dying fan and plug it into ur motherboard, leave the dead fan off if it's making noise.

i can't plug it into motherboard as it'll be used in a Mac Pro which has no fanheaders. i can use Molex though.

 

11 hours ago, SimplyChunk said:

If you're comfortable taking it apart a quick search of the serial number on the back in Ali Express usually reveals a plethora of compatible fans

is it worth that though?

 

12 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

You could try a drop or two of a light oil.

tried that, didn't work.

 

12 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

A lot of times you can find the fans for your particular card on eBay for ~$10. You can't really repair the fan bearing itself, but replacing the fan with an OEM original isn't too uncommon. 

that's not really worth it to me. i paid 25 euro for the entire Mac Pro the card was installed in so spending 10 + whatever in shipping isn't worth it.

[SimplyChunk]

Welp, those be your options i'm afraid.  Not much else you can do really.  Short of buying a donor card on ebay and swapping out the coolers on them.  I'm sure quite a few AMD cards from around that period used the same cooler.  They'll be dirt cheap too.  Another would be to buy ANY cheap card with an old flower cooler on it and jerry rig it on.  but you'll have to check the hole spacing on it first.  Even a cheapy Zalman 'style' cpu cooler would do it if you can find a way of mounting it with sufficiant presure.

[Needfuldoer]

32 minutes ago, Ashley MLP Fangirl said:

tried that, didn't work.

F

 

I'm afraid the fan is probably just too worn out to save. (Gotta love "sleeve bearings"...)

 

You'll have to find a similar parts card to steal a used fan off of, get an aftermarket cooler that fits, or MacGyver up a mount for a generic fan.

[Ashleyyyy]

On 4/6/2022 at 12:14 PM, Needfuldoer said:

(Gotta love "sleeve bearings"...)

i mean, any bearing has a tough time being used for potentially 14 years, cuz that's how old this machine is...