PSA: r9 Toxic fan grinding fix

[tivanitis]

Lately I have been having some problems with the fans on my r9 270x toxic and I tough I would share my fix as it seems to be not all that rare.

 

Whenever the fans spun faster than 45% there would be a terrifying grinding noise. My first tought was that the bearings were bad and I would have to deal with the horrors of Sapphire RMAs. However, it seems that the problem lies within the design of the heatsink rather than the fans. It seems that the plastic fan mounting frame doesn't sit tightly enough against the cooling fins (or has simply loosened due to sag), resulting in vibrations that sound like the grind of bad bearings. A quick search showed that it is in fact a common problem and one that is fortunately easily fixable.

 

All I did was place a small rubber wedge between the plastic fan mount frame and the heatsink fins that now absorbs those vibrations, resulting in nice and relatively quiet cooling. You can see the small rubber wedge in the picture.

 

 

[Aniallation]

 My first tought was that the bearings were bad and I would have to deal with the horrors of Sapphire RMAs. 

What? Sapphire has excellent warranty service.