My desktop PC has been getting a bit noisy over the past couple of months.

I opened up the case and had a listen; most of the noise seems to be coming from the fan on top of the CPU heatsink. The inside of the case is fairly clean, but there's a lot of crud on the fan blades and around the top of the heatsink. It's probably not helped by 'er indoors smoking - the crud has a distinct brown, tarry consistency. My guess is that the fan bearings are shot, so there's not a lot of point in trying to clean it up.

So, a couple of questions:-

Are fans standardised? in other words, can I use a "generic" 6cm fan from the local PC shop as a straight replacement?

The case as a whole is under positive pressure; there's an 8CM fan sucking in air at the front. What's the best material to put in front of the fan to filter out particulates (especially smoke) without impeding the air flow too much?

Thanks,

Hello - I don't know a lot about these things. I'm sure others will have better offerings.

You could try a piece of niylon stocking wrung out in anti-static fabric conditioner taped across the inflow vent as a test to see how much dust it's pulling in, though ongoing it would restrict inflow and could make it run hot. (An extra external fan could be added if that's a problem.)

I lifted mine onto the desk from the carpet, where it pulled in tons of fluff etc. On the desk it is much noisier (as you'd expect) and TBH standing it on a rubber mat didn't make much difference. Of course, as smoke rises, it might be more vulnerable higher up than lower down. I have an independent air conditioner to filter dust (and smoke) and you'd be amazed what that filter collects.

As you say, it might just be that your fan (or motor that runs it?) is on its way out and sorry can't help about replacement...

Best

Mo

Fans are very standardised but don't replace the fan on a standard CPU cooler, replace the whole cooler as the after-market ones can be both pretty much silent and much better at cooling. What CPU/socket do you have?

A pair of tights is a very good thing to filter out dust, but ideally you would want a filter to be removeable for easy cleaning. Anyway intake fans have practically no effect on temperatures (as long as the other system fan(s) are correctly configured).

You can change just the fan but you would have to match the flow pattern and CFM.

Personally as JP said, get a new cooler and get her indoors to stop smoking.

You may also need to get a three wire fan, with the speed sensor otherwise your system may close down as you turn it on because it thinks the cpu fan is broken.