Here's how it went down... In the spring I ordered a set of Enermax's Magma 120mm case fans, for their relatively low noise and high cfm to replace some noisier 110 cfm Slipstreams, because the slipstreams don't like running under 12v. They like to whine a little then. The magmas have been running wonderfully for my case, but over the past couple months I started hearing some annoying grinding and chirping coming from my case. A week or so ago I decided to clean some of them. I didn't clean the intakes because they were a pain and I am lazy, but it turns out one of those was the culprit.
Anyway I just pulled them out and isolated the squeaky fan. It didn't like to turn freely like the others when I would spin it with my finger. I had read around that this seems to be a problem with these fans, and I thought "well 1 out of 6 isn't bad... right?". So I cleaned it with the other and plugged it in to see if that helped. Now there was nothing, the fan didn't turn at all. Next I spun the fan a little and gave it some juice again. This time it spun, but it was not at full speed. I decided to pull out some 3-in-one motor oil and popped the fins off and put a drop down it the hole in the axle on the fins. That seems to have fixed the problem! there's no more whining or grinding or anything. It's nice and smooth air flow now. I just thought I would throw this out there in the event that you are experiencing a similar problem with a more expensive fan like the magma series, a little lube might save you a few bucks and give your hardware a longer, quieter life!
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