Reigniting the magma

[desnudopenguino]

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!

[pur]

Correct me if I am wrong, I thought many fans used oil impregnated brass and adding oil caused problems in the long run?

[desnudopenguino]

http://www.enermax.co.uk/enermax-kno...r-bearing.html yes, after looking at the enermax "twister bearing" page, it appears that there is some sort of self lubricating bearing sleeve in there. Though I would take a fan that spins and doesn't sound like nails on a chalk board over one that has those two qualities. This is a post about reviving an already dead or noisy fan.

I wouldn't recommend this for a fan that is working perfectly. But we don't always get perfect fans, and sometimes it's a hassle to RMA just one fan. I'm up for spending $2 for some motor oil over $20 for a new fan. There's probably something wrong with the bearing in the fan anyway, but at least this saves me from spending the money now, while I'm a poor college student.

[aythrea]

What I ended up doing with my fans (Xclio 160mm) was pulling them apart and using White Lithium grease to lube them up. You have to consider that using a thinner grease will strip out the old lubricant.