Oscillating fan noise

Question

I was experiencing the all-too-common super loud case fan noise problem and Dell sent me a new case fan. The swap seemed to solve my problems... however now I'm having a different fan problem. My fan runs quietly, but seems to speed up and slow down every time I do something on the computer, such as click a dialog box, open a browser, anything. It's as if any jump in processor usage triggers a speed up in the fan. It's pretty annoying bc you can hear the hum, but I'm mostly worried about why this is happening and what might happen if I don't fix it. Any thoughts?

shesagordie · Answer

kapuku.

The case fan has a variable speed, depending on the demands of the processor. As the system works harder the case fan will speed up, to keep the system temperature in a normal operating range.

Bev.

kapuku · Answer

This is different. The fan noise increases when I do minor things like scroll a page, minimize a window, even when I'm doing nothing the fan will just hum at different intensities. It sounds like its laboring too much for little tasks. This problem just began a couple of weeks ago, before that the fan was silent.

shesagordie · Answer

kapuku.   If that is happening, then contact Dell and request another replacement unit.   How to Determine What in a Desktop Computer is Making Noise.     Bev.

kapuku · Answer

thanks - i ran through the diagnostics and determined that the noise is definitely coming from the case fan. i sat there and held the case fan casing in my hand with the computer on and it didnt seem to oscillate. as soon as i returned it to the computer and started playing around with the computer (opening browser, closing browser, etc) it started oscillating again. i'm going to contact tech support to see if i can get another case fan (or if it's something else).

Locked Topics – Desktops General

Oscillating fan noise

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