The system fan failed on my Dimension 8100 a few days ago. I called Dell and eventually navigated the joys of the customer support system to get to a real person who told me that Dell wouldn't supply replacement fans. They did however give me the name of a company in the UK who they claimed supplied approved Dell spares. So I bought a new fan - cost a fortune - and installed it. After a couple of days it has started to make a really annoying high pitched squeaking noise. My problem is that if I send this fan back I either have to spend £40 on another one while they're investigating the problem, or I have to be without a PC for several days - neither of which is attractive.

As the "official" source of Dell spares has been so miserable I wanted to get a cheap fan from somehere else. But looking at the Dell fan it seems to have some sort of thermistor or such like integrated with the basic fan. So I'm a bit wary of getting any old system unit fan from my local electronics shop in case it doesn't behave properly. Does anyone know if standard "off the shelf" fans are OK on Dimension 8100s? Or has anyone found a source of compatible non-squeaky fans in the UK?

Nick