GigaWatt

i don't know if anyone has ever written anything on the subject, but here is how i fix most of my coolers. this process can vary from cooler to cooler, depending on its structure, but the basic concept is still the same.

first, i have to apologize for the quality of the pix... i had to use my sisters cell phone camera to take the pictures, since i don't have a camera of my own. still, i think you will get the general idea of what you are supposed to do.

now, here is a picture of an old cooler, one i haven't been using for ages. the cooler is dusty and it has to be cleaned first. i will not get into the process of cleaning the cooler since i think most of you already know how to do that.

front of the cooler.




back of the cooler.




now, the next thing that you need to do is remove the tape from the back of the cooler so that you could remove the protection cap. only the bigger coolers have protection caps, the smaller ones don't (like the ones found on HDD coolers). anyway, the procedure is basically the same, the only difference is the protection cap that some coolers have and others don't, so i'm going to show the procedure with a cooler that has a protection cap.

the best place to start removing the tape that protects the protection cap is at the place the power wires are soldered, which is shown in the picture bellow.




now, remove the protection cap from the center of the cooler.




this is how the cooler looks with the protection cap removed.




as you can see, in the picture above, the rotor axis is in the center of the cooler. now, one of the reasons that coolers don't seem to function the way they did the day you bought them (i.e. they don't have the same RPM as the day you bought them) can be one of three things:

1. there is dust in the rotor axis, so the axis doesn't have the same amount of lubricnat (the dust sucked it all up) as the first time you used them, which leads to less rotation cycles, which leads to more heat build up in the components that the coolers were intended to cool down.

2. the lubricant in the rotor axis has vaporized, so there is more friction between the axis and the tube which is intended to hold the axis in place. the result is almost the same as the result in the first case, the cooler has less RPM, which leaves the parts (CPU, GPU, PSU...) warmer (hotter) that they usually are.

3. the tube that is intended to hold the axis of the rotor in place has widened, so the rotor kinda jiggles around it's own axis rather than rotating around the axis. when this happens, you can usually hear this kinda buzzing (annoying) sound coming out of the ring, which disappears after a while (in about a minute or so). the sound disappears because the cooler has reached it's working temperature, so the tube which holds the axis has shrinked and has tightened the axis of the rotor so that the rotor can't jiggle any more. anyway, the tube hasn't tightened enough around the axis, so there is still loss of RPM.

in all three cases, one of the most effective methods to fix the RPM loss (or the total blocking of the cooler) is to add lubricant between the tube and the rotor axis. there are some special kinds of lubricants, but motor oil will do just fine (any motor oil can be used, as long as it hasn't been used in a car). i'll explain what the motor oil does in all three cases.

1. it compensates for the lost lubricant sucked up by the dust.

2. it compensates for the vaporized lubricant.

3. it compensates for the extra space between the tube and the axis.

this is how you put in motor oil between the tube and the axis. take a syringe with a needle on top and suck in some motor oil in the syringe, it's shown in the picture below.




now, put in some of the motor oil inside the little hole where the axis is located. don't put in too much. depending on in what working condition the cooler is, you should add somewhere between 3 or 4 drops (if the cooler is working very slow and not working at all) and 1 to 2 drops (if the cooler is just a little bit slower than usual). this is shown in the picture below.




after putting in the motor oil, spin the propeller (fins) of the cooler a cuple of times so that the motor oil can bed dispersed evenly between the tube and the axis. after this is done, you should notice that it takes less effort to spin the propeller of the cooler and that the propeller makes more turns (cycles) than before it was lubricated. if this is the case, than you have done the lubrication properly. now, the next step is to put the cooler back together again. first, put back the protection cap (for coolers that don't have prrotection caps, you could just skip this part). make sure the protection cap is tightened in correctly, like in the picture below.




now, make sure the protection cap doesn't fall off the cooler, you could do this by adding some kind of sticky tape over the protection cap. the picture below show how it's done.

adding the sticky tape (make sure you don't touch it with your fingers, or it will not stick correctly).




now, press over the sticky tape evenly so it could make the proper adhesive with the cooler and the protection cap. it is best that you do this with your fingers.

the final product (the cooler with the sticky tape over it), should look something like this.




the process i have shown above may not always work, sometimes the coolers are just too shagged up with dust, the only thing left to do is throw them away. but in most cases the procedure will work.

however, this is only a temporary solution. if you don't dust and lubricate your coolers frequently, they will get back in the condition they were before (i.e. they will be useless again). i do this to some of my coolers (most of my HDD coolers) twice a year (once every six months), and they have kept my HDDs cool for about 3 years now, even though they are the cheapest ones on the market.

the same principle applies to CPU coolers too, basicly they all have the same structure.

so, enjoy, and happy fideling with your coolers... cheers

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temeteus82

Nice!

I'll stick this thread!

And many thanks I think this will help a lot of people

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Matth

Obviously, better to replace the fan, or the whole cooler, if you can, as once what is meant to be a maintainence-free fan has deteriorated to the point of needing additional lubrication, it is likely that you will have to keep re-lubricating at intervals, and it will inevitably become noisier or perform poorly even with repeated attention.

If sourcing a replacement is difficult, then it is a way to keep it going, and maybe you have some oil and tape to hand, but no spare fan that suits.

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GigaWatt

actually, i did write that, i know that you have to keep lubricating them every now and then...

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Knight_Breed

Excellent post !!

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xProg

This helped me. I know how to do this for a long time...I Fixed my PSU cooler