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Advice on oiling this old GTX670 fan

Puzzled

Puzzled

Puzzled

Soldato
Joined
9 Jul 2003
Posts
9,643
Hi

I have an old GTX 670 that I want to use again but this card has always had a noisy fan and I finally want to fix it. I know these were noisy cards but I always suspected that it was the bearing that caused the noise so figured I might as well try oiling it. If it doesn't work I've seen a replacement fan that I can order from China anyway, will just take a few weeks to get here.

So I've taken it all apart to give it a clean, pulled back the sticker and it looks like this:

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Can I just add a drop of oil straight in or do I need to pull something out? I was expecting some sort of rubber bung and that metal clip on top has thrown me off a bit.

Thanks
 
I can't see what type of fan bearing it is, but being a cheaper blower style GPU there is a reasonable chance it's using the cheaper basic sleeve bearing fan, despite they aren't designed to be mounted Horizontally. It could still be a ball bearing fan that has just worn out, and you can get good and bad examples of them too.

Ball Bearing fans are better and work well in most mounting positions. (Horizontal still tends to put more stress on them than vertical mounting)

Then there are the even more expensive Hydro Bearings of which there are lots of different types. These are sleeve bearings, but they use oil pressure and/or magnets to keep the fan stable, making them the best type of fan and the most expensive.
My Noctua SSO-Bearing fans are one of the Hydro Bearing variations. https://noctua.at/en/sso-bearing None of my Noctua's have died so far. :D

This is why a dirty mining GPU with the card in a vertical position that has been run 24/7 could have fans in better condition than a GPU in the standard horizontal position when in a tower case that's only been run for 8 hours or less per day. More heat also lowers life expectancy, which is likely in a case.

From personal experience my top case fans do tend to wear out many times faster than the vertical mounted case fans. From memory I can only think of one vertically mounted fan that has died on my home and work PCs, but 5 of the top fans have completely died.

Lubrication can help, as it's the lack of lubrication that causes them to fail, but doing it after it fails will have a way more limited effect as the damage has already been done, so it''s likely to a temporary measure if it has any effect at all. And you don't want too much, or you just get oil in your PC. :)

So you can drop in a bit of oil.
 
Thanks guys, it's certainly improved but think I'll try the new part from China anyway. Looks like they are still making parts or have old stock from the original factories.

Reading around seems the gtx670 is still an OK card so be a shame for it to go to waste.
 
subbytna said:
How did you get on then? Did you go ahead and drop a few into it? What oil did you use? What difference has it made?
Click to expand...

Used some compressor oil I had left over after reading some had used motor oil, put a couple of small drops in.

Has certainly made the fan smoother but still a bit noisy, been that way since new though.
 
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