CPU fans cleaning .

[pp4mnklinux]

This morning I cleaned my computer fan (CPU FAN), and It was so good that I wanna recomend to you to do it twice a year.

https://puppyxfcefusilli.wordpress.com/ ... ning-fans/

Do you recomend to me any good fan to change this one I'm using now?

Silent/Quiet is my main objective.

[Flash]

If you replace a 12-Volt fan with a 24-Volt fan, the 24-Volt fan will run slower than the 12-Volt fan did and be much quieter. There are two things to consider if you're thinking of doing this. The first is whether the 24-Volt fan will start reliably at 12 Volts. Normally a 24-Volt fan will start at much less than 12 Volts, but test it to find out. The second thing to consider is whether the 24-Volt fan will blow as well as the 12-Volt fan. I chose a 24-Volt fan that was supposed to blow the hardest at 24 Volts and it does the job at 12 Volts.

Digikey.com has a good selection of fans.

Another option is to drop the voltage to the 12-Volt fan by putting a fixed output voltage 3-terminal regulator, such as a 7808 or even a 7805, between the 12 Volt supply and the 12 Volt fan, to reduce the voltage to the fan. The regulator can dangle from the wires that power the fan. This has worked very well for me to quiet computer fans.

A 317-type 3-terminal regulator is infinitely adjustable but requires more components and so would be more trouble to insert into the fan power circuit.

Again, digikey.com has a vast selection of 3-terminal regulators.

[bigpup]

You seem to have a motherboard that has CPU fan plug for power.

So the motherboard bios should have fan control settings if you use the fan plug to power the CPU fan.

My computers bios has CPU fan speed options;
Auto control speed based on temp readings of the CPU.
Always run at max speed or minimum speed.
Set range of speeds to use.
Depends on computers bios what settings it offers.

There are dozens of CPU fans, so go look at what is available for the type of CPU socket you have.
I do not think you could buy a noisy fan anymore.
Making no or as little noise is the norm now.

12V fans are the norm that is what will hook to the motherboard.

[geo_c]

I was wondering about doing this to my laptops. I have opened up laptops before and it's about as fun as HEART SURGERY.

Seems everything has to be done in the right sequence and with the right tools.

[bigpup]

If the laptop has fans.

A blast of air from a electronics cleaning air can, can clear a lot of stuff out of the vents.

But to really clean it out, you do need to take the back cover off.

I usually find info on the Internet, on how to remove a specific make and model laptop, back cover.
Some hide screws in strange locations. Especially under rubber pads on the laptop bottom.
A lot of them now snap together along the seam of the two half's plus have screws.

The ones with fans, should be designed to get the back cover off, with not too much trouble. (key word should)

[wizard]

@geo_c

@bigpup is right about using the bios settings to experiment with fan speed control. Doing it in hardware has some risk. In the past I've converted old desktops into totally silent Linux file servers by connecting both the cpu and psu fans to the existing 5 volt rail. Keep in mind that these would never have any significant cpu load as a server. When you experiment, a cpu temperature monitoring program is a must.

Laptops are a completely different story. To begin with, many require what amounts to a major tear down just to access the cpu and fan. A lot of your older dual core laptops had under designed thermal management systems OOTB or worse came with one of the infamous nvidia video systems that idled at 60C on a good day. As big said, just keeping the fan/heatsink clean will help reduce the fan speed and noise.

Last, one of the most effective ways I've found to keep fan speed and noise low is to put Puppy's CPU frequency scaling tool into Powersave mode.

wizard

[wiak]

Unfortunately, quite a number of laptops don't have access to fan via a back-cover, but instead need to start from keyboard remove followed by complete disassembly of motherboard to find fan underneath...

I avoided that in my old HP Eliteboot 2530p core2duo machines by physically cutting big hole in the magnesium case... However, that only given me access to the fan, but not in a way that I can actually physically remove it. Nevertheless, I have a few such computers still running via some cleaning and dodgy lubrication that way. Eventually all such older laptops do become landfill whether we like it or not, and some older ones actually use more electricity than their usage is worth so we are not saving the world either way.

[geo_c]

As big said, just keeping the fan/heatsink clean will help reduce the fan speed and noise.
Last, one of the most effective ways I've found to keep fan speed and noise low is to put Puppy's CPU frequency scaling tool into Powersave mode.

Unfortunately, quite a number of laptops don't have access to fan via a back-cover, but instead need to start from keyboard remove followed by complete disassembly of motherboard to find fan underneath...

Well, as it happens, I think around 10 or so years ago I actually replaced a fan in a laptop. What a pain in the rear it was to get that thing apart. I think I downloaded a service manual to figure it out. I was biting my nails with every move.

So I'm not inclined to bother. But I should get an air can and try blowing through the vent.

I use old laptops and buy a new one about every couple years on average. They were all purchased used. I have 8 working laptops, only 5 are really active.

When you run pups and dogs and kennel linuxes you can run laptops until they give up the ghost.

I was commenting to @Sofiya that my Dells tend to really crank up the fan a lot, and generally run hot, whereas my HP's run cool and I hear a fan start up next to never. I'm not sure what the difference in design is, but there's something. My newest laptop is an HP i5 8th gen, and about 3 years old I think. I bought it used. Runs cool and fast.

I have recently installed cpupower on all my machines and made little scripts to change cpu governors on the fly.

[pp4mnklinux]

Thanks for your answers.

I suppose I will install the same fan (but update to the 0003 version). Amazon is cheap enough....

Thanks

[bigpup]

Just make sure that is the socket your motherboard has.

You can not go by the CPU type.

Different generations of these Intel CPU's use different sockets.
I have a motherboard that has a Intel i7 CPU that needs a LGA 1700 socket.

The fan looks similar, but it is slightly different to handle the heat of a LGA1700 socket Intel CPU.

Intel-RM1-Box-CPU-Cooler-For-Alder-Lake-LGA-1700-Desktop-CPUs__65485.jpg (55.31 KiB) Viewed 563 times