Hi,
I have a question related to a sound that my computer is making! Since a while, I can hear the Fan on my computer making noise like it's spinning fast all the time! I*cleaned the fan thinking it would help but it's still noisy so do you have an idea of why it's doing that?
Often there are multiple fans in a computer, depending on laptop or desktop, depending on vendor or home-built, depending on case and CPU, etc.
Many cases have an "intake fan" in the lower-front area of the case, and an "exhaust fan" in the upper-rear area of the case. There's also generally a fan in the power supply (commonly located at the upper-rear of the case). Note that PSU fans very often have a variable speed of their own, running slower (and thus quieter) when the machine is first powered on, but then typically speeding up (and thus noisier) when the machine interior heats up and/or when additional power requirements draw power... e.g. when gaming. There's also a CPU cooler fan attached directly to the CPU, since it gets very hot. And there's commonly one or two fans on graphics cards, whose GPU(s) get extremely hot under load.
And of course there can be TWO fans attached to the CPU, for when overclocking causes the CPU to get very hot. And there can be additional case fans inserted if the case supports it for yet additional increased airflow and cooling if the interior hardware justifies it.
So, that adds up to lots of fans, potentially. And each one typically attaches to a 2-pin or 3-pin (commonly) or 4-pin "fan header" on the motherboard to provide power to the fan, as well as to gather RPM spin speed of the fan for reporting purposes back to the BIOS, as well to potentially provide BIOS its variable control over the RPM spin speed of the fan to adjust to varying heat conditions inside the case as reported by temperature sensors on the motherboard (and in the CPU and sensor chip).
Assuming the fan RPM speeds are "reported" to the BIOS, there are numerous 3rd-party software products that can display these RPM fan speeds... at least for any fan which has at least 3-pin connections and where the motherboard fan header provides the RPM speed to the BIOS and/or sensor chip. Very often the motherboard manufacturer (e.g. ASUS) will provide its own "hardware monitoring software product", with temperatures, voltages, and fan speeds shown.
In other words, without some type of software monitoring of what's going on with your hardware at any moment (including CPU usage %, CPU power/voltages, CPU/GPU temperatures, all fan speeds, etc.), it's not really possible to make a justified comment that "cleaning THE FAN" is meaningful. There are generally multiple fans, and if it/they are spinning fast so that you hear them it's possibly because the interior temperature inside the case is very high. And is the high temperature due to restricted airflow, or dirty/ineffective fans, or malfunctioning sensor chips, or what?
Sure, it probably goes without saying that replacing a cheap low-flow fan that spins fast and isn't cooling very well with a better and quieter fan is clearly a nice thing to do. But more interesting and informative would be to run a 3rd-party software "hardware monitoring" product to show you all of the interior details of your hardware and case, thus pointing to WHICH FAN (of possibly many) is likely the "culprit".
