my 4y/o word processing(thats the most it can do, and itll work as a backup to my main(gaming) rig) is sounding wierd. the fan noise is much higher (up to 3x) than usual and its at a higher pitch. whats wrong with it?

ummmmm.... .maybe a bit more info would help....

have you opened it? Is it doinging anything wrong besides sounds louder? most likely a wire is getting cliped by a fan or something......

Or the final wails of a dying fan.

My money is squarely on Charlie running an ASUS board with a northbridge HSF doing the dance of death.

LOL@Dance. Or even worse a CPU fan... Better investigate sooner than later...

ok, now it changed. the high pitchness is gone but its very quiet.

and its a Compaq 5838 with an AMD Athlon 500MHz. dont know the mobo and its only got the cpu fan (which is tiny) and the Psu fan)

And they're both turning yes?

Might not hurt to change out the cpu fan just in case. Did you move the case about the time it either started or stopped making the noise?.

case has not been touches and i have not had time to open it up, been too busy doing this and that to my new rig plus im building my cousin a high performance (AMD Athlon XP 3200+ @ 3.5 or even higher and NVIDIA GeForceFX5900) gaming rig .

Check PSU fan first. I had one in my shop that fried its PSU fan, which fried the PSU, which started a chain of events that ended with burn marks around the ZIF socket. You should ALWAYS check CPU fan as well... That thing just sounds like it's on its last legs...

Well if you're too busy to check if the fans have stopped, don't worry about it then, they're *probably* just fine...

when i put my hand where the PSU fan is, i feels like its blowing 1cfm per day. are the fans easy to replace and does anyone have instructions on how to replace it?

Replace the PSU. It'll be easier, and give you an excuse to look at everything else in there.

At least crack open the old PSU and replace the fan before you go drop money on a old machine.

Quote: Originally posted by CharlieD06 are the fans easy to replace and does anyone have instructions on how to replace it?

PSU Fan Replacement for Retards 101:
(1) Turn off and disconnect PSU.
(2) Open PSU Cover.
(3) Remove fan and clip the wire leading to PSU PCB as far away from the PCB as possible.
(4) Clip connector off of replacement fan and soter the wires from it to the leftover wire leads that lead to the PSU PCB.
(5) Install fan, close PSU cover, use PSU.
Red = Positive +
Black = Negative -

See? That was easy...

That too.

I ran into a coupla machines that sound like what he has. We called them miracle boxes, because it was a miracle they ran.

First you get the noise. Then it goes quite. Then you get the smell

Yeah replacing a PSU fan is a snap after you peel the casing off. I would suggest crimp caps versus electrical tape inside though... I've had electrical tape disappoint me a couple times lately.

I turned a wussy 300 watt Turbolink into an Antec "Trueblue wanna-be" by putting a tri-light blue fan in it

Still, I'd crack the case open. I replaced a lot of CPU fans that were headin' south... if I had that high pitched whine, and it stopped, I'd be freakin' out... Might wanna replace it anyway if it's small.

I replaced a guy's stock HSU for a 1 Ghz Athlon, and even with the new HSU being twice the size and power of the previous, he was runnin' at 55C. I wasn't happy... I watched it climb from 22 C, I was just about to shut it off when it leveled out. I can only imagine what he was runnin' at before!

I'd suggest you make some time to open that case if you want to keep the pc.

I just find it odd that youre building 2 other pc's yet asked the questions that you have.