from personal experience, if the fan on the GPU goes, the GPU fries. :'( Anyone got a free ATI 9600 to spare? :)

I went through 4-5 graphics cards for that reason. I ended up settling for a lesser card b/c 1) I'm not a gamer and 2) Vegas doesn't use the GPU anyway. Now I have a very quiet PC.

I have a Radion 7500, and it's fan goes noisy sometimes.
Being as tight as I am, I take the rotor out of the fan and clean and lubricate it whenever it plays up - that shuts it up for another 6 months !

Mel.

There are several aftermarket fans you can get to fix this problem. However, I don't have this problem anymore--I replaced the CPU fan, GPU fan and NorthBridge Controller fan with a water cooled system.

I still have overall system fans (primarily to blow air over my 10 harddrives), but it is a lot quieter and runs incredibly cool during rendering.

Assuming you have verified that the fan isn't hitting anything and that you have blown it out with compressed air you can try oiling the bearing with a very lightweight machine oil such as "precision oil" that comes in a plastic tube or the oil included with electric hair clippers. A teflon based oil will work too. Getting at the bearing may be difficult and you do not want to use too much. Many GPU fans use sleeve bearings which are initially quiter than ball bearings but don't last as long.

There are many replacement fans available at different price levels for the various cards. There are also universal ones, but they don't fit without modification and they are often noisy.

When you remove the fan you may find that it doesn't come off that easily. Some use thermal grease and others use an adhesive. Use a hair dryer to loosen it up and take it off with a twisting motion rather than pulling it off. Then ALL of the residue must be cleaned off. Try denatured alcohol first. The replacement fan usually comes with an appropriate thermal paste.

John

A noisy fan is quite often the result of the blades having a build up of dust that makes the fan wobble, creating the noise. A few shots from a can of air will likely cure it for a time.

Best remedy for the future is try to keep your computers off the floor. Not always possible, but when you are able to, if keeps the computer from sucking in air that is dirty near the floor.

When I started building computers for people ten years ago, I put in a lot of new fans and power supplies for free until I read the same tip from someone else as I wrote above. Haven't had to replace a noisy fan since.

There are sleeve-bearing fans that last about a year and there are ball-bearing fans that last for 10 years. Fry's has a whole rack of various-sized fans.

If your card is of value and you can't find an identical replacement fan, you can always remove it and rig up a fan in the PC case to blow air over the heatsink. Not quite as efficient, but it should be good enough until you buy another card a few years down the road.

There are numerous lower-end cards that use passive cooling if you're not a gamer.

Thanks everyone -- I'll try some of these things..
I had already tried using air to blow out the dust -- and yes -- my computer is on the floor -- dust is a problem --
The card is a ATI 9600 ALL-IN-WONDER .. I've had it about 3 years.
In the next few weeks I'm planning to do a new build with a Q6600 .. already
got a new SOLO ANTEC case for that build .. Looking at GIGABYTE for motherboard and video card -- no fans but still run cool.