A few weeks ago, fan on my x700 video card started making a terrible noise. I had users shut it down if it got real bad. Opened up case and used canned air and it seemed to fix it.
In reality, some days later the fan had STOPPED all together. Did not notice until I rearranged office this weekend, moving tower to a top riser on the desk where I could see the fan. (Never underestimate the power of having a see-through case either.) There it was, red ATI on a whit background, not moving a bit.
Today I opened the case and removed card, this time not only blowing out, but giving it a lube job. Since card is mounted with fan pointing down, I held it in that position and gave a couple of squirts using the provided straw, then used air to get it moving and spread the fish oil around. (Yep, that's what WD-40 is, fish oil.) Reinstalled and so far working just fine.
This is the second time I used WD-40. Last time it was on the muthaboard chipset fan. Only lasted a month or so and eventually replaced it with a loverly blue passive heat sink.
Funny thing. the video fan has been frozen for at least a month, but did not blow the card nor show degraded performance. I have not ran RRT or MSTS very much, but did run one hour or so session a couple of weekends ago.
Guess it does not hurt that the wife keeps the ****** house at 68F most of the time!!!
Went the entire winter without turning heat on one time. She ran the A/C just about every day though.
