Harddrive Fan Making Loud Buzzing Sound?

Hi there -

My harddrive has been making a loud buzzing sound on and off for a few months now, once in 3-4 weeks, when I turn it on it starts to buzz loudly. Other times it comes on completely normal.

I looked behind the hard drive on the fan, and there are clumps of dust on the actual fan. I tried to blow it (gently) and when I turned on the computer again it came on with no noise.

What would happen if I sent it to be fixed? would it just be a small job of taking the back off and clearing the dust off the fan or is this fatal to my hard drive and do you think I would either have to buy a new one or pay alot to have it repaired.

What i'm really wondering is, will it be a big job to fix?

thanks!

 

I think mounted on the harddrive. (I'm terrible explaining this sort of thing so you'll have to excuse me if I don't make much sense here)

It's inside the case, on the harddrive. And I just listened to it again, the noise is definitely coming from the fan.

 

There is a sort of groaning noise, but not too bad. when I turn it on it usually makes that noise for a few seconds then goes back to normal. But the buzzing sound is more noticable than a groaning sound.

The harddrive makes a faint buzzing noise normally, but for the first 2 years I had it, it was nearly silent, it makes much more noise now than it did two years ago but i've probably just gotten used to it and ignored it. The buzzing gets really loud and doesn't start until a few seconds after I have turned it on, when windows is starting up it makes the normal noise then suddenly it starts buzzing really loudly and doesn't stop at all until I turn it off again.

But out of curiosity, how would I lubricate the fan motor? Do you think it's something I should take to a professional before attempting to do anything (including cleaning) to it myself?

When I first heard the buzzing coming from the fan, I took a cotton wool bud and poked it through the back of the hard drive (with the pc turned off, obv) to attempt the clean the dust off the fan, inside. I'm not sure whether it would be quite costly to take it somewhere to get it done, but i'll phone around tomorrow to see how much if i can't work it myself.

(thanks for your replies by the way!)

 

I did not realize that there were any hard drives that had fans. I certainly have never had one. I learn something new, every day.

BTW, I know that hard drives can get warm. My Lian Li case has 2 fans that blow across my hard drives to keep them cool.

 

Me neither, thought the only fans were Case, CPU, and maybe a graph card GPU fan. Oh well. Just out of curiousity what size is the fan on your HDD?? Fans are pretty cheap and easy to replace, a simple amtter of unbolting it from your HDD and disconnecting the power cable from it. No big deal. I'd just buy a new one and be done with it. Make sure you get one with ball-bearings, like a good Antec or something. They tend to last longer and run quieter.