How to oil whiny Series 9 fan?

hello,

I posted before about fan speeds and heat on the samsung 900x3a b06US I bought and after monitoring it for a few weeks the temperature and thresholds of the fan are fine. It sounds like it's spinning louder and faster than it is because of the fan bearings - it's whinier than any pc fan I've had before.

anyway, i thought, no problem, now i think i've got it narrowed down i will just oil it. but when i opened the machine i'd never seen a fan like this before.

looks like this:

Okay, no worries, i'll peel the sticker off the bottom to find the lubrication port. no such luck. attached is an image of what i found - some weird gold thing with a small hole.



Anyway, I'd really like to oil this fan because it's driving me nuts but I can't figure out a way to do it. Does anybody have any advice? I'd like to try and do it myself rather than send it back to the states/take it to some repair guy who will charge me an arm and a leg

thanks guys,

mjm

 

Unless that gold colour material is a porous metal (so you can put some oil and it will seep through) then the fan is considered to be a replaceable unit that no one would try to repair.

John

 

Have you tried pulling the fan up (or better pushing it from the back) - I've never seen an Ultrabook fan, but I'd imagine it's built the same way as a normal laptop fan, and seeing as it's whining it's not Maglev either. Also, use grade 2 or 3 non-abrasive grease (automotive) - it'll last forever (or at least much longer than oil )...

Obviously, be careful not to break the blades...

 

Hm it seems like they're fixed to the base pretty tight and I don't want to pull too hard in case I snap the blades in half.

 

Hi mjmcss, keep us updated. Like you my major issue will probably be fan noise, and I'll be curious if you get anywhere with this...

 

I'll let you know what ends up happening with it, and if anyone's got any experience with these kinds of brushless fans i'd love to hear from you.

silentpcreview thought it was the bearings and oil so that's what i'm working with at the moment. I've ruled out temperatures, PC loads and fan vent blockages so I've just gotta try and quiet this thing down.

But in saying that the noise isn't too bad and you can't hear it in a busy room, it's just when you're sitting in a quiet place that the whine can get a bit annoying.

 

I find this difficult to believe to be the problem for a new fan. The underlying problem is that the fan is very thin and has to spin quite fast to move any air.

John

 

Indeed, it's weird that a new fan would be noisy and need oiling...

So it's stuck in place pretty well? Most fans just come off - they're held in place by a central shaft and a circular permanent magnet inside the fan - the stator/electromagnet on the base makes it spin, pretty simple.

The only one that I couldn't disassemble is a Sunon MagLev in my laptop ( Sunon), but I didn't really pull it too hard cause it's working perfectly (and will probably never whine due to its construction).

It's probably hard to disassemble because there is a second magnet holding it in place at the bottom (the magnet plate). But if your fan has the same construction, it shouldn't make any noise...

 

Just found this thread while I was googling another Series 9 issue (nothing major, just the display changing color temperature is a bit annoying).

Anyway, I think I've figured out your "Whiny Fan" problem OP, about three weeks ago.

So my family has four ultrabooks/ultraportables and the Series 9 is the only one that makes the whining/whistling noise with the fan. I was trying to figure out what it could be - even tried oiling the fan (it does come off, you just have to grip the head of the blades with two fingers and pull evenly and firmly) but that didnt do much

Anyway, the "whining" noise is caused by air passing straight through from the thermal exhaust port at the hinge to the clean air intake on the bottom of the notebook. i figured this out when i realised that the noise stopped when i sat the computer on my lap

my solution? It's ghetto, but I put a small strip of black duct tape over the intake grill on the bottom. i bet i'm going to get yelled at for that, but the thermal dynamics are essentially unchanged

the fan still draws clean air from inside the case from the left-hand port and temperatures are, on average, about 2 degrees celcius warmer when the notebook is on my lap and there's no difference when it's sitting on a table.

the two Asus' we have (UX21 and 31) and my wife's macbook air don't have a bottom intake port and run at similar temperatures to the series 9, and all three have Delta brushless fans and similar heatsink designs, so I think in the long term this should be okay, but i'm going to keep monitoring to be safe.

i've been doing it for two weeks with no problems but of course i'll keep an eye on the temperatures, but the good thing about using a piece of tape is if i'm in a hot environment i can just peel it back. won't work for everyone but it works for me.

 

Sorry to dig up an old thread but has anyone know how to safely oil the fan on the Series 9? My fan noise has just recently become very noticeable and would love to know if someone found a solution.

 

Did anyone found a way how to oil the fan or make it more silent? It's starting to be too annoying and loud. It sounds like bearing would be damaged, but it has been doing this since a long time. My computer is Samsung 900x4c