How to repair a pc fan 【step by step】 ⭐️

We present you our guide on how to repair a PC fan. Inside, you will find the details of how to save that fan.

There are many reasons why a fan may not function properly. In this small guide, we are going to focus on each possible problem and we are going to give you the solution to the problem. It is possible that your fan does not work due to an unknown problem. Having said that, we will try to address all possible solutions with a small FAQ

Index of contents

The fan does not start

You turn on the computer and the fan does not rotate. Why? It can be for a thousand things, but it is usually summarized as 3:

• BIOS failure. The fan is not connected or not connected properly. The fan is broken.

If you see that your heatsink is stopped, check the processor temperatures. Sometimes the fan stops because the processor is too cold. What is known as semi-passive mode.

BIOS crash

It is the fastest to check. We get into the BIOS and surely you have a section or option where you can see what is connected to your motherboard. We can find these scenarios:

• The board does not detect the fan. In that case, we will have to check that it is really connected. Sometimes we make a mistake and connect the fan to another connection or it has come loose. Check the connections well. The board detects it, but it doesn't work. Here the motherboard BIOS may be failing. You can do two things:
  • • Reset / reset BIOS, restoring default values. Update the BIOS, in case you have never updated it or it has been a long time since the last time.

If you have updated, reset and checked the connection, but it still doesn't work… let's continue.

Fan connection failure

It may happen that the fan is not connected or that it is not connected properly. You have to open the PC case and check it first hand.

In the past, there were certain fans that had connections that went directly to the power supplies… beware of this for those of you who have old boxes.

Fan failure

If nothing has worked, your fan may be broken or defective. Before we put our hands to our heads, keep reading because it may not work for any nonsense. Remember that you must always try all the options: if it still does not go, we can say that it is broken or that it is defective.

However, the solution of how to repair a PC fan can be one of the following.

Powder

The main enemy of the fans. Sometimes, it can clog a component so much that it renders it useless. If your fans have a certain time, clean them well.

I have come across cases where the fan suddenly stopped because it was full of dust or dirt. When you clean the dust from a fan, clean the entire box. Use compressed air in the fans, but at a distance because you can damage the blades.

Grease the gasket

Lost to the river, right? One solution on how to repair the PC fan is to grease the fan gasket or bearing. To do this we doing the next:

• We disconnect the fan and unscrew it. We remove the sticker from the center. You will see the bearing in the center which is the one that makes the blades rotate. We take a little oil that we use to grease the locks and pour it into that hole. With a drop left over because the space is very small. We do not recommend using fat, always oil.

This may be the fault. You simply needed to grease the bearing for it to spin hard.

Connect another fan

At this point, if what we have told you does not work, the culprits may be these:

• Motherboard Power supply. The fan.

To rule out that it is the fan, buy another fan or use one that you have at home and connect it in the same place as the one that does not work. If it works, we know the problem was the other fan.

If it doesn't work, the fan isn't the problem: it's either a motherboard or it's a power supply.

Power supply

Rarely will be the problem, but we may have a source with little power and not enough. The fans usually need 5V or 12V and we may have a low power supply that is unable to supply power to the fans.

If you have several connected, try removing one or leaving only the failed fan connected. If we remove the other fans and see that the faulty one now works, the problem is the source.

Solution: buy or try a new power supply.

Motherboard

Put at this point, the conflict may be created by the motherboard. How? Usually, it is usually because the connection is damaged, which means that it is unusable. Try another 3 or 4-pin connector.

On the other hand, it may simply not work. Here we have little room for maneuver, to know 100% that the problem is the motherboard is:

• Doing everything we have said previously, putting the fan on another PC that we have or from a friend to check that it works. If it doesn't work on any PC, the problem is with the fan.

I'm not going to fool you: if the problem is the motherboard, you will have to change it so that all the fans work.

Solution: change motherboard

We recommend the best heatsinks and fans on the market

We hope this short tutorial has been useful for those of you who have problems with your fans. It is very important to have good ventilation in the box, as in the processor itself.

If you have a specific problem that we have not reflected here, you can comment below and we will assist you. How did you solve the problem of your fans? Has this guide helped you?