After cleaning out all the dust stuffed into it, the VGA fan now makes a lot of noise, probably because the bearings are shot.
I want to replace the fan, other than "matching" it up with one on Newegg, is there a more precise way to pick a replacement?
The service tag for this Dell is 7470F1. It appears the card is Nvidia GeForce 8300 GS, but I wasn't able to find the fan spec.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks for your time.
not sure what you mean by VGA fan. are you talking about a GPU fan that is attached to you graphics card, or is it a case fan that is attached to the computer chasse? if it is a case fan, you can pretty much buy any one that is the correct size, but I would suggest reading reviews first. many cheap ones are ether very loud, and/or they will not move a lot of air. if it is on your graphics card, and you have the ability to replace it I would match it exactly, because there may be a proprietary mounting solution.
Thanks.
I guess I'm asking how to go about replacing the fan...exactly, if that's possible.
If I know the card/board, how do I track down the fan I should order?
I had it all apart when cleaning it. I originally went in there because the heat sink was too hot to touch, and after about 15 minutes the screen would lock up. Cleaned it all up ( cobbed up with dust ), cleaned and reapplied new thermal paste, and it's been good since, except for the loud fan. So the answer is no problem working on it. I saw similar fans on Newegg, but came here to see if there was a more official way to pick the replacement.
Why don't you replace the video card instead of trying to repair it?
Unless you're concerned about heat issues, I would install a video card with a stand-alone heat sink unit instead of with a combination heat sink/cooling fan unit.
It'll also put less of a load on the computer's power supply.
According to service tag number 747C0F1, here is the Dell support site that's assigned to your Dell Inspiron 531 desktop.
You should add and save this site in your browser's favorites/bookmarks list so you can readily refer to it when needed.
According to its system configuration and drivers sections, it came with:
Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ 2.10 GHz processor
1 GB(512 MB X 2) of DDR2-667 RAM
Seagate or Samsung or Western Digital 250 GB hard drive
NVIDIA GeForce 8300 GS PCI Express x16 video card(128 MB dedicated memory)
Realtek ALC888 high definition audio
NVIDIA nForce 10/100 Mbps ethernet
250 or 300 watt power supply
A NVIDIA chip PCI Express x16 video card with 256 - 512 MB of dedicated memory should work okay for your desktop.
Make sure to select a video card that's within the requirements of your desktop's power supply.
As soon as I select Nvidia for the chipset, I lose 128, 256, 512 for memory.
The resultant products seem to be a lot more in price and performance than I really need.
If the link below doesn't work, I used the following filters:
Seller-Newegg
Interface: PCI Express x 16
Chipset: Nvidia
Newegg...installed the 210, all ok...except Windows Update is trying to download and install a Nvidia update for GeForce 210, and it keeps failing to download/install. Any ideas on that? Just ignore since the card worked out of the box?
I went back and re-read the entire thread, and you never said which Windows version is running in that computer, so I'm going to assume it's Windows Vista 32-bit or Windows 7 32-bit.
I'm going to assume the graphics device in the Display Adapters heading in the Device Manager is NVIDIA GeForce 210(or a similar name).
Double-click that entry to open its properties window, then click the "Driver" tab.
Advise what the driver version and driver date is.
Do NOT download and install the driver from the Windows Update site.
Vista Home Premium 32 bit
Two items under Graphics Adapter in Device Manager:
LogMeIn Mirror Driver ( ?? )
Standard VGA Graphics Adapter date: 6/21/2006 ver. 6.0.6001.18000
Nothing about GeForce 210.......
Just restored this system to before the MS Updates. Been having connectivity issues since installing the new card OR just around the time of the updates...so restores to before the updates and still having issues, not sure if it's related or not.
Thanks Frank, all is well now with the video.
Still not sure what changed to make the wireless internet connection buggy.
Checked speed on Speakeasy, was a snail pace, ~0.93Mbps/down. Checked another PC ( both wireless ) was 37Mbps/down.
Should I start a new thread in Networking?
Thanks again.
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