[Hampshire] Graphics Card Fan Noise

Hi all



Can anyone help with solving the following "phenomenon"? At boot, my main
machine developed a low tone groaning noise - the sort that signals the fan
is gunked up. After being on for about a minute - the noise goes away. I
brushed it clean on Monday. On reboot - silence - all seemed well.



Now curiously the groaning noise is back! However rather curiously the
noise doesn't start a couple of seconds after boot as it did before - it now
happens about 15-20 seconds after boot - then it goes silent again after
about a minute.



So I'm pretty sure the graphics card fan is the culprit (running the machine
with no graphics card it was silent from power up to power down), but it was
brushed clean so it can't have gunked up again in 2 days - or can it? And if
it has (there are no holes in the case - no open card slots etc) I'm not too
sure how I could prevent it gunking up again.



Anyone experienced this? Any known workarounds?



All I can think of is the noise is present when the fan rotation speed is
low - but when it speeds up (after it's been on for a minute or so and the
card is warmer) - the noise goes away. If this is the case - then is it
anything to worry about at all? My main concern was that if left unattended
the card could overheat and that could lead to problems elsewhere.



Cheers

Rob