NEED HELP URGENTLY (LOUD GRINDING NOISE)

[Blu]

I think my CPU fan has gone faulty, I'm just hearing a very loud grinding noise that sounds like the cpu area, speed fan is reporting it spinning at 16k RPM I'm just about to open it up here and try and see, I have one of the huge heat sinks so do you think it will be ok fanless for awhile?....I run 24/7 as well.

[Eldonko]

Probably not unless you have good airflow. Cant you just replace the fan?

[Soultribunal]

What kind of ambient temp your running with, and what kind of case is this all in. As well, what is the heatsink?

For shortterm or small bouts of low intensity work Passive cooling 'might' be okay. But personally I would not Do that at all.

ST

[Perineum]

Sounds like a fan but seems more common for it to be a video card fan.

To tell, just jam your finger in there and stop them. If the noise goes away, then that's your troubled fan. Of course, if you're running 8K RPM Deltas then perhaps that's not such a good idea, maybe just take the time to plug / unplug them while the computer is on.

If you're not running overclocked and not running computational programs like folding then you may be alright with no fan for a while, depending on your setup.

[Blu]

It's a huge passive cooler, not quite sure of how to change the fan on it as I believe it was hard wired to the sensor and such tonight or if things go bad im going to pull it out of its little hole in sits in, the case is a cool master 932 HAF I'm not sure what the heatsink/fan is but I just know its about eight inches high like it is huuuge, my cpu is at 42C right now which is a little hot, I don't think it's my video card as this noise is like at the top of the case so I'll take a look at it in a few, if I slap my case a bit it sorta goes back to working i did just clear alot of dust out of it as well (top fan and the sides) I'm positive it is my cpu fan cause I believe it was only rated at like 2500-3200 RPM for a 120mm fan hell probably even lower then that...

EDIT: Also my GFX card is only at 50c which is pretty normal for a idling 260GTX right? So that makes me highly doubt it would be the video card.

[trowakage]

Probably the CPU fan then, if you wanted to be safe, you can always underclock your processor, but 42degC doesn't seem too bad.