So there I was, sleeping after being on the phone with my girlfriend Jaime, when I was roused from my slumber by a loud clicking noise emanating from one of the two live rigs mere feet away from my bed. I have four rigs in my bedroom, and a maximum of two can be online at any one time.

My first thought was, "Dang, one of these likely has a fan failing on it." So I rose from the bed and reached for Darth Bludgeon, presently deployed as a dedicated OCing/benchmarking rig. Like the other PCs I've built purely for myself, this machine has a fan controller, so I proceeded to fiddle with the various channels, trying to isolate which fan was emitting the dreadful clicking. None of the fans on this rig was clicking, so I repeated the procedure on its brother system, Darth Ominous, my dedicated gaming rig.

Darth Ominous' fans under the fan controller's influence were not clicking either; however, there were two other fans which were plugged straight into the power supply via Molex 4-pin connectors. One was a Silverstone 110CFM monster fan I had mounted in the TJ09-BW's midship chamber as an intake, and the other was in the HDD chamber. So I shut the machine off and proceeded to disassemble the machine completely.

Why did I decide to do this? Well, a couple of reasons inspired the decision. One was the coating of dust that had settled in the various gills and vents as well as inside the machine. Dust and dirt inside a rig annoys me, but I know it's an inevitable phenomenon, so I habitually open up this machine to blast the dust out with compressed air. Another reason to disassemble the rig was that it's virtually impossible to get to the midship chamber fan with a fully-installed system; the motherboard and other system components are simply just in the way of the screw access points for the midship chamber fan housing.

Consequently, Darth Ominous is now in pieces in my bedroom/workshop. I've got replacement fans ready to be mounted, and motivation to complete the job sometime tonight.

Strangely enough, I'm not the least bit annoyed by needing to do a system tear-down just to get to a couple of fans (well, just one fan, actually; the HDD chamber fan is very accessible). I saw this as an opportunity to get this rig in better shape. Specifically, the midship chamber fan is very powerful, but also annoyingly loud. The Silverstone fan is overkill for the job. Now, I have the chance to improve the noise output of this system, as well as replace a failing component. I believe that the HDD chamber fan is the one that's on the verge of permanent, fatal seizure.

Sometimes, serendipity creates more work for you, but also give you a chance to improve your lot in life.

Besides, no self-respecting PC tweaker ever would shirk a chance to work on his rig, even if it's just on basic maintenance tasks.

As always, thanks for reading. I welcome your comments and thoughts.
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