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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iggibar" data-source="post: 1824512" data-attributes="member: 97843">Fan noiseYou mentioned in the previous thread that you tried cleaning the mac pro with compressed air. Problem with compressed air is that you can't control the trajectory of the dust that you are freeing, and it's super easy for it to get crammed underneath fans and other components. Not saying that this happened, but it just stood out to me and thought I would mention it. I've used CA only ONCE in my life to clean, and it was never on a computer. With that said, bearings on PC fans have certain lifespans. I have 3 Mac Pros. My 4.1 is dust free inside, but the largest fan has a loud bearing. I thought about replacing it, but I've never had any performance issues, and the slight noise is not a problem for the low usage I get out of it. I try to do the best when it comes to maintaining my computers, and with my Mac Pros, I noticed something interesting with their fans. They have floating bearing designs(same as the MacBook Pros) as apposed to bearings that are sandwiched between two roller sides. These are pretty reliable and smooth, but they are VERY EASILY put off balance with dust buildup, or worse, if you clean one area and forget another area(like the back that might be harder to get to). I noticed this issue when I was cleaning the front fan on my Mac Pro 5.1. I cleaned the front of the fan blades, but wasn't able to get 100% of the back of the blades. There was a humming noise that the fan started making as soon as I turned it on. It stumped me until I cleaned them 100%. The humming noise is caused off-balance blades being forced into balanced rotation by the rigid fan mounts to the frame. You can test this by putting a tiny piece of tape on a blade to put it out of balance. As for the comment you posted previously about opening the POWER SUPPLY, please don't do that. The amount of stored energy in those capacitors can EASILY kill you if it's not discharged, and they DON'T discharge for a REALLY LONG time! Please be careful with that!!Clicking noiseRegarding the clicking noise you had issues with, since I haven't heard it, and knowing you said it wasn't HDD related, I'm going to go with something that I've had concerns a while ago with my Mac Pros. It's a common concern with tower Mac Pros and Power Macs. If you have inconsistent/fluctuating power in an area of your house(common in apartments or old houses), your relay will switch to try and maintain constant power within your power supply to the best of its abilities. When the relay switches, it makes a clicking noise. It's just slightly less noisier than a clicking pen on my Mac Pro 4.1/5.1. Surge protectors do not help in this situation. Mac Pros have always had the lowest amount of total power supply rating they could get away with. Using a dual card setup easily puts it at its max rating once you start maxing out on HDDs/RAM/other connections. The best way to test this is to plug in a good battery backup system with surge protector(almost all of them have built-in automatic voltage regulation). My home office has a lot of electronics and devices that are on 80% of the time. I use three CyberPower 1325va Sine Waves to maintain constant power to my computers and NAS. Every now and then, one of Sine Waves will alert me and chime to let me know there is inconsistent voltage, and will maintain constant voltage by running off the battery until incoming power is stabilized. A normal surge protector will NOT help you in this situation. Everything in this room used to be cool until I decided I wanted a 2.0cf mini cooler for my drinks in it. This thing sucks the power out of this room like a vampire LOL.The cheapest way to test this is to move the Mac Pro to an area of the house where you know there isn't a lot of power being drawn.</blockquote>

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