Let me explain my problem: I have a fileserver (just an old Pentium II with big disks) in my room and some time ago the cooler started getting really loud, so loud in fact that I had to shut down the server every night if I wanted to get some sleep. I don’t have to tell you that this wasn’t ideal, and I tried everything from the classic pencil blocking the fan (not a good idea) to keeping it on balcony (even worse…) but the thing that worked in the end is … olive oil!

The thing is, that with the time the cooler started getting out of center and unbalanced and I figured that if others can submerge their entire computers in oil, why can’t I just grease the Cooler a bit? Yes, being a student at ETHZ I’ve done the physics behind it, and I decided to give it a shot.

I stopped my server (hopefully never to stop it again after this one ), detached the cooler, poored some olive oil on it while rotating it slowly, and attached it again to the machine to do a test run. At first it the oil just oozed back out again but it sooned stopped and I was able to mount it back onto the processor.

The result is astonishing: the cooler actually is quieter than the spinning disks (that will be my next goal ) and I can keep it on all night once again.