It is a nice project to help preserve the lifespan of the card. Having an option to get a new fan is always good news for me.
I had this problem of finding a AAVID fan for a 3dfx Voodoo 4 4500. With the help of the nice people of this forum I managed to find a link to a US seller on eBay. It was more expensive that I was hoping but in the end I'm glad I could find one.
As per the fan on the Creative Labs GeForce 256 DDR; that fan is also used in the SDR card (CT6940) and in the TNT2 Ultra (CT6810). With old fans you almost can expect them to make some noise or not run at all from the dust or other stuff that might got inside.
It is relatively easy to clean though. Just unscrew the four screws that attach it to the Heatsink and unplug the power connector. After that, on the back of the fan remove the little sticker, and you should see the "washer" (I think its called washer), it is this white little ring around the shaft of the fan with a cut across its diameter. With some persistence, a pair of small pliers or some small needle, it must be removed (make sure not to loose it!!, it often pops). After that, the fan blades with its shaft can go out from the rest of the fan. Clean everything with some cotton ear buds, even the hole where the shaft goes, use some twisted paper towel to do it. After that, apply some Lubricant into the hole (I use a Lubricant that came with my Electric Razor and it works just fine), insert the shaft in and out a couple of times and give a few spins after. Then reassemble everything like it was, while not forgetting to put back the Washer in place. The fan should work fine after that with no noise.
I have done this on many cards that the fan was making noise and after this it worked fine with a success rate of 70-80%. My latest success was an identical fan like the one you mentioned of a TNT2 cards.
On a side note, I want to mention the awful AAVID fans that come with the Matrox G400 MAX, almost guarantee they are noisy, and even cleaning them makes no difference.

You can get new heatsink fans here for five bucks
https://www.westfloridacomponents.com/FN042PD … THR-1024-C.html
It's the one in the third photo down. Which also just happens to be a photo of my own Dell GeForce 256 ddr 64mb.

A good replacement HSF combo for our beloved GF SDR/DDR cards would be awesome.
Preferably something that uses the mounting holes and not having to be glued to the chip.

This one works just fine (and probably has 5x the cooling capacity of the original) but it looks ghastly:

And also blocks several expansion slots.
Sacrificing one PCI slot next to the AGP is usually just fine since they tend to share IRQ anyways.

wirerogue wrote on 2020-03-24, 22:30:

You can get new heatsink fans here for five bucks
https://www.westfloridacomponents.com/FN042PD … THR-1024-C.html
It's the one in the third photo down. Which also just happens to be a photo of my own Dell GeForce 256 ddr 64mb.

Small world, thanks for chiming in and for use of the Geforce 256 photo. I had a hard time locating high resolution photos for my post. Great retro PC setup by the way, it looks like you go the extra mile in locating excellent condition or new parts for your rigs.

aaronkatrini wrote on 2020-03-24, 22:24:

It is a nice project to help preserve the lifespan of the card. Having an option to get a new fan is always good news for me. I […]
Show full quote

It is a nice project to help preserve the lifespan of the card. Having an option to get a new fan is always good news for me.
I had this problem of finding a AAVID fan for a 3dfx Voodoo 4 4500. With the help of the nice people of this forum I managed to find a link to a US seller on eBay. It was more expensive that I was hoping but in the end I'm glad I could find one.
As per the fan on the Creative Labs GeForce 256 DDR; that fan is also used in the SDR card (CT6940) and in the TNT2 Ultra (CT6810). With old fans you almost can expect them to make some noise or not run at all from the dust or other stuff that might got inside.
It is relatively easy to clean though. Just unscrew the four screws that attach it to the Heatsink and unplug the power connector. After that, on the back of the fan remove the little sticker, and you should see the "washer" (I think its called washer), it is this white little ring around the shaft of the fan with a cut across its diameter. With some persistence, a pair of small pliers or some small needle, it must be removed (make sure not to loose it!!, it often pops). After that, the fan blades with its shaft can go out from the rest of the fan. Clean everything with some cotton ear buds, even the hole where the shaft goes, use some twisted paper towel to do it. After that, apply some Lubricant into the hole (I use a Lubricant that came with my Electric Razor and it works just fine), insert the shaft in and out a couple of times and give a few spins after. Then reassemble everything like it was, while not forgetting to put back the Washer in place. The fan should work fine after that with no noise.
I have done this on many cards that the fan was making noise and after this it worked fine with a success rate of 70-80%. My latest success was an identical fan like the one you mentioned of a TNT2 cards.
On a side note, I want to mention the awful AAVID fans that come with the Matrox G400 MAX, almost guarantee they are noisy, and even cleaning them makes no difference.

Thanks for letting us know about the other fan/card usages, good to know that these fans can be refurbished. It'd be great if you could upload some photo's the next time you complete a fan cleaning/lubrication.

Adding a link to a related Vogons thread:

Replacing the GPU cooler on a GeForce 256 - how does this thing come off?

There is a video on YouTube made some years ago and still IMO is one of the best explaining it. Here is a link to it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRkHq-P9TQE

As per the link posted above this, please don't try removing the heatsink from the card. It glued into it and is likely you will damage the board or the chip underneath.
Just unscrew the four screws and clean or replace the fan. Cannot be risked on a GF256 😀

Found a decent replacement that looks nice and only requires some slight modifications of the cooler to fit:

The fan/sink combo can be found new under the name "NV-1017".
2 of the holes that secures the plastic fan thingy gets slightly modded to line up with the PCB holes (about 1 mm filed away).
2 of the plastic mounts on the fan gets removed.
The 2 original mounting ears on the heatsink gets snipped of.
The mounting pins are used again to secure the cooler as they are of the good kind with a spring and a securing pin.
And the fan gets attached to the original fan connector.

It's mounted extremely secure and doesn't foul any components as far as I can see.
Atleast not on the GF DDR shown above.

aaronkatrini wrote on 2020-03-25, 23:13:

There is a video on YouTube made some years ago and still IMO is one of the best explaining it. Here is a link to it: https://ww […]
Show full quote

There is a video on YouTube made some years ago and still IMO is one of the best explaining it. Here is a link to it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRkHq-P9TQE

As per the link posted above this, please don't try removing the heatsink from the card. It glued into it and is likely you will damage the board or the chip underneath.
Just unscrew the four screws and clean or replace the fan. Cannot be risked on a GF256 😀

If you remove the fan and use a heat gun I've found the glued down fans come off quite easy without destroying the gpu, freezer also works. The goal is to either heat it to soften it or make it brittle.

Freezing works like a charm. But to be fair, this cards usually have so insignificant amount of glue between that it can came out just by simple lever.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-06-22, 14:19:

Freezing works like a charm. But to be fair, this cards usually have so insignificant amount of glue between that it can came out just by simple lever.

i prefer heat as it makes it easier to clean the glue up than freezing